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Ricardo -> RE: How the hell.... (Apr. 19 2007 17:54:50)
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quote:
Ricardo
Do you teach guitar accompany in a dance class?
I know THAT YOU ARE A FANTASTIC GUITARIST
but in a dance class thats far from important
I find Guitarists have to pull back and be what the dancers really need.....
even just playing for dance means playing subdued
from what solo guitar can be
But after saying that...... concentration ...is so important
Flamenco can sound so cool but for it to be useable in dance class
Simple and precise is so more important.........
right?
c
Sometimes I have students who want to accompany, or I feel have good enough compas. But my feeling about teaching/learning accompaniment is this: You can't learn to accompany by following the lead guitarist. You have to do it by yourself.
Now I will coach the guitarist, give him things that I might play, but honestly, the student will get it faster by doing his own stuff, with his focus on the dancers not the guitar teacher. Like I said, assuming the student has rhythm, and knows how to play some falsetas in compas, and knows some of the traditional and typical escobilla type things. The rest is about "structure" which he/she will pick up by doing it and making mistakes.
Same goes for cante accompaniment. Much easier with a live singer rather than with a guitar teacher or playing along with tomatito on CD. I learned a lot early on with dancers that would sing or hum out the letra sections of the dance. Getting with a real cantaor I at least had blue prints from what I learned from the dance teachers humming.
About dumbing down the music for accompaniment. True, it can happen. But it depends on the level of the dancer. I can play some rather complex synchopated things for some dancers, if they are really good at listening. We can be tight with tons of contras and synchopation. Other dancers are not so used to crazy rhythms, so I need to mark the beat very clear. That could mean I play simpler music, but honestly, I have as much fun playing ON the beat as OFF the beat.[;)]
Main thing for me is everyone is tight and feeling things together. I don't like rushing or dragging unless it is deliberate. I don't like to play 4's against a dancer's 3's, I like things to fit together. In some cases the dancer might be really out of control, and all I can do is bang out chords really hard to hold it together. In anycase, you make these judgements based on the level of the dancer you are working with, and do the best job you can at making things work out.
Ricardo
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