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.
Maybe learn the Minera of Ramon Montoya. Its in a published book called Genius of the flamenco guitar - Thirteen pieces of Ramon Montoya.
great suggestion..... after studying that and some Sabicas perhaps, maybe Vicente too...... use the open A string as a pedal tone (keep repeating it underneath other chords and melodies)...... noodle E major scale tones on top.... make the parts of the triads in the key of E major over that A pedal tone..... B major, C#minor (over the A creates an Amaj7), A major (try sneaking a D# note in there ornamentally, how does that sound?), Now make that A major chord a dominant 7th chord by adding G natural.... still use that D# ornamentally..... take it a step further.... run an E melodic minor scale around while that A7#11 chord you just created is still in your ear. If you don't know the notes of an E melodic minor scale..... look it up. Don't be lazy. Its just 7 notes..... not rocket surgery by any stretch of the imagination..... now you could resolve to that totally bichin' Ab phrygian raised 3rd chord (see TAB below), but why not take this thing a bit further...... start using some C naturals against that A pedal tone with the G natural and keep and F# in there to create an A minor 6 chord and then BAM! resolve. Don't hang too long there on that A minor 7/6 chord. Its the final word quickly stated before killing the progression. A common melody fragment to resolve would be something like. C#,C,D#,C#,C,A,G# in some form or another. Ligados are common but can be overdone so be careful. The common voicings for the resolution chord are below.
Now check this out....... Minera is in Ab or G# Phrygian..... E major is the relative major.... highjack some stuff from Alegrias..... use my video on Alegrias harmony I recently posted..... be brave..... have fun..... it won't kill you. .... Hang around in the lightness of the E major color for a while and then do some of the stuff I mentioned before with the A pedal tone. Resolve back to the Ab Phrygian Raised 3rd chord...... now thats 2 falsetas....
here is where it gets groovy....... E minor is the PARALLEL MINOR of the RELATIVE MAJOR..(E major).... its relative Phrygian is B Phrygian......... Granaina...... BINGO!!!!!! high jack some material from Granaina..... but ease into it perhaps starting from a nice C# minor color first. You know..... C# minor...... noodle, noodle..... F#7 moving to B major (or use the Taranta chord and do a Taranta run (F# phrygian/Bminor/Dmajor or if you want use F# Octatonic, half-whole diminished scale) but resolve on D# instead of D natural, bringing the B major color into focus from an less expected approach pattern.) NOW BAMMMMMM! B major is your pivot chord for that Granaina material..... B,C, Aminor,E minor, D etc....... head back to B Phrygian just as Granaina does inevitably but instead of resolving to Ab Phrygian Raised 3rd (A7b9 for all intents and purposes) via that A Lydian Dominant Chord A7#11, use first Ab minor 7th, G minor 7th, F# minor 7th, then keep the F# minor 7th and add a G natural in the bass...... a dramatic picado or Alzapua or some other flashy thing like a ligado run or something...... BAM hit that Ab Minera chord like you really mean it and your done......
If you want to milk it..... do some tremolo in there somewhere....
DIY Minera..... have a blast.... be creative.
here is some chord names to help in the search.
Bmaj/A, Amaj7, A7, A7#11, Amin7, Amin6, F#min7,F#min7/G, G#7b9, B7, B11, Emaj, Fmaj,Emaj (like Sabicas , notice that E,F,E solea relationship?...... do it man, don't think twice, its allright), A6, A6/9, G#min7, G#min7#5, C#min7,F#7,Bmaj,E7, A, Amin7, G#7b9, D7#11, C#min7,D7#11, C#min7, D#min7b5, B7, B7b9, Emin, D, C7#11, Bmaj,B7b9,C,B, A, A7#ll, Amin7, G#7b9
hint about E melodic minor..... same as E Major with the 3rd note lowered one fret.
and for those who need it the main Minera Chord is generally voiced one of several ways.....
I too would be interested in PLAYABLE stuff por Minera. Theres tons of pro, high-tech stuff, but nothing easy. If anyone has anything, id be really grateful!
Well thats basically what's going on in a Minera. The map is there. It could be something very simple created with the instruction I laid out above. Instead of TABs get creative. Take control of the situation and begin to think of music as a conversational language. We can read great literary works, but we can also just talk and have conversations. The above is some vocabulary and context to get the story started.
There is a Minera on Emilo Maya's CD, the title track Temple. So many people have that CD here on the forum am sure some-one has tabs for it by now. You can buy it at CDbaby, itunes or any download site, costs about 99 cents.
There is a Minera on Emilo Maya's CD, the title track Temple. So many people have that CD here on the forum am sure some-one has tabs for it by now. You can buy it at CDbaby, itunes or any download site, costs about 99 cents.
That's a beautiful minera, and I'd love to see tabs if anyone has them!
It needs much refinement, both compositionally, and how I'm playing it, but this is what I did for Jason's Minera project in an afternoon.
It's basically a few ideas that relate to the instructions,with a lot of improvised material surrounding them. Oh, and I played it on a 7 string guitar. If I had a 6 string flamenco on hand, I probably would have used that instead, as playing flamenco on a 7 string is very hard for me. Hell..flamenco on a 2 string guitar would be hard for me, but it is what it is.
hello turnermoran, cool guitar and nice playing! Very nice arpeggios, I like your sound. Its a long composition and I think you could find the best ideas from there and work with those in details. And exelent improvisation, you obviously know your scales. good job man!
awesome brian...kids have used most of my download limit so it came in bits and pieces....very quick post...always great to hear you play..
this is my attempt part one 24 hrs after jasons post roadmap to Minera...
so it was born of improv using jason's roadmap [figured i'm barely out of the driveway] worked my way through the first paragraph and came up with this alot to be desired technically [could use a years free lessons] but feel there is a bit of the structure there need to refine all aspects ... tremelo/arpeggio and picado parts, more melody on the bass strings and extend it over the next few days/weeks? and repost [ really busy at the moment ]...
it contains all the parts in the first paragraph ie Apedal over Emajor, A7#11..Emelodic Minor...Aminor6th to the Home chord with a diminished sacle... still a long long way to go.. Any thoughts theories or criticism welcome
Bravo Al and Brian. Keep working on it and lets watch the progress. I have given you both 1 year accounts for the quick response.
Brian.... work more on connecting the various harmonic suggestions by using melody more. Al.... once you resolve (when you play that G#7b9 chord) don't noodle over it anymore. It should sound like you have arrived at a destination and you are still revving your engines. If you want to use the diminshed scale over the "minera chord"..... do it at the beginning of a phrase instead of the end. Just a suggestion, but I think you will like the final results better that way.
Thank you both for demonstrating. I hope others will do so even without the prize.
Here is Brian explaining his approach and interpretation of my Minera guidelines. It is very likely that the next time he posts here he will be a new Dad as his wife is due any minute. I am sure all of you will join me in congratulating him on the new arrival and wish him many blessings. Very cool of him to take time to do this at such an important time in his personal life. Thanks a million Brian and we look forward to hear from you soon.
Stephen Faulk's guitar looks and sounds great BTW. That is one amazing guitar. I'm jealous......