Ricardo -> RE: Need help with keys and transposing (Dec. 19 2023 15:29:03)
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Is there theory required ? If so, just let me know the area I need to study and I'll do my best to study it Two things. First, accompanying the cante, or the formal structures of the palos, by copying the material (personally chosen to your liking) teaches you the general situation between keys on the guitar neck (chords and scales that make up the falsetas for a given form). Considering that most traditional forms are based on Por medio or por Arriba (A phrygian or E phrygian), you can simple start with material that by necessity transports UP OR DOWN a set of strings physically. Traditional Solea, Siguiriyas, bulerias, Tientos tangos, etc, have these requirements. Only a little bit of fingering alteration might be required for those types of transpositions. UP or DOWN is literally why they call it “Arriba” or “por Medio”, either physically up in E or in the middle A, based on the chords and bass line melodies. You can take this further with por abajo, which again drops physically to D Phrygian, down a set of strings from Por medio. Now ALL the other tonalities come from Cantes Levantes, which are variants of the basic Fandango form. The cante melodies are much richer in accidentals and when you start to hear them correctly you notice where all the rich harmonic complexity in flamenco guitar forms comes from. Fandango forces guitarists to come to terms with the relationship between the MAJOR key, and the Phrygian mode, and to some degree, the relative minor mode also. The accidentals are equivalent of notes that are not the normal NATURAL notes in the key….just like the blues, it alters the basic chords and scales that fit them. You can start with Granaina (B phrygian) that moves to G major, and often elements of E minor are heard. Famous rumbas such as Entre dos Aguas, Rio Ancho, etc., are based on this Song form, with Paco often doing DIRECT QUOTES from the levante cante formal structure. He is basically THINKING that way (not via any music theory relationships). From there, to modulate to other tonalities, such as Taranta or Minera, etc, is getting into the subset of cante levante called “Cante mineros”, because they are associated with the miners from the eastern regions of Andalucia. Again, if you treat these forms with rhythm of tango, rumba, bulerias, Solea, whatever you want, the FORMAL structures are still rooted in the basic Fandango/Levante style songs. Switching between these forms in a single musical piece, is not complicated to the flamenco artists that have this background in the cante accompaniment and traditional base of falsetas etc. Second thing. They don’t think about the musical relationships in the way a jazz or academic musician would. Now they don’t have a complete chromatic key map lay out of the neck (MOST guitarists don’t’ either, take your pick of any genre), but can still modulate BETWEEN, the familiar song form territories. How? Not mentally but PHYSICALLY, they transpose by using the barre chords, or, by using the index finger like a cejilla. A simple trick is to take a phrase in whatever key you are based in. Then repeat it exactly but THREE FRETS higher. This is essentially a MINOR THIRD relationship, or “modulation”, but it sometimes works nice for phrygian type melodies due to overlapping notes (think of how in the blues you can do different pentatonics that still work). As an example, take a falseta in position 2 Taranta, and move it up to positon 5. You might notice the new sound is “por medio” but you are making the notes sound up at 5th fret area. That shows the relation between Taranta and Por medio…for example. None of that takes much mental work, however, you really really really need to first explore the traditional forms via the maestros falsetas and accompaniments for singers. One by one, will get you there.
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