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Ricardo -> RE: Should one actively compose? (May 27 2025 11:08:34)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: TeoFlamenco2
I see. Was the process the same for your old pieces or did you engage more heavily with your compositional side?
It was after I started learning some stuff in Spain that I started to really compose my own material....mostly based on phrasing and techniques that were new to me and I wanted to overcome those obstacles with my own "familiar" fingerings that captured the ideas. Ironically, as I learned more traditional material that I had sort of skipped over, being a foreigner or outsider, my composing gradually got more "orthodox" or conservative if you like. I have noticed the same thing happening to younger maestros such as Jernonimo or Antonio Rey (if you compare his very first recordings). Antonio admitted in interview that his first album was put out at a time he felt he was still just playing material of Paco and Vicente, meaning he did not have (yet) his own "compositions" ready to record. His next offerings (Colores and Alma) were much more focused in other words.
All this I feel is due to Paco and Manolo and others being involved in the "change" between traditional and modern styles. The younger generation being inspired by the modern movement which is predicated on the old school material, so we learned it top down. The other thing that helped me was teaching....observing problems with learning traditional material and seeing a need to develop an exercise or phrase that is a bit simpler than the traditional maestro material. In the end, each flamenco player seems to have his own nuance of interpreting the traditional stuff and THAT right there is where new compositions are born. My advice is focus on ONE falseta at a time, and really make it solid. Then an other. Over time you have entire pieces that are "yours". No one in history was like Paco ....do that thing EVERY YEAR for decades. Almost all other flamenco guitarists we can point to ONE album of theirs that is their "style" that they repeat for their entire career with a new falseta here and there.
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