Ricardo -> RE: Historical Flamenco Guitar Tutors/Methods (Jul. 27 2016 18:29:54)
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ORIGINAL: Rob MacKillop Richard - in a word, no. In more words: I'll be more in the Julian Arcas camp. We know he was a flesh player, and that he played soleá, boleros, etc. I'd be interested in finding out if any flamenco players played without nails. It's hard to imagine someone doing that today, but things were freer in the late 19th century, which is where I place Marin's book, despite it being published in 1902. Marin mentions very short nails, but does include a soleá by Arcas... I had heard about Marin method for years and finally found the PDf some years back. My parents were students of S. Papas who published a book probably in 60's or 70's called "Easy Flamenco variations".... Needless to say there is no useful "flamenco" guitar in the book, but it for sure is "easy" for students that can read. Couldn't help to note the similar feel the Marin method book presents. Pseudo flamenco cheese easy for mass consumption, a commercial product and not much as a proper learning tool for it's day and age. I too have heard the clips of old flamenco Kevin refers too from late 1800's and early 1900....right in the time frame of Marin's method development. They actually played what we consider flamenco guitar today, IMO. Whether it only goes back to 1880 (two decades only) or much further, is arbitrary to the point the playing style of Arcas and Tarrega etc was quite different. Call it classical or whatever you want, it was NOT flamenco. Arpeggio is the only thing I notice might have influenced the flamenco players, and by that I mean the type of thing of thumb melody bass lines with broken chord up top to color it, heard a lot in Arcas. But because he wrote it on paper doesn't mean it COMES from him alone. Anyway, TODAY we argue over what Soniquete is or specific rasgueado or how to hold a picado finger, or file your nails etc etc. So we can simply do the same in light of any "evidence" of the old days. It depends who is the person looking at the evidence, not the evidence itself. Look at the varying opinion of a modern recorded performance. Of course I agree, the recording "evidence" and historical written documents are but the tip of the iceberg for it's day. But recordings of flamenco ended up influencing next generations after all. About nails vs no nails.... I know that in regard of Tarrega (I don't care about Arcas), he had to develop callouses on the right hand tips to produce a decent tone. That is the first important thing. The reason he did it is because his nails sucked....i.e., as we see weekly at this forum the too frequent "how to" question, HE DID NOT KNOW HOW TO FILE THEM PROPERLY. Fine, so he developed this new thing and tried to push it on students as superior (pujol book describes this thing). Now fast forward to present day, no nail vs nail playing. After hearing me perform flamenco a classical player asked to see my nails, seeing how short they are declared "how can you play that way, with NO NAILS????".....and so we see again it is about who is observing the evidence, not the evidence itself.
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