RE: A QUESTION ??

RE: A QUESTION ?? (Full Version)

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Ron.M -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 25 2006 20:41:14)
All these posts made me think of Ravi Shankar's experience of being accepted for lessons from a Sitar guru at 10 years of age. He said something like "We used to have to cook and clean for him and he'd give us scales and exercises to do and leave us for hours practising the same thing....then if he wasn't happy at our progress, would accuse us of being indolent and beat us." Fortunately, all the great guitarists I've met have been very decent guys and although I may refer to them in first name terms as a fan...I would feel uncomfortable about doing so in a teaching situation... I mean, if PdL was showing me some very important thing he had discovered about technique, I wouldn't be concerned about his attitude or if he and I were maybe going on a buddy-buddy pub crawl after the lesson... You know what I mean...it's like.. "respect"! Maybe this is a generational thing? A lot of kid's these days address school teachers by their first names... I dunno..[:D] cheers Ron

John O. -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 25 2006 20:48:42)
I don't know if drug dealing would really bother me... as long as he didn't deal to kids, I guess. Farting though... [:@]

Ricardo -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 25 2006 20:49:07)
Miguel, you are right on, it is a constant problem. Now imagine the other guys you talked about saying, "damn that guy Miguel just keeps wanting more volume, I don't get it". That is the way it goes. I want the rhythm guy 50% volume compared to lead, but some guys don't strum hard enough. It bugs me when the other guy does not cut back his rhythm volume after soloing. One guy I know, will push his on-board eq up for more volume after we set the stuff for soundcheck. Guaranteed distortion. Luckily, it is my gear so I just give myself more volume and cut his gain when he does that. It is a constant struggle. Honestly, if the rhythm guitar is not tight, I would rather it not be heard clearly. The ideal set up is one loud guy on lead, and the rhythm guy half that volume, and you just leave the levels set. It is always the lead trade offs that cause trouble. When I play through another guy's gear, I let him decide the levels and just deal with the level difference. Flamenco show with dancers/singer: the dancer checks the floor with on toe, tap tap. The singer, a foot away from the the mic with speaking voice "test, test, louder please....test test, good". And the guitarist, a foot away plays a soft scale "louder please, cut the bass". That is the sound test. Then the show starts. The singer eats the mic and screams, the dancer stomps and jumps, The guitarist puts the hole up to the mic and strums tresillos with the whole arm. It all sounds distorted until the sound guy turns it down, then everyone complains after the show " I could not hear myself!"[:D][:D] Ricardo

Miguel de Maria -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 25 2006 21:46:57)
The more I think about it, the more I think personal monitoring would really help. You know, have an earbud that has your own sound and you can turn it up a little if you want. Probably we all need our own volume just a little bit higher than it should be to feel comfortable.

Ricardo -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 25 2006 22:02:25)
Yeah but than you will have guys bribing the sound guy, or you may suspect something if you volume is down. The way I see it is, you just have to make it clear who is the leader from the get go. I am not always the lead guitar when I play some gigs, so I let the lead guy worry about if he is loud enough or not. No point in fighting about it. Ricardo

Mark2 -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 25 2006 22:19:03)
Ha Ha! It's so true, everybody wants more of "ME" in the monitor. It's a sign of poor musicianship in many cases, although there are great players who overplay too. I really think a member of any ensemble should be listening at least with one ear, if not both, to the sound of the group, not concentrating only on what they are playing. Then the rhythm guitarist knows when the soloist is not projecting enough, the soloist knows when he is too loud, etc. Once I was leading a gig with a four piece, and I heard some low rumbling, so I turned around and told the bass player to turn it down. He says "I'm not playing" It was actually something feeding back. I was so embarrassed. I told the other guitarist what happened on the break. He smiled and said "Tell him to turn it down anyway!" A strong leader really helps a group. The first pro group I ever played with was a ten piece show group in 1979. The leader charted everyone's parts and could hear everything. The keyboard player resisted playing a part as it was on the recording, and he told her "If you have to hate me to play this part right, then go ahead and hate me, but play the part right." I was having trouble with this little syncopated part on a Doobie brothers tune. It was an insignificant little rythem part, and I could barely hear it on the recording. For a week I faked it, and the guy called me on it. One night, I tore the part apart and got it. The next day, I played it right. The guy turned around and said "Congrats, you finally got that part right. " I really respected that guy's leadership and musicanship. Up until then playing music was for me about fellowship and good times-this guy didn't care what it took, he was going to try to make it sound right.

Mark2 -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 25 2006 22:25:47)
This made me think of the master in the "Kill Bill" movies! Your right, if I could study with PdL or VA, he could be the rudest jerk and tell me to play one note for an hour, and I'd be like "Yes Master!" [:)] quote: ORIGINAL: Ron.M All these posts made me think of Ravi Shankar's experience of being accepted for lessons from a Sitar guru at 10 years of age. He said something like "We used to have to cook and clean for him and he'd give us scales and exercises to do and leave us for hours practising the same thing....then if he wasn't happy at our progress, would accuse us of being indolent and beat us." Fortunately, all the great guitarists I've met have been very decent guys and although I may refer to them in first name terms as a fan...I would feel uncomfortable about doing so in a teaching situation... I mean, if PdL was showing me some very important thing he had discovered about technique, I wouldn't be concerned about his attitude or if he and I were maybe going on a buddy-buddy pub crawl after the lesson... You know what I mean...it's like.. "respect"! Maybe this is a generational thing? A lot of kid's these days address school teachers by their first names... I dunno..[:D] cheers Ron [:D]

XXX -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 0:09:08)
Do you think that the show offs are generally not so good players? When I read interviews of the really big ones like PdL, Tomatito, Manolo Sanlucar, they all seem very modest, although they would have the ability to show off. A conclusion from that would be, that it takes more than just technique, or the ability to play certain 'hard skilled' things to be a 'complete guitarist'.

sorin popovici -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 0:56:16)
I really dont think that the tendency to showoff is smth that have only bad musicians. It's more like about recognition....usually they are young and want to be noticed ,just like kids .All players have it usually ...in one form or the other,but the ability to not listen to reason ...that's disturbing probably.But I guess everybody learns that not everything should be a war ...when they lose one or they reach a certain age and maturity where the fastest thing or loudest thing is not the goal anymore.But even if u get to this conclusion ,trying to reach 240 bpm can teach u things .I agree that in the process u should not offend anyone. if u just compose relying on your music theory knowledge and ear ,maybe technique is not that good..but for me I find that having a better technique than yesterday teaches me things that I didnt know.For instance ....if u can play at 240bpm ,I guess that if u wanna squeeze a picado somewhere ..u got to be very exact and feel the rhytm good. Sure maybe I'm imagining ..but I observed this cause I made a little progress in picado: when hearing a fast run I feel like i hear it more clearly than I was before. My point is that a lot of people learn music theory and do ear training without knowing when they practice.For example I as beginner always treated accents poorly and not beeing very aware of this problem but until I didnt spend some time doing a run like C b a (8-7-5 on E string) and observing that because of i-m alternance i was really doing one C b a and one measure of c B a ,I thought i was ok.Seeing Nunez in his video was like ..."damn, that's why I sound like crap...my accents are wrong". Now i'm at least aware of this....it will still take 10 years [:D]. I've digressed ..what I was saying is that because of the whole "showoff" issue ,people tend to say like "technique is not important,the music is important" and I wanted to say that technique can teach u music and viceversa and sometimes doing stupid exercises u can learn pretty things.Ofcourse if u are ear trained enough ,maybe u dont need it.

XXX -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 13:20:45)
[8D] I asked the same question on another forum a time ago and they also misunderstood it. Its not that every show off is a bad musician, its more: amongst the show offs there are more bad players first and bad or average players tend more to show off.

sorin popovici -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 15:46:57)
quote: All players have it usually ...in one form or the other,but the ability to not listen to reason ...that's disturbing probably I understand your post like this.U made a clasification:they are showoffs ,and people that dont showoff.In the first class there are more bad players than in the second. U also said : bad players tend more to showoff. I dont agree cause as I said I think "they all have it..." ,there is no class like u define.I dont know that many guitarists ...but the ones I know they all do it . As for "bad players tend more to showoff", u mean that if my playing gets worse I will want to showoff more?

Florian -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 16:25:52)
I am not sure why we talking about shwing off[:)], i mean what do you classify as showing off ? doing fast scales ? theres no such thing as showing off in music only showmanship. We did a gig with a dancer from melbourne who is a decent dancer , straight after we did a gig with a brilliant dancer from Madrid, who danced real jerez pure style. In all of our feedback everyone loved the guy from melbourne even tho his technique was nowhere near the guys from Madrid, know why ?... because the guy from melbourne knew how to work the crowd knew what dinamics work and what gets the crowds heart pumping, like he stoped the music and did a 10 minute fancy alegria escobilla unacompanied and he went hard and soft , at one stage he was doing footwork with one foot and kicking the cojon with the other in compas.. u might call that showing off, most people at the gig called entertaining. In a flamenco dance show theres no better tension builder then a quiet space right in the midlle of the dance, and nothing more entertaining than individuality.

Miguel de Maria -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 17:05:50)
Some of these posts are puzzling me too. Is Paco a showoff because he ends most of his pieces with a crushing picado run that only a few people in the world could duplicate? Is Camaron a showoff because he sings so high? Where do you guys get these weird values? Any live performance is "showing off" isn't it? Of course, there's a matter of taste. Doing a bunch of fast alternate picking and moving my finger up and down the string could be attention-grabbing, but do it more than once a month and it's going to get old. If you play fast lines enough that they get boring (like Strunz and Farah, imo), that's not so good taste, either. Live performance is about sharing art, and technical display is a fun and valid part of art.

XXX -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 17:23:37)
quote: ORIGINAL: Phrygus When I read interviews of the really big ones like PdL, Tomatito, Manolo Sanlucar, they all seem very modest, although they would have the ability to show off. Sorin you mixed up the quotes by the way. Miguel, giving a concert is giving a concert, showing off is showing off; I dont understand what you dont understand here? Besides, even the worst guitar player on the world CAN show off, yes :)

Florian -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 17:31:21)
Only someone that has something to show can showoff so if hes not good and has nothing to show then he cant be showing off .. can he ?. A bad player either shows off cause he has something to show and then hes not a bad player or he fails miserably in witch case he cant be showing off.

ToddK -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 18:21:22)
I think this is getting rediculous at this point. So lets look at the actuall definitions of these words from the largest north american dictionary i could find. Show off = To display proudly. Flaunt = To display ostentatiously Ostentatious = with the intent to impress. Impress = To affect strongly Affect = To produce or attempt to produce a vivid impression or image None of these terms indicate any vulgarity or false will. Its fun impressing people with technique. So what? Its part of the fun of music. Especially music as intense as flamenco. Cant we all just shut up and enjoy? Do we have to constantly question the motives of everybody that does something technicaly impressive? I mean, i was just listening to El Duende Flamenco, and Paco is showing off throught the whole thing! God i love that!! Its music people. Lighten up.. I really wonder about you guys sometimes. [:@][8D][:D]

XXX -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 20:44:21)
Paco is not a show off. Dont know whether I mentioned this [8\|] Showing off CAN have something to do with the playing ability, but it doesnt HAVE TO. Dont you know that kind of guys that can only play a Am-pentatonic and feel like they are kings on the guitar? And even if lets say somebody has a good picado or can do one technique good, is that what you consider a complete guitarist/good player? This is not a hyper-theoretical question, it happens everyday. Most of all, I didnt expect to argue about that, I thought it was obvious, and apart from that was only an observation. I didnt also expect to talk on definitions what showing off means, [&:] If Paco is showing off, how r u going to seperate him from the "real" show offs, who are not at least interested in things of art, or flamenco, like benise or benice whatever his name was... quote: Its fun impressing people with technique. So what? Nothing :) PdL, Tomatito have great techniques. I hope in his next album Paco will put at least 10 long picado runs in every track, no joke.

Ron.M -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 20:55:29)
quote: Its part of the fun of music I can't help but agree with Todd here... Grishas picado exercise really made me laugh and tickled me with the virtuosity of it all! Amazing to hear somebody play like that, especially when you know just how hard it is to do. I don't "need" virtuosity to make me enjoy Flamenco.. But when it's there in moderation it's great! Doesn't "music" come from "muse" or "amuse"? It's taking chances that makes the music move on IMO. God save us from a Politically Correct world of music. cheers Ron

Miguel de Maria -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 21:37:04)
quote: ORIGINAL: Phrygus Showing off CAN have something to do with the playing ability, but it doesnt HAVE TO. Dont you know that kind of guys that can only play a Am-pentatonic and feel like they are kings on the guitar? This is not a hyper-theoretical question, it happens everyday. Most of all, I didnt expect to argue about that, I thought it was obvious, and apart from that was only an observation. Phrygus, What I'm going to say will come off as confrontational. But you have a tendency to say rather ridiculous things and then defend it by saying that was you said was in no way controversial. And you seem to be surprised when anyone disagrees with what you say. In my opinion, your opinions about showing off are unprofessional, silly, and immature. Here you have Florian, Todd, Ron, and myself talking about technical display as a fun and legitimate form of performance, and it seems to go in one ear and not the other. Do you actually read what people write here? Is there a language barrier we are contending with? Anyway, if you want to be taken seriously, it might be better to try to say something with some internal logic or examples rather than unsubstantiated and incoherent rambling!

XXX -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 26 2006 22:57:50)
Miguel, showing off and giving a concert are two different things for me. If you find that immature, well what can I say. Even the fastest picado has not much to do with showing off. It depends on other things. My word: Even the worst guitar player on the world CAN show off. A definition by Todd: Show off = To display proudly So, wtf is the problem here? Seriously man, if I have to repeat these things again and again, like saying that Paco is imo not what I would call a show off, Im wondering if my posts are being read. Examples I also gave. Miguel, I sent you a message. Please give a feedback, if you only think that I am crazy and dont know what Im saying or if there might be a little knowledge, from yout standpoint.

carlos soto -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 27 2006 0:42:37)
Mark I had an experience like you, I had this teacher who was all over the place and listened to everything and everyone, as he was playing all instruments at once, it's was crazy. Anyway he destroyed all of us in that class at first and everyone was kind of low with the self steem, but then on the last classes I could see how much everyone improved and probably if he wanted to just be the nice guy we would all be playing the same as we were.

John O. -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 27 2006 6:57:11)
It is possible to pick at a term until there's nothing left. My turn... Show-off is usually used in a negative way in every day life. You never hear "So I went to my exam, showed off and got an A+". Usually you hear things like "He's such a show off". I think this is what Phrygus is getting at. However, showing off or not has nothing to do with whether you're good or not or whether you overdo it. Paco and Co. show off and people enjoy it because it's nice to listen to, they have the sense to put things in the right places. There is a big difference between this and a bad guitarist playing one too many picados incorrectly or that annoying guy who's always goofing around on his guitar when the dance instructor is trying to explain steps to her students. All of this is showing off, all of this can be good or bad depending on the player. Nunez is a show-off and it sounds great, people love it, it's how he sells albums and instructional books. A guitarist only playing since one year trying to play a Nunez piece is also a show-off and it's horrible. That same guitarist playing this when noone wants to hear it is a show-off desperate to hear "You're good" because he knows he's not. It's all showing off, though. John www.flamenco-guitar-mainz.de

Ricardo -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 27 2006 7:38:20)
Guitarists that seem to be good, but are holding something back, annoy me. Guitarists that can play, but flat out refuse to do it in front of good company, make me ill. Life is too damn short to not show off or SHARE with others what it is you are capable of, good or bad. Don't be annoying though, learn when it is time to STOP (in agreement w/Phrygus). That does not mean don't play at all. Don't be intimidated by others better than you, simply do your BEST, always. Guitarists who really have something, but wait for the right moment to unleash...that is the epitomy of COOL in my book. Timing is everything. Ricardo [sm=Smiley Guitar.gif]

John O. -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 27 2006 7:54:19)
That's a cool little icon, Ricardo [:)]

Florian -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 27 2006 17:44:30)
<======= Biggest badest showoff off them alll, tried to show off from the second I touched the guitar, took it out of its case using only my pinky [:D] I love it [;)] and not just a litlle modest bit , i love it ALOT, i need to take it easy right know cause i gave myself an erect nail[;)] If i pick up a hot girl, you will know about it [:)] and if i think my picado got a millisecond faster you will know about it [:)] If i had privates with someone really good i will find a way to squezze his name in almost every conversation i have here like the time i had lesson with David Conoduelle [:D] If for some reason i get nice comments on one of my audio uploads[8\|] i will find a way to upload the same audio again later when you all forghot about it, to get em again. not admiting that you are a showoff makes one even more of a showoff.

Miguel de Maria -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 27 2006 18:52:01)
Florian, if you had picado as good as Nino de Pura's would you make songs like his that are almost 50% picado? I probably would.

Florian -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 27 2006 18:55:09)
Miguel not only that but i would have typed the reply to your post so quic that it would come up before you even typed the question [:D] ps.. my picado is as good as Nino the pura only alot slower [8\|]

Florian -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 27 2006 18:58:38)
OHHH i just noticed you beat me, u reached 2000 first, damn i knew i should have not gonne out tonight. Well congrats mate, i will beat you at 3000 [:D]

Florian -> [Deleted] (Jan. 27 2006 19:18:34)
Post has been moved to the Recycle Bin at Jan. 27 2006 20:04:14

Miguel de Maria -> RE: A QUESTION ?? (Jan. 27 2006 21:05:38)
Aw, come on Florian, that was a classic post, why'd you delete it? These things have to be said sometime. People don't learn unless you keep saying it, over and over again. By the way, how'd I make this big jump to 2000? I thought you had a lead that would never be caught, but I did it. Persistence.

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