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Would love to find out the name of that book if you can remember it - I'm very interested in guitar at the time of Montoya, and especially the way flamenco and classical traditions influenced each other.
R. Montoya capoed at 5 for his minera solo 30 years before.
Where the hell do you come up with this stuff?! I hope you're writing all of this down and will publish it some day. Seriously, you have encyclopedic knowledge of flamenco, and it'd be a great resource to have it in print some day.
Seriously, you have encyclopedic knowledge of flamenco, and it'd be a great resource to have it in print some day.
I agree. But the Montoya things is just a question of listening to the recording and doing some arithmetic; although Alain Faucher’s book says capo 4. Pitch was a lot more variable in those days (A=440 wasn’t standardised internationally until 1955). Also, the speed of the of the old recordings was often variable: some of them were recorded at 80 rpm, not 78. I remember this issue arising when Segovia’s early recordings were being remastered for LP — several people said the reissues were too fast.
R. Montoya capoed at 5 for his minera solo 30 years before.
Where the hell do you come up with this stuff?! I hope you're writing all of this down and will publish it some day. Seriously, you have encyclopedic knowledge of flamenco, and it'd be a great resource to have it in print some day.
I pulled the 30 year number from my butt based on recording dates 1959-1936 (23 year gap) and gave montoya a couple years benefit that he did not go to paris and make stuff up on the spot but had developed his toque for at least 7 years up to that point. Other recordings of montoya has him with his guitar tuned down at least half or whole step when not using capo so there is a good chance too that his capo positions are actually higher then they sound. My only point was that in terms of tonality (G# minera) and capo position, Sabicas was NOT being terribly innovative with Carmen Amaya. However, the simple fact they were doing it as a dance in 2/4 might be considered innovative, and for sure the concept of timing that sabicas used in general compared to Montoya was more advanced.
Regardless, the MAIN point is that levante cantes (literal song forms) and toques (they way the guitar accompanies or plays solo) don't always correspond by their names as printed on record labels.
I recently read some reference to guitarists playing certain flamenco forms in the; "C#Phrygian" mode, and how it enabled really interesting dissonant harmonies and discords, etc.
I'd never heard of this mode before?
I can't remember where I saw this; I think it may have been in the local library, but its bugging me that I cant remember what it said.
Can anyone enlighten me about this C#Phrygian mode, what forms it is used for, etc. etc.
Are there any TABS/videos, etc. available showing examples of these 'interesting' harmonies?
Always curious. . . .
I thought the earliest use of C# was Manolo Sanlucar's C# Granaína or the Niño Miguel vals Ricardo mentions, but I found out a while ago that the dedicatee of Manolo's C# Granaína [on the Mundo Y Formas vol 2], Alberto Velez used it years earlier [he was born in 1921].
In this book/cd of transcriptions of Alberto Velez there is of a libre style solo in C# standard tuning titled "CAPRICHO (Rondeña)"
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Happy to buy into the theory, but I would love to hear it, and also, what was the DATE it was recorded?
I tried to upload the track but failed
will have another go...
the tracks on the cd are played not by Alberto Velez but by Javier Gomez, who was a student of Alberto's. I have no idea of actual dates, and just assumed it predates Sanlucar's composition/recording.