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.
Hi. I found a dancer!! She hasen´t danced flamenco for about 10 years but she teaches some rumbas and sevillana stuff. She wants to get together and make some Alegrias and Solea. I tell you how it goes, Im seeing her this thursday
Henrik
_____________________________
This is hard stuff! Don't give up... And don't make it a race. Enjoy the ray of sunshine that comes with every new step in knowledge.
I am glad that you found a way to apply all ( put into practice ) your knowledge of flamenco . I don't think you need but, put your metronome running all day long ....please tell us how it was. Regards Antonio
RE: HI. I found a dancer!!! (in reply to gerundino63)
Thank you Peter. I asked her today if she danced solea so awfuly slow I keep playing along with my solo compas cd. They do it realy slow on that one. Hey theres one for you Jim!! "they do it realy slow"
Henrik
_____________________________
This is hard stuff! Don't give up... And don't make it a race. Enjoy the ray of sunshine that comes with every new step in knowledge.
I suppuse that you know what ron means in spanish...... Rum
Henrik. Great. Is she from Jönkjöping as well? There are some video/DVD's on the market for dancers. They'll give you an idea of the structure of a palo, and some ideas of what to play. They are made for dancers though, so it can seem a bit pricy (18 - 20 euros each) Ask your dancer if she has some of these videos/dvd's.
Anders. She´s from Finland but she has lived in sweden since she was very young. Now she lives in jönköping. She was very happy and excited when i called her. I forgot to ask her for DVD´s
I belive she went to the carmen de las cuevas in Granada. Then she danced with some spanish company but i can´t remember the name.
can´t wait untill tomorrow!!!
Henrik
_____________________________
This is hard stuff! Don't give up... And don't make it a race. Enjoy the ray of sunshine that comes with every new step in knowledge.
Henrik, I haven't done Solea with Mercedes yet, so I don't know how it would work with just guitar and dancer. She didn't seem that keen when I mentioned it, not sure why, might be that she wouldn't want to do it without a singer, I don't know.
A couple of things I've picked up:
-accompanying dance IS a lot slower than solo guitar palos a lot of the time - the solo compas CDs are good indicators of the tempo you need.
-All rhythm guitar can get boring, and strong melodies are just as important as strong compas for the dancer to follow, esp if you don't have a singer, so you will need some falsetas but don't play anything too whacky. I go for safe trad stuff as its more likely to be recognised.
-ultimately an experienced accompanist will follow the dancer, but to kick things off we do it the other way round which makes sense to me. It just means more choreographing and playing things in a set way. Not as authentic as the real thing, but hey you have to start somewhere .
I haven't worked much with baile and only with Alegrias.
You have to learn the structure of the dance. Entradas, silencio, escobilla, llamada etc. Then you can start using some falsetas. But they ARE NOT IMPORTANT. Ask the dancer to tell you how many compas's a certain part is. The problem is that sometimes they dont know!!!! They just dance, and its up to you, the dog, to follow and do the counting
In alegrias you should learn some standard silencio and escobilla, because that's what they want for a start. Also be prepared to go up and down in tempo a lot, especially in Soleá. It's sometimes so slow that your falsetas are worth ****. In general, solo falsetas are not really worth anything.
So now you have something to concentrate on. No time for being melancolic.