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Apparently a poster that caused Flamenco Teacher to close down for a period of time got into an argument with somebody on www.e-borneo.com/cgf. This person said they would never post on that forum again.
Still, I think the picado in this one gives away the use of the pick. I can play lead electric at that speed with a pick, but no way with just two fingers
OK, I found it under the sexiest male classical guitarist thread.
I wonder how Todd learns anything, if he considers nearly everyone else to be his inferior? Maybe he is a genius? Or perhaps other flamenco guitarists of his ability are too busy with a life to hang around forums?
Playing fast picado with a pick is much easier than with im. Consider the simplicity of the back and forth motion with the horribly complex movement of the two fingers, their interplay with each other and the strings. Of course if you're invested with the pick and unwilling to change, you can either make the choice to acknowledge to others the limitations of your technique (there being benefits, as well, of course!), or can go psycho on anyone who fails to worship you! The person in question is a true piece of work, who can be kind and generous with his time, and encouraging, or possessed of an almost diabolical rage and need to prove himself. He is truly not missed here for the destructive effects of his personality.
Simon, I think most pro musicians of his caliber are too busy to spend half their day on a website. Plus, we have to consider the big fish in a small pond mentality that he obviously takes advantage of!
Personally Folks, I've heard a lot of guitarists, but despite Todd's fiery nature, he's probably the best I've ever heard...period. It's totally ludicrous, the fact he plays with a plectrum and all that. But the simple fact is...he beats the pants off anybody outside Spain that I've ever heard playing!
Personally Folks, I've heard a lot of guitarists, but despite Todd's fiery nature, he's probably the best I've ever heard...period.
Ain't that the truth! I think I'm going to meet up with Todd in the next few weeks. Richard Marlow has a few guys over his house on Wednesday nights to play (Todd goes often), and I'm going to break down and go... Those guys don't do day jobs so it's a big deal for me to play until dawn during the middle of the week! But, I only live once, Right?
With all the respect that dude is not the best outside Spain, hes good but he does not play the pants down everybody outside Spain, i ve heard atlist 3 guitarists who play better, i have uploaded some examples of one peticular guy here in AUstralia, not only is this guy young , has aire , but he does "im" runs along across the frets starts on fret one and ends up on fret 13th in just as much speed. I have personaly seen it and i guess the hole " playing the pants off outside anyone out of Spain got my attention". World is a big big place :)
I have uploaded some samples in Audio forum, under " Broadening our horizons " title.
No disrespect intended to Todd and expecially anyone here.
That guy certainly has a nice sound! Is he a pro? And you're right Florian, the World is a big place and there are bound to be some excellent foreign players who don't bother with Forums and the like. What get's me about Todd though is, the first time I heard about him on the FT Forum, I downloaded a track on his site expecting to hear Rumba type fast picado stuff overdubbed on a backing track. I was surprised when I heard a nice Sabicas style Soleares. I then thought that the guy was probably a good Jazz guitarist or something, who had worked hard to play a couple of showcase Flamenco pieces for his set, but would be very restricted playing Flamenco in general. Well, I was proved wrong when around Christmas time he posted a superb Tomatito Bulerias with great dynamics, tone and timing. Then he posted a Sanlucar Guajiras etc... It's not only technique with Todd...he has really great taste in Flamenco and the puro tradition. I think he constantly get's a lot of stick for his unorthodox style of playing though. It's funny...if Todd played cheesy Alex Fox style stuff, he'd probably be making a lot of money and have a big fan following and generally more accepted in the way that a lot of Flamenco enthusiasts quite like a bit of Gypsy Kings stuff. I think Todd's greatest sin is to attempt to play genuine solo Flamenco guitar using a pick technique and this is going to be his cross to bear all his life. A lot of Flamenco fans are just going to refuse to believe their ears, take one look at his right hand and immediately write him off. I think he knows this and that's what contributes to his "touchy" nature. I think he's working on material for a CD and it will be interesting to see how his career develops over the years, provide he hasn't fallen out with every potential fan by then! LOL!!
Ron i agree i am a big ! beliver in give credit where credit is due and Todd deserves all the credit for his left hand and for having the courage to pick those solos and not just doing rumba type stuff.
Only one opinion from me tho cause i always hear "pure this" "pure that" the only thing pure about flamenco is that is always changing. Change is natural if flamencos stayed pure there would be no guitar only cante, there would be no Paco de Lucia , Tomatito, Jeronimo and every falseta would sound the same. I think is unavoidable that soon (if not allready) the line between flamenco and jazz guitar will be very very thin, the only thing thing that will keep flamenco flamenco its what it has always kept it before is not a peticular chord or key's or scales guitarists play in, is "Aire, Compas and technique (but even the technique will probably change).
SO my point is that i forghot what my point was :))
oh thats right ! i hate the word "flamenco puro' I think that anyone that plays guitar with Aire, compas and technique is doing "flamenco puro' there is however guitar styles u like and guitar styles u dont like, take me for example "please Simon dont kik me out for what i am about to say ":) but i dont like : Diego del Gastor, Sabicas ,Paco de Lucia, Sanlucar or Paco Pena, I have nothing but respect for them but i dont like theyr styles.I do however like your tangos falseta u submited to me RON :):):)
errr i have no idea why i just wrote all that about "flamenco puro" is out of my system now i promisse i wont bring it up again. :)
Yeah Florian, I used the term "puro" in a loose sense to mean "real" Flamenco rather than Flamenco "influenced" latin type stuff. Sure, we tend to like the music of our generation, which for me was Sabicas/PdL/Peña although I like the way Tomatito and others moved the music on. But I must admit the stuff that PdL plays now is way over my head....I can't follow it! To me his "Luzia" album is just a jumble of notes played with a great technique. Same for Vincente Amigo and some others. Also I'm not so keen on Bass and flute etc, but that's just my own taste. But that's just the natural order of things...I mean Jazz moved from Dixieland to Coltrane in just a few decades. So it's just me getting old!! Personally I tend to like particular tracks now rather than particular artists if you know what I mean. The great thing in Flamenco is that all sorts of styles from Traditional to Ultra Modern are being played in Spain today. So there's enough stuff there to keep everybody happy!
Guys, you know I just got back from Seville, and had the chance to see a lot of stuff there live, that before I had only listened to on CDs or seen on videos. It's an interesting scene, when you go to a festival and see someone accompanying Chocolate, playing nothing past 1950, and then the next group is Antonio Canales, dancer, who is dancing something the purists won't even acknowledge as flamenco, and whose guitarist doesn't play a single picado or unaltered chord the whole act. I have always loved Paco de Lucia and Vicente Amigo, so I considered myself on the modernist side of the fence, however, when I saw people live who emulate them, or what you might call "post paco" guitarists, I felt a certain lack there. When a guitar is playing with a cajon and a bass, the guitarist must necessarily play less. Like any other kind of band, there is a sonic space and it must be shared. But this is a sparse, lean style of playing, when compared to some of the old masters, who had to shoulder the whole load themselves. The new style of playing, and of course this is merely a generalization, lacks rhythmic drive. I don't like a guitar that just adds flavor here and there, "lead licks." I like when the guitar grabs a bit more of the responsibility for the rhythm as well as melody.
One of my teachers in Sevilla went to a Gerardo Nunez workshop in July. He said that Nunez' technique is phenomenal, quite beyond describing. I said, "is he as good as paco?" He replied that he was better, although not necessarily to his taste. Nunez plays almost all free strokes for his lead lines, although he can play picado too. Anyways I know Nunez can play anything he wants to, but his playing is a bit floating and subtle for me. I like flamenco guitar al cajones.
but i dont like : Diego del Gastor, Sabicas ,Paco de Lucia, Sanlucar or Paco Pena, I have nothing but respect for them but i dont like theyr styles.
RonM Said,
quote:
But I must admit the stuff that PdL plays now is way over my head....I can't follow it! To me his "Luzia" album is just a jumble of notes played with a great technique. Same for Vincente Amigo and some others.
I think it's interesting that Florian thinks PdL is old hat and Ron finds him to be too modern. I've never heard anything from the Luzia album (I'll have to see if I can find a sample on the internet ). I kind of lost interest in solo Flamenco guitar albums a few years ago. I just downloaded Vicente Amigo's "Tres Notas para Decir Te Quiero" to see what he's all about and sorry, Amigo fans, but that is definitely NOT my idea of Flamenco. It sounds more like Brazilian music ala Tonino Horta or somebody. I realize that that is only one example of his playing and it might be a bad example. Can any Amigo fans recommend anything that sounds more Flamenco? Juan Manuel Cañizares is another modern player that I just can't get into. The Siguiriya that he plays accompanying Enrique Morente on Saura's movie "Flamenco" doesn't sound ANYTHING like a Siguiriyas to me (and either does Morente's singing for that matter). I think that overall my tastes are more along the lines of Ron's. Good solid Flamenco without the jazz chords and with a compas that can be followed.
Regarding Manolo Sanlucar: I've always been impressed by his technique (nobody has a tremelo like he does), but I never felt that he played "muy Flamenco." His Malagueñas, Granainas, and Rondeñas are beautiful but his other stuff never fired me up, which brings me to his album "Tauromagia." Even though a lot of people have criticized it for not being Flamenco enough with the orchestration and different twists on the cante and such, I think the actual guitar playing is the most "Flamenco" I've ever heard from Sanlucar. It just grabs me and I never get tired of listening to it. Flamenco and not Flamenco at the same time. Does that make sense and does anyone else share my opinion?
BTW we could use a flame war (a gentlemanly and civilized one of course ) around here to liven things up a bit.
To me there's nothing wrong with adding some jazz chords and scales if still keep the basic toque. Godd examples of this are Paco de Lucia and Tomatito. Some of the more recent players seem to play Latin American elevator music.
The problem that I have is even recognizing the melody. Was working on an Alegrias Silencio which sounded nothing like the traditional.
My idea is to first get down the traditional flamenco and then worry about all the modern variations.
To me there's nothing wrong with adding some jazz chords and scales if still keep the basic toque.
I agree. However, the overuse of these chords seems to dilute the music. I recently saw a couple of young performers from Cadiz and the singer sang pretty much in a traditional style, while the guitarist went overboard on the jazz chords and it just didn't sound right. The guitar lacked "cojones" and was uninspiring. While I have to admire many of these modern guitarists for their technical abilities, their playing is missing that drive and hit-you-in-the-gut feeling. I can tell you that the guitarist on that particular night didn't get any "oles" from the audience. I've noticed that very often it's the technically not-too-difficult but emotion filled falsetas that get the audience to shout "ole".
quote:
Some of the more recent players seem to play Latin American elevator music.
That's exactly what I feel. It's pleasant, well played music but it just doesn't move me.
I wont get into the puro discussion but since I think I am not the only one I will say Todd is actually a nice guy. I still talk with him by email and he is very polite and helpful. As for his music, it is amazing plain and simple. JoshH
Phil, I think it's like a lot of things in life. People see a good idea, try to analyse it and distil the essence from it and recycle it as a new thing in the hope of making some dough. When Paco de Lucia came out with Fantasia Flamenca, and his collaborations with Camaron, this stuff was genuinely new, not contrived. I feel now that a lot of Flamencos are desperately seeking something new to launch on the public in the hope of becoming famous and rich.... and basically they are just doing the National Lottery by distorting chords and phrasing and leaving a lot of air between their chords and fast picado in the hope that their "pregnant pauses" will convey some feeling of tension and drama and somehow they will come up with the winning formula. I think a lot of modern Flamenco is more brain led than heartfelt. Since they are keeping an eye on each other, there is a situation of the blind leading the blind, each one wanting to be "more different" than the other. Still, I'm not negative about this. The good stuff will remain and become part of the long road of Flamenco. The rest will just fall by the wayside. Viva Flamenco!
Vicente Amigos genius is his melodycs the fact that he does fast picado scales when they are called for he does rythm when rythm is called for he does falseta when is called for and it all glues togheder from the start to the end as a story.
The fact that he can tell a story and make a beautyfull falseta with just 2 notes and is pure obvious that his music is not driven by the need to prove his fast picado or his technique but is for the melody and story alone.
Try a litlle experiment : Put on a vicente amigo latest album and listen to a song, just fully get sucked into the melody of it, is like a felling of musical perfection because every note and melody that he play folows perfectly and naturaly and u find yourself saying yes thats the most perfect note / falseta to folow the previous one. Listen to his tone each note played is like a perfect smoth note.
The best way to describe AMigos music for me is like music that has always been there but i didnt realise it until Amigo recorded it.
We all get different things from Flamenco music. I like the traditional Cante Jondo that probably doesn't even make the charts these days. I think Diego del Gastor was so good at what he did...accompany the cante! That's what blows my skirt up (not gay!).
Others like virtuoso guitar that exceeds traditional rhythm, and challenges our understanding. There's nothing wrong with that. I won't go out of my way to listen to it or to critique it, simply because I don't like it... but, I won't trash it either. It represents an artist's interpretation of an art form. And having that in the world is a very good thing (my opinion).
I also think it's important to know the difference. And, frankly, I'm not sure a whole lot of people really do. Some think because they can play a soleares that they understand and know the soleares, or whatever palo, but, if you asked them to accompany the soleares (which is a song) I think very few of us could get by the first few measures. Very few understand that it really is not a dance! Although it has been danced to. Similarly, it's not a guitar piece... although it has form which is played on guitar.
Before we trash an artist, we should try to understand what it is we are critiqing. Are we just critiquing their playing of a certain guitar piece... if so, it's a mute point, unless we understand what the palo is actually about. For example, do we feel the soleares when we hear Vincente Amigo play "Tio Arango"? or are we intrigued by his virtuosity on the guitar? Would this fit the song (cante jondo) of the palo? (Phil I understand your remark about the uninspiring guitarist in Cadiz).
Let's talk Flamenco sometime instead of guitar players!!! :-)
Yes i do feel the soleares when Vicente plays just as much as you possibly can on a guitar solo soleares without cante. Ofcourse it dosent sound like the cante ( and why should it ?) is a guitar solo. Ofcourse it dosent compare to the singing but it feels as much as a soleares as anyother soleares played on guitar only. If i am wrong point me to a guitar solo (solea) that will make me feel the soleares as much as a solea with cante.
I realise that i might sound like someone that listens more to guitar cds than cante cds but thats not true. I love the cante , theres times when i am in the mood to feel (i put cante cd on) theres times when i am in the mood to be amazed at melodic phrases, technique, i put guitar solo cds on. No guitar will ever replace cante but they still tell a good story and make you feel.
when i wanna get down a dirty i put the Milli Vanilli cd on :)
Usually avoid the topic of the "William Bonney" of flamenco guitar, Mr K, but he seems to be getting an awful lot of air time at the moment. Main problem he has IMO is not much more than his being twenty. I remember only too well what a clever b-----d I was at that age. Thought I was the hottest thing on the planet. I was wrong (-:
Real difference then was you had to prove your credibility on the street. At the local ballrooms you might be king, but go to another town and it was a different story. Forums were things from films like Quo Vadis, Ben Hur and The Robe and anything you wanted to do had to be done after a ten hour work day. Practising alone all day and writing to forums is okay, but it's no substitute for living and getting out amongst people. Maybe the Todd'ler should do that. His talent is undisputed, his committment admirable and his respect for the art unquestioned. His respect for the human race in general, and some of its members in particular, is nothing short of juvenile. "Rebel without a cause" springs to mind. Like us all, growing up (provided it occurs before 60) will cure the Toddl'er in time. A famiy, kids and a mortgage will do it overnight
I was once going to be the greatest dancer alive....then I discovered women and the decline began. Now, three marriages, three kids and four grandkids later, I'm only 10th (((-:
How may of you remember "The twang's the thang" ? Keep on strumming (-:
Hope I don't upset too many with this, but I get the feeling (much like Paul's thinking) that too many guitarists see the palos as tunes to be learned without too much thought to the actual palo in relation to cante, after all the real core of the flamenco art. Think I recently upset a dance student by suggesting ten years rather than two was not unusual in really learning to dance solea.
Two hours, two nights a week in in dance class, particularly outside Spain, is just not sufficient to learn palos at a rapid rate. In the same way (although guitarists give much more practise time to their work ) fully mastering a palo from a flamenco point of view is something that cannot (IMO) be learned from books or videos. Without the cante being involved it is guitar playing undoubtedly, and mainly highly creditable work. Whether it is solo guitar or flamenco accompaniment is the real yardstick for judging its credibility as flamenco.
Jim why should this upset anybody this is a good chance for us all to ge to know eachother and our views. I am enjoying this discussion very much , i hope that everyone else sees this as i see it and dosent take anything personally, because the truth is that there is not always 1 truth or 1way.
everything can be changed eg: 1 there was this thing that u had to be a gipsy to be a greate guitarist, that theory was blown to pieces.
2, there was the one that an outsider living outside spain could never be as good as someone living in spain.( guitarist )not true theres amazing guitarists born and leaving outside spain.
I wouldnt place too much on one person judging at the end of the day it is one person PDL, Tomatito, etc they have all gotten bad reviews and been criticised for not beeing pure enough. there is absolutley no one way or the right way to do this. Truth is that no matter what u do theres always goona be that one guy that says " NO! this is no flamenco " :)
Btw; There is a video done by Oscar Herrero called acompaning Solea cante, i have it , i also play for classes and singers and to be honest i have learned more about acompaning cante from the video, The guy in the video sings by himself without the guitar and u acompany. what is the difference between that and having the guy in the room ? see the greate thing about the video is that u can rewind as much as you like.
the only thing u really need to play flamenco is a heart (for the aire) thick skin ( to be able to ignore all the criticism, and trust me there will be plenty)and to be honest with yourself ( whatever you put into it is what u get out, if u wanna be the best u have to practice twice as much as the best).
there is the part of me that agrees with everysingle thing that everyone else has said here theres is the part of me that agrees with myself
and there is the big part of me that agrees that not 1 single person (be it paco himself or Camaron has the right answers for everysingle person each must folow theyr own heart and find theyr own way there).
Sometimes I feel disadvantaged at not being able to play guitar, in other instances it is a bonus, because I don't have to analyse everything in the way a musician does. I certainly know good music from bad or mediocre stuff as I am a true music lover. I also tend not to be too critical between flamenco guitarists or any others because I listen to the whole thing and appreciate talent in anyone. Tone, rise and fall, good improvisation within the timing, good accentuation, personal aire and most of all rythmn are all things I hear without the need to listen for the odd bum note or accidental heavyhandedness. I don't even need to listen carefully, just listen, and let the music or the player do the rest.
This is a natural thing that some of us non-musicians can develop and maybe even gain more enjoyment then the players who have to fully concentrate all the time and are ever critical of their own performance. There is no finer visual thing than to actually see that a musician is enjoying himself. You know then that his personality is at peace with his talent and you are experiencing something special. Sometimes you hear brilliant Spanish style guitar runs in music that isn't flamenco and from players whose first talent is singing. Roger Whittaker did it in "San Miguel" and Al Stewart in " On the border" Azucar Moreno's guitarist did it in their hit, "Bandido" and many others have done the same. With a guitarist it may get analysed, for me it was pure pleasure listening.
My first love has alwayas been dance and if the music moves me into motion then the rythmn must be relating to the heartbeat and vise versa. With flamenco, the compas obviously needs learning or the rythmn appears disjointed and meaningless. Once learned it becomes something you relate all else to. I have to admit that with some of the more modern guitarists the compas becomes blurred and uncertain. That said, there is a real world of talent out there.