Miguel de Maria -> RE: Paco de Lucia Touring Dates (Jul. 20 2003 12:14:24)
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Hi Michael. Yes, what I´m doing in Sevilla is wonderful, I feel very priviledged to be able to do this, and things I am learning and seeing will certainly inform the rest of my musical career. Lessons are very good. School is structured like this, at 9 am, there is an Introduction to Flamenco course, given in Spanish, which talks about the history of flamenco and the characteristics of the palos. This class, which is of course only peripherally of interest to a guitar player, is attended, well, rather sporadically. From a begining membership of 20, we have declined to about 8. I have only missed one class, though... Then we go to the first teacher, either Tino van der Smann or Miguel Angel Cortes, depending on the week. Both are heavily into giving us exercises, for arpeggio, tremolo, and picado. Tino is particular about hand position and about especially relaxing the hand as much as possible. Tino also is reintroducing us to the palos such as Alegrias, Tangos, and Siguriyas by giving us his way of strumming them and some falsetas. After this 2 hour class, we go in for 2 hours with Eduardo Rebollar. Eduardo is one of Chocolate´s main accompaniasts! Quite amazing... he´s a very fun-loving guy, great sense of humor, although perhaps his classes arent quite as productive as the other group. He has taught us many falsetas, and also given us lots of exercises. I will have enough etudes to last me for months, for sure. Next week, Paco Taranto will come into our class and we´ll start learning how to accompany por fandangos. The pace of class is very fast, learning is done in the classic, do as I do approach. This is tough for me, a classical book learner. But I have applied myself and now am catching on pretty quickly. Still, there´s simply no time to get close to mastering the heaps (montones) of material they load on us. A recorder is essential for later reference. Sometimes my head feels like a sponge full of water, and it won´t absorb any more. I learn a lick and then 10 seconds it´s gone. Just as good as class itself is Sevilla itself. I have seen about 20 flamenco shows in the 5 weeks I have been in spain. For 5€ students of the Fundacion can see a show at the Cafe Sol Cantante, where former students of the Fundacion and others perform, dance guitar, and voice. I have been to the festival at Moguer and seen Chocolate adn Canales and others, and on Tuesday I´m going to Malaga to another festival. These festivals are crazy events that start at 12 and end at 5 in the morning! I have become somewhat obsessive and whenever I watch flamenco, it´s important to me to understand the palos and the rhythm. And then I count along, usually the whole way. This practice in counting has really helped my compas! So I have taken about 2.5 weeks of lessons. Yes, I´ve improved a lot, but I am coming to understand that the secret to getting good is...well, there´s no secret, you just have to work really, really hard. The guys that are good practice 3,4,5 hours a day, that´s just the way it works. In a way, a kind of forbidding thing, but also, somewhat reassuring. You mean I dont have to be born a great guitar player, I can just work hard and get good? I like that.
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