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Ricardo -> RE: 10 levels of flamenco guitar (Mar. 14 2023 12:55:11)
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-1 know how to play some chords, open basic chords. Start listening to flamenco recordings (guitar and cante).
0. Know how to use a basic metronome, so you can switch basic chords in time. Only after this is achieved can you start learning flamenco. Don’t even need a flamenco guitar yet.
1. Get a flamenco guitar, so you can learn compas strumming with golpes. Keep using a basic metronome. Learn patterns from a Maestro, or transcription book. Basic rasgueados are part of the patterns you should be practicing.
2. Learn basic falsetas that fit tempo and key-wise with the compas patterns you are learning/practicing. Falsetas should use pulgar and arpegio at first.
3-8. continue learning or upgrading your material in the same manner, compas patterns and falsetas, for all the important palos. This is a NEVER ENDING PROCESS. Some humble yet careful creative avenues can be explored after a large amount of traditional material is under the belt. Again, you don’t abandon learning from maestros or using a metronome at ANY point.
9. Go to a dance class or academy or single dance teacher/performer. Learn the rhythmic vocabulary with formal structure by applying your compas patterns and falsetas as required. Never abandon your practice with metronome, however, part of the rhythmic vocabulary you develop in this environment is moving tempos. Again, this work is done at the same time as you are developing 1-8, and in many ways, affect your tastes and creative ideas. If you are lucky, you will have already been introduced by a flamenco guitar teacher to some important aspects of dance accompaniment that are not found in cante or guitar solo playing alone. If not, then you will have to decipher this information from the dance teacher (not easy). In the end, this process will not advance if you are not doing this alone (in other words, not playing next to a lead guitarist, you have to do this alone). Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and be frustrated at times. It takes 20 years as Sabicas said.
10. Cante accompaniment. You can get started with some of the concepts presented in our cante accompaniment thread on this foro. But eventually, you have to find a real singer, one you respect and who also has patience to deal with you learning. Here, as with the dance class, you need to be humble and prepared for making many mistakes. Hopefully the dance class has informed you of FORMAL STRUCTURE, that fits in with most standard choreography, of the cante of basic forms. This is the blueprint chord structure that you start with to follow most letras. However, it is time in this final level to break the blueprint, or learn how to manipulate these “charts” in oder to function as an attentive and sensitive accompanist. This is the hardest level to achieve and needs to be ultimately done with many different singers, not only ones that sing the same way all the time or for dancers only. Honestly, it is very rare to find these individuals outside of Spain, but if you do find someone, again be humble and stick with them, learning as much as you can. Again, 20 years minimum Sabicas says. This all overlaps and is never ending, hopefully.
In the case of 9, it can be that a guitarist gets “stuck” with a same repertoire or group; in which case if advancement or creativity is not happening, you can move on, or focus on 10 instead. Perhaps returning to 9 with new dancers or helping students get into it. So while all the others can be continued learning, I would let 9 be the only one you can leave once you have gone through the program sufficiently.
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