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RE: Todd's latest Buleria
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zata
Posts: 659
Joined: Jul. 17 2003
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 RE: Todd's latest Buleria (in reply to Guest)
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quote:
I just saw Rafael de Carmen dance an absolutely brilliant solea por bulerias
where he cut four times on 9, the next time on 10, then the next time on 11.
Hmmm...  ...now I'm wondering if the lack of communication on bulerías compás is because it's being equated with the compás of soleá por bulería. Unless Andy's observation was just an aside, this would explain the talk of "stops" and "remates" which had me baffled. Despite the label, soleá por bulería (also called bulería por soleá, bulería pa' escuchar and bulerías al golpe) does not use bulerías cante or compás, and nothing I've written applies except to bulerías.
Soleá por bulería can be managed in 12s, in fact a guitarist is obligated to do so, even when singers work sixes. That's a whole nuther story.
"It was intentionally psychological. Your ear expected 10, but you didn't get it."
The classic bulerías llamada which has fallen into disuse relied on heavily accenting the fourth (tenth) beat of a 12-count, which ran against the grain of the usual pulse, and the even older desplantes which used to begin on beat 12 (6) with a hiccup at "and two" ("and eight") accented the fifth (eleventh) beat, stranger still...
Estela 'Zata'
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Date Jul. 4 2004 9:08:36
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zata
Posts: 659
Joined: Jul. 17 2003
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RE: Todd's latest Buleria (in reply to Jim Opfer)
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quote:
You seem to be saying that buleria, unlike solea and solea por medio. has no requirement for compas other than being regulated by twos?
This sentence seems to confirm what I suspected, you were trying to relate bulerías to soleá por bulería, possibly even soleá. It's the equivalent of saying Pavarotti and Michael Jackson are the same because they're both famous male singers.
Bulerías has multiple layers of compás that are not found in any other flamenco form (ok, 'palo', what a dumb word). The universe of bulerías compás is the subject of what I'm writing about, not only because it's a commissioned piece of work, but because there would hardly be enough to fill a half page about soleá or bulería por soleá compás.
(I assume "por medio" is a typo)... The captioned statement above is not accurate. What I wrote was you can eliminate any of the many layers of compás of bulerías, but if you eliminate twos, the structure crumbles. Again, the clip that began this string is a clear example of the pitfalls of relying on phantom 12s...so near yet so far from being in compás.
When I was a child I could never understand why anyone needed orchestra conductors...it seemed you could just set a tempo and everyone would keep going. Nevertheless we all know what happens when there's no conductor! Twos are the built-in conductor of bulerías.
"If this is a correct understanding of what you have
said, then this notion is totally unique and I have never
heard any professional performer say this before."
I've never heard anyone except teachers talk about twelves or sixes either. The following is from a post to another forum where someone said the same thing as you:
“I never heard any Spaniard mention twos until Tomás de Perrate
on Monday (apparently David Jones in Madrid teaches this way too)...and
I was so surprised it warranted a post. Flamenco artists who don't teach
have no patience for, or interest in analyzing what they do. Tomás is in a
special category because about to turn 40, he is just beginning his career
and has to take every possible shortcut.
<snip>
“And of course he harped on the importance of feeling twos before
trying to navigate through 6s or 12s. His exact words, captured on
tape, to the student (an experienced American guitarist) were: "no
puedo creer la osadía de hablar del compás de bulerías sin saber marcar
la base" ("I can't believe the brazenness of talking about bulerías compás
without first knowing how to mark the foundation"). It sounds snotty, but
Tomás is a very kind and respectful man and it was said in genuine
bewilderment...he hasn't really had contact with Americans other than me,
and doesn't realize must of us are taught the twelve model when we start out”.
Or as John (whose bulerías really cooked) said in the Bible: "The twos shall make you free" (some idiot transcribed it wrong in the more commonly heard quote  ).
Estela 'Zata'
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Date Jul. 4 2004 11:53:59
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zata
Posts: 659
Joined: Jul. 17 2003
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RE: 2s in bulerias examples (in reply to Guest)
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quote:
My main reason is that by coincidence I heard 2 friends (a guitarist and a dancer) who tour with major companies from Spain go into hysterics when a very vocal flamencologist that lives in America was talking about twos in bulerias. Both of them strongly denied that such a thing exists and in fact, started singing the theme of the western Bonanza and dancing a mocking bulerias against it.
I've commented that non-teaching Spaniards don't understand the system of assigning numbers to beats, and those who do teach, usually begin with a 12-model. I was astonished to see Tomás de Perrate teaching a guitarist that twos were the basis of all bulerías. Tomás is the son of Perrate de Utrera, he grew up singing bulerías as easily as the rest of us breathe. He was suddenly called upon to give an accompaniment class and this intense, cerebral man was forced to ask himself what bulerías felt like, in order to convey the feeling to someone else. He knew nothing of twelves or counting, completely uncontaminated...and twos, not counted as "one-two" but felt, is what he came up with. Furthermore he was literally shocked to find his advanced guitar student trying to construct longer phrases before feeling the thrust of the binary compás, and flatly stated it couldn't be done. This took place in my living room years after I began noticing how twos run bulerías.
Later on I heard that David Jones, an experienced American guitarist living in Madrid, teaches his guitar students to feel bulerías in twos, and now you mention an American 'flamencologist' ...doesn't that make you wonder? 
Foreigners analyze flamenco because they come to it as adults. Spaniards do not because they hear it from childhood. This reminds me of a guitar teacher in Jerez whose name is unimportant...I watched him giving a guitar class and the American student kept asking questions like "Does the strum come on 3?" "Does it repeat from 6?" I knew the teacher had no idea what he meant, but being an enterprising soul he quickly realized he was to say numbers along with the beats if the student was to be kept happy. So he counted randomly with each movement of his hands, with no rhyme or reason...sounded like he was calling off the winners of the Christmas lottery  .
> But I do not accept that it is universal in bulerias.
> Perhaps this relates more to cante or just an easy
> way to pat the foot.
All bulerías is structured on twos. If you prefer not to consider it that way for whatever reason, the structure is still there, and there's never any need to beat your foot...plenty of older guitarists beat 1-2, 4-5...some beat 12...some let their feet waggle nervously. None of this changes the nature of bulerías in any way. It's either useful to you or not, but there is no way to separate one bulería from another in this regard.
I think the only way to see the inner structure is to listen to many recorded bulerías beating twos straight through, never lapsing into 3s, 6s, or 12s. It's very exciting when you see the elegant simplicity of it all.
Estela 'Zata'
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Date Jul. 4 2004 19:52:38
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Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
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RE: 2s in bulerias examples (in reply to zata)
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quote:
I think the only way to see the inner structure is to listen to many recorded bulerías beating twos straight through, never lapsing into 3s, 6s, or 12s. It's very exciting when you see the elegant simplicity of it all.
Estela 'Zata'
If I can chime in here.
I've "learned" Bulerias over the years by the usual 12's principle.
I'm still not good at it, even trying to keep compás with unfamiliar records.
Now,I know this has nothing to do with music, but as an Engineer, sometimes you can look at something and tell that it's wrong.
Something "not quite right".
It might be the shape, or the way it appears to work, or as in the case of Research Scientists, when the same experiment leads to 20 different results, you've got to start asking questions about the whole premise of the experiment in the first place.
I've struggled with Bulerias for ages and once I grasped the 3, 6, 8, 10 12 cycle I thought I'd got it.
But alas no.
In fact very far from it.
There seemed to be zillions of different Bulerias rhythm permutations and I couldn't believe that say, a 10 year old dancer in Spain had learned them all.
The idea seems "ugly", and just didn't fit.
After all, as I said before...this is "real" music to the Flamencos.
Something they do when they're even drunk and having a good time.
It was only after Zata's initial post some months ago that Ondajerez started streaming some programmes from the peñas of Jerez.
The stuff these guys were playing was different to anything I'd heard on records or CD's.
A very much more relaxed style and something that didn't conform to the 3,6,8,10,12 analysis.
The stuff was so "loose", very relaxed and rhythmic, and took a lot of analysis from my own "12 count" perspective to make any sense of.
The only thing that seemed to be obvious was this strong 2,4,6,8,10,12 count.
I don't know if Zata's right or wrong, for as everybody knows, it's hard to get any solid information on Flamenco, only opinions.
But when I saw one of my favourite Bulerias accompanists tap his foot 2,4,6,8,10,12 regardless of where the compás was going, or if he was spanning his falsetas over 2 lots of eighteen beats, I had to agree that the "12's" structure I had learned was only an illusion of what is actually going on.
It has to be able to be rationalised more than that....
I am (despite what Jim says LOL!) absolutely rotten at Bulerias.
Sure, I can make an "Elvis impersonation" of something I've heard, provided it fits into my preconceptions of what Buleria is.
But I still understand nothing of what I'm doing, except for that particular piece.
Show me any foreign Flamenco player who posts stuff on the various Forums who is completely at home with Flamenco music apart from the pieces he has practiced and learned? ....including Todd!
In reality, even a competent Jazz guitarist with little knowledge of Flamenco could put something credible together once he was aware of the 3, 6, 8, 10, 12 or 3, 7,8 10, 12 structure and was told to start on 12 and end on 6 or 10.
I think they call it a rhythmic motif (?)
But is this Flamenco?
So it boiled down to those yellow and black books you used to get in the '60's called "Teach Yourself....Accountancy....Atomic Physics....Classical Music....Art"..........Bulerias LOL!
(There used to be books with a similar content, but much shorter, called "How to Bluff Your Way Through....Shakespeare...Renaissance Art....Chinese Philosophy"...etc etc LOL!)
So that's exactly how I feel about Flamenco.
Especially Bulerias.
I am in the process now of trying to unlearn what I have picked up over the years, and trying to develop a more simplistic approach.
It's very hard to keep time, in comparison to my "old" way of thinking, which I think in the long run is "limiting" and makes you no more of a Flamenco player than a parrot can imitate sounds.
But I think it's worth persevering with despite the difficulties in the "short" term.
I have a sneakin' suspicion that Estela's got it right.
I feel I've just got to try to unravel all the wrong thinking I've been doing for years.
It would be easier continuing with the illusion, as I can sound better, like I know what I'm doing, to another guitarist.
But I'm not really into that...
Life's too short.
I'd rather spend my time trying to get to the heart of the matter if possible.
And I don't think the answer is the way I've learned.
At the moment, I think it lies in the 2's.
Really!
My observations only!
Ron
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Date Jul. 4 2004 21:42:26
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zata
Posts: 659
Joined: Jul. 17 2003
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RE: 2s in bulerias examples (in reply to Guest)
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quote:
[quote[non-teaching Spaniards
You wrote:
Actually, these were two Spaniards and both teach.
You cut the quote too short and took it to mean the opposite of what I wrote which was:
"...non-teaching Spaniards don't understand the system
of assigning numbers to beats, and those who do teach,
usually begin with a 12-model".
I also added that I know of only one Spaniard who saw twos as the basis of bulerías, and that was Tomás de Perrate, who has not been 'tainted' by standard teaching methods or contact with foreigners. He looked at the bulerías he's been hearing and doing all his life, and twos were what loomed bigger than all else...this is very important coming from a town like Utrera which is as hooked on bulerías as Jerez, and from a singer as steeped in compás as Tomás.
And then:
"I am sure there is cante and toque that do beat as you say.
But I think it is inaccurate and misleading to claim that ALL
bulerias has this in it. For example, in baile, an extended
section of footwork in threes has no flavor of twos in it,
whatsoever."
Cante and toque don't "beat" anything except the compás which is always in the air...even if the guitarist breaks a string and stops playing, or keels over drunk. The compás of bulerías *may* employ 3s, 6s or 12s, but 2s are *always* present. Don't look at cantes, steps or falsetas, just examine the compás in this way. It's there.
Also:
"Sixes do sometimes beat in twos and sometimes 12s do as well. But for threes, never."
That's not true. There are many falsetas in 3s and many steps (ever see how Manuela Carrasco ends por soleá with outstrechted airplane arms?). Cante isn't percussive (except for those tongue-twist ditties sometimes used for endings), so "cante in threes" would be a sort of oxymoron.
If you're completely at ease with bulerías at any tempo, with any combination of singer and dancer, in any situation, then you've already internalized the beat and shouldn't bother fixing something that ain't broke. 
Estela 'Zata'
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Date Jul. 4 2004 23:51:12
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zata
Posts: 659
Joined: Jul. 17 2003
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RE: 2s in bulerias examples (in reply to Jim Opfer)
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quote:
Sorry, must seem that we're all taking shots at you but I've got to add that 'Binary rhythem' could be enything including the noise your feet make running down the stairs
That's right! (although feet running down stairs is only ones, which never caught on). And just think of what computers do with nothing more than "on-off" which is the basis of all digitalized signals.
The duality of a heartbeat, yes-no, boy-girl, black-white, yin-yang, one-two, buckle my shoe. In the end, all rhythmic music is probably twos or threes, and a 12-count is just an intellectual conceit not conducive to making music.
Get it going simultaneously with any beat you customarily keep for bulerías, and get back to me...
Estela 'Zata'
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Date Jul. 6 2004 16:36:32
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