quote:

ORIGINAL: mark indigo

quote:

How much has recording affected luthiers' goals and work?

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Lord knows how many musicians have listened to their playing in recordings or on a monitor and made stylistic changes to take advantage of of sound systems...

Not to discount any of the other good points made in this thread, but noone seems to have picked up on the last idea, that of changing technology, not in the guitars, but in amplication and recording.

A friend of mine reported back to me from one of Gerardo Nuñez's classes in Sanlucar that he said to play through a PA as much as possible, and that that made the sound, so you didn't have to hit the strings so hard.

I read in an interview that Gerardo learnt a lot from playing Sabicas 33rpm LP's at 16rpm (half speed) and learning the music note by note.

I also read in an interview with Manolo Sanlucar that he spent his first months wages as a pro musician on his first tape player/recorder. For the first time musicians were able to listen back to their own playing, what a tool for feedback, composition, working on technique etc.!

It's kinda hard to imagine what the world was like without these things we now take for granted.

Sanlucar also said in same interview that up until the late sixties and early seventies, flamenco's only really listened to other flamenco's, but then they were able to hear jazz, rock, classical, latin American, Indian classical, music from all over the world, and that this influenced him a lot.

I don't know about exact dates or anything, I suspect that these innovations have contributed a lot to the development of modern toque.

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ORIGINAL: Deniz

This adds nothing new to the discussion. It should just make my view more clearer.

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ORIGINAL: Exitao

better players tend to buzz less, and the buzzing either compliments the music, or at least doesn't interfere with it. I thought this was elementary, I'm sorry if you think it was more complicated and was something the hinge a war-effort on.

First of, my aim wasnt attacking you, but more to show, that your views are based on too little experience, or rather, that you try to generalize your current experience and views from classical guitar, and cultural understanding about "folk". According to the example with the buzzing (thats only one example): actually no, it is NOT elementary and you didnt say "buzzing compliments the music", you said more that it comes either from the set up of a guitar or from a wrong barring. And again, no, better players dont tend to buzz "less", at least thats not their aim. Thats a too simple statement because it implies "less buzz=better", which is considered true for classical guitar i guess. The only true thing for flamenco would be a statement like better players can control the buzzing better, and dose it better (not too much, not too few). If thats what you meant, ok, but above you wrote something else as a starting note on buzz.

Notation is just a means to write down music, so that you dont have to have it in mind all the time. Ideally, if its good notation, it projects the music as close as possible on/to the paper. So by definition, notation is not supposed to change the music, and therefore has no effect on "what kind of music it is". This goes for every culture. Thats not sociology, just logic.

You can learn flamenco with or without notation and/or tabs, videos, cds, in personal with a teacher... it doesnt change the music. You can compare it to a meal. You can eat it with a fork or a spoon. It doesnt change the taste of the meal. They are all means, to transport the real important thing which it is all about, namely the meal, or here: the music flamenco.

Lastly, your comment with de Falla made me laugh. Are you serious in saying that because you cant play (according to your experience again) de Falla in a Juerga, flamenco would not be "cross-cultural" (whatever you understand about that)? So all the CDs and concerts produced since the 1950s did not take place, or are you just again generalizing from one juerga experience or from the statement that only a juerga would be flamenco (did you read that in a Juan Martin book?).

And really lastly, "folk". I have not only explained the word, but also mentioned its etymological background, so, thank you for the tip with the dictionary, but i think i can handle this on my own. I tried to make clear why such a general distinction in "folk" here and "high art" there does not make much sense, but since you have reduced yourself into repeating, i will just leave it at this statement.