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Posts: 16447
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
Modern Flamenco guitar Treatise
Came across this free dissertation of Gerard Mapstone (decent player from Australia, some folks might know him here), where he has laid out his dissertation more like a treatise on modern flamenco guitar performance practice. He seems to have gotten away with doing lots of transcriptions of modern flamenco and traditional and modern cante etc., so a very valuable resource or reference (if you can read the notation).
While I don't agree with all of his analysis (he uses the dominant of the minor key for all the Phrygian palos, however, he qualified it early on so I am ok with interpreting some of it through his personal lens) I find the work he put in valuable to anyone with these typical questions about harmony scales cante and guitar etc. I assume he got away with his transcriptions via "fair use" in his institution which must have allowed that much modern copyright music to be included, as this is very academic in nature. And it is all free which is helpful. While it is his personal take, I don't have any major issues with anything he presents here (at the same time I admit I have much more specific and deep approach to the subject). Enjoy:
In particular he exposes with many examples the "Lydian to Phrygian" resolution phrasing I have been talking about for years on foro. He goes maybe too far with it, using jazz modal approach for EVERY single harmony in a short phrase (saying like the end of Caña with a D#-E is "Lydian Dominant" is a bit much, but I get his point as I have made this point myself many times in other contexts).
Posts: 240
Joined: Apr. 7 2005
From: Adelaide, Australia
RE: Modern Flamenco guitar Treatise (in reply to Ricardo)
Nice find, I’ve met Gerard a few times but had no idea he’d completed a PHD. Good on him, hopefully this helps spread flamenco in circles that normal wouldn’t have any contact with it.
Like you I’m not a fan of calling the Phrygian home chord the V - that would imply farruca and solea are in the same key which makes no sense to me. Also cantes such as siguiriyas likely existed as modal melodies without inherent changing harmony until guitarists added it - the sense of tonic is even stronger without the changing harmonies of the guitar. There is nothing about siguiriya por medio that feels like D minor. I can understand analysing de Falla, Rodrigo etc in that way though.
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