XXX -> The inflation of the term flamenco (Dec. 12 2005 21:11:22)
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Undertitle: Ignorant classical guitar players! AAH![:@] This is a bit kind of offtopic, but Im sure worth mentioning! I decided to look for a flamenco-teacher, so today I met a classical guitarist in a music school, who was also said to be able to play flamenco. The guy who recommended me him is also a teacher in the same school. Shortly it turned out that he, the first teacher, is not even able to play rasgueados! Also no pulgar, no alzapua, no golpes, and NO palos at ALL. He didnt even heard of bulerias, alegrias and so on. The only one of which he heard of was soleares, but only in non flamenco compas namely 3/4! First he said he was no flamenco guitarist, but he is sure that he will be able to adjust his technique to flamenco, since flamenco would be, so he said, not very different from classical guitar! Another thing he mentioned, and which ive heard frequently is that for him, flamenco is more like a supplement to classical guitar, than a whole different world. I had my method with me and played for him the alegrias which I also uploaded here. I explained to him the flamenco, the compas, the basic techniques. At the end he recommend me to look for a real flamenco guitarist but he would be available to give me lessons, if I dont find any. I told him to listen to Pacos old recordings from the 60s, or the camaron stuff, and to Sabicas, to get at least a little picture of what flamenco is really about. Then he gave me a number of a guy who could help me finding a flamenco and told about him that he would be able to make Asturias sound like real flamenco. That made me so angry, he didnt understand the least what flamenco really is. He called it "folkloristic" flamenco... The result was I think that he ended up learning more from me than me from him, which is kind of sad. Meanwhile I have to say he was very friendly and we got along well with each other, but there are so much classical people who are so ignorant against flamenco. But I think the musicians arent the problem, they learn from their teachers that flamenco is an inferior, folkloristic music style, or what we would describe as flamenco. His definition of flamenco were pieces from classical composers who took elements from the folkloristic flamenco and made compositions of them. But to me this is not flamenco, this is classical guitar, it may be spanish, but its still classical spanish gutiar, not flamenco! Sorry for writing so much but there were just so many things to mention, but I bet everyone has made such experiences. I mean how to react to this scene? How to tell them that what they mean to be flamenco is not flamenco AT ALL ???
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