Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
The Enigmatic Rafael Del Águila
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
henrym3483
Posts: 1584
Joined: Nov. 13 2005
From: Limerick,Ireland
|
 The Enigmatic Rafael Del Águila
|
|
|
I had some conversations with Norman in Sanlucar and in Jerez about Rafael Del Águila, who was the teacher of Gerardo Nunez, Paco Cepero, Diego Carrasco, Manuel el Carbonero, Jose Luis Balao and proably a whole bunch of other players from jerez he taught.
Rafael seems to be quite an enigmatic figure amgonst guitarists in Jerez and a bigger mystery to alot of players like myself. the reason for this being is that for either personal or other reasons Rafael never recorded any of his material for posterity. According to El Carbonero's interview, Rafael was simply not into socialising in flamenco circles even though he had good playing prowess. He might simply have been a more introverted player. Furthermore, as manuel says in his interview, his name would have died out only for the fact that his name lives on through his students. see interview below.
http://www.deflamenco.com/entrevistas/carbonero/indexi.jsp
ive been trying to do a bit of research on rafael just as a point of interest from searching on the internet I finally found a picture of the man. so it was nice to put a face to such an enigmatic name and i though id share with members of the Foro.
the strange thing though, is if Rafael taught so many students, it would stand to reason he would have imparted some of his "stamp" on their playing, technique and possibly there would be some commonality amongst the students as regards falsetas and repetoire.
the reason why i have an interest in Rafael is that there is access to a recorded muscial history of the other Pillar of the escuela de jerez namely Javier Molina, and javier's devotee Manuel Morao. whereas there is little if nothing recorded or written about Rafael.
i know this is'nt directly about playing and the post is more about Flamencology, but i thought some of you might be interested in putting a face to the name and opening up a discussion about Rafael.
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Sep. 18 2009 3:34:10
 |
|
Phil
Posts: 382
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Rota, Spain
|
|
RE: The Enigmatic Rafael Del Águila (in reply to henrym3483)
|
|
|
Henry,
I did the interview with El Carbonero. I also took some lessons from Rafael about a year before he died. He was quite an 'eccentric' character. There's one big error in the interview where El Carbonero says that Rafael wasn't a student of Molina's and didn't like him too much. (I'd have to reread the interview for the exact statement.) After the interview was published and El Carbonero read it, he told me that Rafael was in fact a student of Molina's and that he got Rafael confused
with another old Jerez guitarrist regarding his relationship with Molina. Apparently, El Carbonero was as nervous being interviewed as I was conducting the interview. Neither one of us had ever been involved in an interview for publication before.
From what I can determine, Rafael never recorded anything and, therefore, his legacy lives on only through his students. As
far as I know the Moraos were direct students of Molina (Molina died in 1956 well into his 80's) and the Moraos were professionals by then. Parilla, however, was a student of Rafael, along with the other people you mentioned.
You have to keep in mind that being a legendary teacher doesn't necessarily translate into being a legendary guitarist. A
case in point would be El Carbonero. He's not well known outside of Jerez, yet almost every guitarist in Jerez of note under
40 yrs. old has studied with El Carbonero, including Diego de Morao. Now why would Moraito send his son to learn the guitar
from someone else whose not as talented as Moraito? I can think of of a couple of good reasons. Maybe Moraito doesn't have the ability or the patience to teach someone who has never touched a guitar before and this is El Carbonero's forte. He really enjoys teaching kids and watching them progress. Many of his former students are sought after professional guitarists and have far surpassed their teacher in technical ability (although I've personally witnessed a couple of well established guitarists calling upon El Carbonero for advice). This is probably also true of Rafael del Aguila and many other teachers.
Getting back to Rafael del Aguila - I'll give you what little info I know about him. He was a barber by trade. I don't know why, but there have been other barbers who were Flamenco guitarists. Maybe it gave them something to do between customers. Rafael obviously had some pretty severe mental problems. He lived in what I would describe as a hovel that was filthy and had newspapers, magazines, and books piled everywhere. He was literate and loved to read. In Andalucia the illiteracy rate for people in his age group was very high. Even today you'll find many people over 60 who are illiterate, especially if they grew up in the campo. And a lot of older Flamencos are illiterate. Anyway, Rafael loved to read. He especially enjoyed westerns and was a big fan of Zane Grey. I've been told that Rafael could read music, but I don't know that for a fact.
He used the same method of teaching that El Carbonero still uses today. Students show up and wait their turn to be called in for their lesson. They're taught something, go back out to practice, and the next student is called in. Once they've had a
chance to practice what they learned they go back in for some fine tuning or maybe a little more, if they can absorb it. It's
a very effective way to learn and is a very efficient use of the teacher's time. I've often wondered if Rafael del Aguila invented this system.
A couple of anecdotes - Rafael usually started giving lessons about 7:00 in the evening. One evening I and 4-5 very young
teenagers (including Antonio Jero, El Niño Jero's younger brother) were waiting for Rafael to open his door. About 7:30 he
finally came out and brusquely said, "I'm not giving lessons to anybody today. I haven't had breakfast yet (mind you, it was
7:30 in the evening) or taken my medicine. So you can all all just go back home. Go on, get out of here. What are you waiting for? I said I'm not giving any lessons, so go home. Come back tomorrow." I was more than a little pissed-off, because I had just spent 30 minutes driving from Rota. However, at my next lesson, which was a week later, he remembered what he had done and apologized to me.
Another time I went in for my lesson and he said, "That kid that just walked out wanted me to teach him the compas for
Alegrias. I told him to go home and have his sister clap her hands and figure it out for himself. I don't have time for such
nonsense. As a matter of fact, if you didn't already know the basics I wouldn't waste my time with you either. Imagine these
foreigners coming here wanting to learn Flamenco. Ridiculous!" Again, at my next lesson he apologized explaining that he had been having a bad day.
Like I said at the beginning, Rafael del Aguila was a bit 'eccentric'. He was probably suffering from some form of paranoid
schizophrenia. At the time I was taking lessons my Spanish wasn't that good and I never asked Rafael any questions about
himself. And, to be truthful, I probably wouldn't have thought of asking him even if my Spanish was better, although today
I'd love to know more about him.
I really appreciate the photos you posted. Where did you find these? These photos must have been taken within a couple of years before his death as this is the Rafael that I remember. I would think (and hope) that the Flamenco Museum in Jerez
would have some detailed info on Rafael. El Carbonero was young when he was studying with Rafael and doesn't know much more about him than what he told me in the interview. Gerardo Nuñez was only 15 years old when Rafael died. Perico and Antonio Jero were also quite young. Paco Cepero might know more since he was a bit older and might have been in contact with Rafael when he (Cepero) was more mature. Let's face it, children and teenagers don't usually ask their teachers information about their lives. Good luck with your research. If you find any additional info on Rafael, please share it with us. I, for one, would be very interested.
Phil
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Sep. 19 2009 11:48:03
|
|
Phil
Posts: 382
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Rota, Spain
|
|
RE: The Enigmatic Rafael Del Águila (in reply to henrym3483)
|
|
|
I was initially very exited at seeing these pictures of Rafael and after looking at them for awhile my memory has been jogged a bit. After all, it's been 34 years since I've seen Rafael. Upon further reflection I now remember that Rafael did not have a beard when I knew him. That beat up guitar sure looks familiar. He had a few guitars like that and you had to use one of them for your lesson. On the positive side, at least you didn't have to schlep your own guitar to the lessons.
I hope I didn't give the impression that Rafael was some sort of stark raving maniac. He wasn't, and the examples I gave of his erratic behavior were simply exceptional incidents that stick in my memory. Most of the time he was very nice and very polite. Though he had some sort of mental illness, he was not out of touch with reality and you could have a normal conversion with him. I think his cats were a necessity considering the way he lived.
As far as Rafael's falsetas and personal technique are concerned - at the time I didn't know enough about Flamenco to consider such things. So, I couldn't tell you if there was any common theme in his technique. In fact, I didn't transcribe what I learned from him and, except for one Buleria falseta, it's all been forgotten. I mentioned this to El Carbonero once and he told me that he didn't remember any specific falsetas from Rafael either. And as you know, Manuel has a memory for falsetas that's phenomenal.
I am quite disappointed that the Centro Flamenco doesn't have more info on him. After all, if they don't have it then who does? This would certainly be a good project for an interested person. A few years ago I thought about taking a crack at it, but life got in the way. One would have to spend considerable time in Jerez interviewing people that knew him and compiling the information. I just don't have the time to do it. I hope that some day someone will be inspired to pursue this.
Phil
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Sep. 20 2009 6:10:36
|
|
Ricardo
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
|
|
RE: The Enigmatic Rafael Del Águila (in reply to devilhand)
|
|
|
He jumps around a bit but basically saying he is mostly self taught or learned on stage working, however, he names a few classes early on with Javier Molina and Rafael Aguila, and picked up things on his own from Niño Ricardo and Diego del Gastor, and “mirrored” the style of Melchor when he went to madrid (I assume the way to accompany cante, of which I would agree and this makes sense to me, the same way many of us younger folk “mirror” paco or tomatito when sitting in the chair beside a cantaor). In the end he points out despite what he picks up he ended up with his own sound and style, which the reviewer corroborates.
In this thread is a discussion of the “teacher” and how important is this concept of maestro and apprentice. But if you look closer, everybody “forgot” what they learned specifically in early classes and developed on their own somehow. So what this whole thread is really about is INSPIRATION, and DISCIPLINE. You have to get out there and do it and make mistakes and learn on your own on stage or in those environments where you can actually play real flamenco with many different artists (singers and dancers, not just guitar). The flamenco maestro gives you the tools to get going, then it is a voyage of self discovery guided by inspiration, if you want to achieve anything.
It is amusing to me that the TV station is using the video I spliced together (Turrunero and Camaron buleria are two separate performances in the program) and loaded up to YouTube years ago and asking Paco if he remembered that performance. 
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Oct. 19 2023 13:58:39
|
|
RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
|
|
RE: The Enigmatic Rafael Del Águila (in reply to Ricardo)
|
|
|
quote:
In this thread is a discussion of the “teacher” and how important is this concept of maestro and apprentice. But if you look closer, everybody “forgot” what they learned specifically in early classes and developed on their own somehow. So what this whole thread is really about is INSPIRATION, and DISCIPLINE. You have to get out there and do it and make mistakes and learn on your own on stage or in those environments where you can actually play real flamenco with many different artists (singers and dancers, not just guitar). The flamenco maestro gives you the tools to get going, then it is a voyage of self discovery guided by inspiration, if you want to achieve anything.
The same concept applies to making guitars, or pretty well any avocation or vocation, I guess. I remember one of my electronics professors saying, when somebody complained about the amount of math in the course, “I can only give you the tools, I can’t teach you how to think.” He also used to stress that the real education began after graduation, he saw formal education as preparation. He refused to give out cookie cutter solutions that could be summarized on cheat sheets. He’d say “Formulas are for babies, learn to work from base concepts.” A lot of students didn’t like him, he was a tough little ex Air Force tail gunner from Calcutta, but I thought he was great, and post-graduation we remained friends for the rest of his life.
I remember one incident in the lab where I was having trouble setting up the antique equipment my school could afford and complained the equipment was faulty. He came by and set the whole thing up for me and showed me it worked. Then, once I was satisfied, he spun all the dials, pulled the wires, and totally messed up the set-up, there was no way I had time to redo it and finish the lab. I said “Hey! that’s not fair!”. He replied, “Nothing is fair” and walked away. At the end of the lab he strolled by and said “What are you worried about?” and left.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Oct. 19 2023 15:32:31
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.078125 secs.
|
Printable Version
" 
