srshea -> RE: Does over analising/intellectualizing kill flamenco? (Jan. 12 2009 16:53:13)
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It’s a valid and dicey question to ask, and I think the easiest answer is probably “all of the above”. Given the overall complexity and overwhelming variety of all the various aspects of flamenco, if you wanna get past the initial, gut-level, like it/don’t like it stage of listening and playing then you have to engage in SOME level of analysis: figuring out how all the pieces go together, how the various compases work, the structures of the different parts of the dance and song and how they do and don’t work, and obviously the more serious you get, the more you need to know, especially if you want to accompany. There’s no question that the ideal way to do all this is via the hands-on, experiential work of actually DOING it and learning directly from those with experience, but, particularly for those of us coming to flamenco from outside the culture, I think this has to be coupled with some sort of intellectualization, mental categorization and compartmentalization, some means of making sense of it all. At what point that sort of healthy, helpful intellectualization shades into pointless, futile over-intellectualization is pretty cloudy, I guess. I figure the farther along you get on the spectrum between actual nuts n’ bolts structural/technical information towards speculation and opinion, the less fruitful the dialogue becomes, and at some point you start going in circles, hitting dead ends, pissing each other off, etc. I dunno. Good question, no easy answers….
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