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Posts: 1770
Joined: Jul. 11 2003
From: The Netherlands
beginners composing tips? anybody else?
Hola a todo!
The level of playing here gets higher an higher here!
So, to scare no beginners off, perhaps the BIG players around here, can contribute something for the beginners here.
I do not want to count me in on this group ( unfortunatelly )
But I have a useful trick for beginners, to start making your own falseta.
For instance a solea. Counted in 12. mostly finished at 10, and than the tipical solea theme follows on 11 and 12.
take the measurment 1 to 10 play a note at a time, in the solea key 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 then the little theme on 11 and 12 sounds nice?
than add at every note one more. (I mean a different note.) 1e-2e-3e-4e-5e-6e-7e-8e-9e-10 than the theme again. sounds a bit better, and faster, so now we make a slow picado from it
Add one more note. 1ene-2ene-3ene-4ene-5ene-6ene-7ene-8ene-9ene-10 You are starting here something!
You want it faster, something like Paco? add one more!
1enen-2enen-3enen-4enen-5enen-6enen-7enen-8enen-9enen-10, theme again. You have really made a fast picado falseta now!!
I upload a example in the upload TAB section for who is interested.
RE: beginners composing tips? anybod... (in reply to gerundino63)
Thats a good hint.
I will give one, too.
If you wanna compose a flamenco-falseta you have to know the flamenco-basics (classics). I dont mean sabicas and Nino.R. Learn the old Paco de Lucia falsetas which he played with Camaron and the solo pieces from this time. When you know him you also know Nino.R. Sabicas is too unique I think.
You can use these falsetas as base for new ones. Just take a bit from there, and play another chord here.. add something. With some time you will be able to compose flamenco sounding falsetas. When you are familar with the old stuff, learn new chords off the modern flamenco. f.e. Gerardo N. Chicuelo, D.Mendez, J.C.Romero. And try to use play the old falsetas with the new chords. There will evolve interesting new creations very easily. It became much easyer for me to create something, when I learned many chord variations.
RE: beginners composing tips? anybod... (in reply to gerundino63)
Good tips,
Mine alaways happens by accident I start playing a falseta i transcribed or picked up that is someone's elses and end up changing it here and there so that it suits me a litlle more. next thing I know it ends up beeing different and my own.
I think that whenever you listen another guitarist's music if you pay close attention you can pick who influences him as a guitarist.
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: beginners composing tips? anybod... (in reply to gerundino63)
One "trick" is to listen to cante and try to imitate what you heard on the guitar in some way. There are lots of different ways to do it (there are no rules) and the act of doing so makes you learn a lot.
One thing is that if you do a melody on the guitar that is something a cantaor might sing, it is my default flamenco, but there are a lot of things you can do on the guitar that dont' sound flamenco at all. By keeping cante as your base, it's hard to go wrong.
RE: beginners composing tips? anybod... (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
That's a great advice Miguel, considering guitar's roots in cante, and that's probably how solo flamenco guitar playing was born: imitating the cante while adding instrumental ornaments.
RE: beginners composing tips? anybod... (in reply to abraham)
Hola
Miguel´s advice is absolutely spot-on, especially for foreign aficionados who cannot really tell how flamenco their compositions are: there is nothing more likely to stop you in your tracks than a cantaor who turns around and says "Yes, those are the tones of alegrías and you have compás, but what you are playing is not alegrías".
The other night I was invited to a rehearsal of a group consisting of cantaor, tocaor, cajonista, palmera y violinista. They were working on a colombiana and the violin had the solo. The girl playing violin is Swiss, classically trained, and played a meaningless improvisation in rhythm.
Afterwards she asked my opinion and I told her. She said she knew nothing about colombianas and did not know what to play. I told her to play cante based falsetas, which are much easier on violin than on the guitar. Then I borrowed the guitar and played some of the falsetas from the Paco Peña/Sanlúcar colombianas, which is entirely cante based. She became very excited, insisted on recording the falsetas and went off to study them.
I suggested that she should learn them straight, then look for harmonies and musically related development and make periodic returns to the characteristic bass run of columbianas. A ver.
This is basically the advice of Miguel and is very important, unless you are compositionally gifted and flamenco too.
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: beginners composing tips? anybod... (in reply to Guest)
It's pretty easy to go wrong if you don't base it on cante. I have a friend who plays in clubs, and loves flamenco dearly. One day I was listening to him... I could always tell, even while talking to friends, which were his compositions and which were the falsetas or songs of Spaniards. One day it dawned on me that his falsetas were not singable; that is, they were not something someone would naturally sing. I thought of saying to him: See if you can li-lo what you are playing, if not, don't play it!
Posts: 20
Joined: Feb. 15 2005
From: San Juan, Puerto Rico
RE: beginners composing tips? anybod... (in reply to gerundino63)
¿Big player? Anyway, here is a common Solea falseta structure.
Compose a melody from beat 1 to 4 that resolves on beat 4, then count or rest 2 beats, then repeat the same notes in the sequence below.
(1) 1ene-2ene-3ene-4- (un dos) (this line is the first melody you composed) (2) 1ene-2ene-3ene-4- (un dos) (3) 1ene-2ene-3- (4) 1ene-2ene-3- (5) 1ene-2ene-3ene-4- (un dos)
The 2 count rest (un dos) usually has that familiar Solea falseta "ending" but for sake of this example you can just rest or count. You of course should be using appropriate scales. Later you can vary each of the parts without losing the above structure.
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