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RE: I'm kind of over solo guitar
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Mark2
Posts: 1871
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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 RE: I'm kind of over solo guitar (in reply to estebanana)
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I think it's ok to focus on different things at different times. Like most non Spanairds, I became interested through the guitar. Sabicas & Montoya record specifically. I saw both of them live and as a guitarist who played popular styles, was captured by their music, and the nature of their gig.
I always knew a flamenco guitarist should be able to accompany, but learning it posed a unique challenge-at that time in my area there were few opportunities. After a time, I found myself playing solo at a Spanish restaurant and a drunk Spanaird came up and wanted to sing fandangos-I knew three fandangos solos but had no idea how to follow him. A short time later I found myself playing in dance schools and trying to learn to accompany cante. It got to the point where I didn't even want to do the guitar solo in a show. No interest at all. Now, I haven't played for dance in about a decade, and singing even longer. I listen to solo records such as VA's, Paco Serrano's latest, Diego del Morao's, Moraito, etc. with great enjoyment. It's in fact the only way I can get through 40 minutes on an elliptical machine. I went to VA's show over Farruco's grandson's recently. But I spend time at home picking apart accompaniment moves from records as much as practicing picado. So, I'm throughly confused but still enjoying it all.
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Date Mar. 20 2016 16:37:02
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Ricardo
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: I'm kind of over solo guitar (in reply to Leñador)
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Once again, unlike the rest, I have to say there is no such thing as, for ME, "too much of a good thing". If the artist is good and wants to be there doing this, I can endure it for hours, days, weeks. I know from the first few bars of ay ay ay, if a cantaor is good. If it's mediocre, man, nothing is more difficult to endure. Same with Dance. I know a lot of the structures...being forced to sit through it whilst the giddy guitar fans sitting next to me are like "oh wow that DANCER!" Or..."oh that singer really lets his heart out"...when I know what they are singing or dancing specifically, and worse, that they are just "fulfilling a role" so to speak, for me is just "ugh!!!!". Eye roll. So a deep self indulgent solo that goes on for ever, if it is good stuff, It's just icing on the cake for me. I have always been a "put that on repeat!!!" Kind of guy.
Now, if I KNOW an artists is great, and deliberately holding back, like trying to be tasteful or doing things only to please the crowd, or other wise compromising his or her art...I find THAT infuriating. Really makes me want to just break something. Unless it is done in such away as to be held back until the right moment, which is fine, so it delivers a heavy emotional punch, that's fine. But just doing things to be acceptable is just boring. To me. Finally, I know I must endure all the complainers, but I find that gets OLDER than anything.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Mar. 20 2016 20:17:44
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: I'm kind of over solo guitar (in reply to Ricardo)
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Just to be clear, though my first post in this thread may come off as pretty negative, in fact i'm not complaining, and I'm certainly not prescribing.
I've had a good time at a tourist oriented but well executed tablao performance in Ronda. I've enjoyed a session of mainly up-tempo dance at Casa Patas in Madrid with up to date guitar accompaniment, after a good dinner and a couple of glasses of good wine. I might not have gone if Larisa had not expressed an interest, but while I was there I genuinely enjoyed it.
And I have really enjoyed a few performances in Old Town Alexandria. In fact, to celebrate Larisa's Master's degree I hosted a dinner for nine there, and enjoyed a conversation with Ricardo when they took a break.
I'm just saying what I tend to gravitate to, and what most often grabs me emotionally. I'm not putting down any other areas of the art. More power to them. I enjoyed Niño de Pura when he was here fairly recently. I've got tickets to Vicente Amigo on Wednesday...
But after midnight, with the lights down low and a glass of Cognac beside me, it's more likely to be Terremoto de Jerez (padre) and Manuel Morao on the CD, or even the DVD player than Diego del Morao.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 20 2016 22:15:21
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: I'm kind of over solo guitar (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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I suppose my introduction to flamenco had some influence on my present taste.
I grew up with Spanish as a second language. In the summer I spent at least as much time in the ranch foreman's house, where Spanish was spoken, as I did in my grandparents' house. One of the foreman's sons is almost exactly my age. We are still close friends.
While in the 3rd through the 5th grades in San Antonio, Texas, Renaldo Antonio "Reggie" M(an Irish surname) was my best pal and accomplice in crime. Reggie's father was an Irish mining engineer who was often gone on business to various places in Latin America. His mother was from a prosperous Nicaraguan family. Spanish was most often spoken at Reggie's house, and his mother insisted upon proper castellano, though her pronunciation was Latin American.
Reggie even went so far as to ridicule local speakers of Tex-Mex. Not people we knew at school. That would have been dumb. We were careful to form an alliance with them, but he would sometimes harass people we met at random around town. I kept out of it. It embarrassed me. It remains mysterious to me why we never got our butts kicked, or at least had a knife pulled on us. He's now retired from a lucrative career as a lawyer, so maybe he was just a good judge of who to pick on even as a kid.
In the U.S. Army in 1962 I was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Ground for a while, just north of Baltimore. On weekends I would go to New York and hang out at the club Zambra. After a while I was invited to the after hours juergas that went from 2 AM Sunday closing time until sunrise, or later.
Quite a few Spanish artists circulated through New York in those days, and almost all the cantaores and tocaores ended up at the juergas, even a few of the dancers. Sabicas never played for the general public there, but he often played at the juergas. He never hogged the stage, always inviting cantaores and other guitarists to play despite the immense respect they all accorded him. He loved to accompany cante, and often accompanied dancers when they appeared.
I made the acquaintance of Fernando Sirvent, Zambra's house guitarist, and his sister Amor who had a gift shop and dance studio in Washington, DC. I had a guitar with me, and was beginning to learn classical before I went into the Army. Flamenco fascinated me.
When I was out of the Army, back from Central America, and had a little money I traveled to Spain. I hung out at the club with the same name, Zambra in Madrid, where Rafael Romero "El Gallina" was the featured cantaor and Perico El del Lunar (padre e hijo) were the guitarists. I also heard Mairena a number of times, usually accompanied by Melchor de Marchena, and various other great artists on the Madrid scene in the mid to late 1960s. I stayed in Spain for several months, and made it to Triana. The Gypsies hadn't been kicked out yet, and there was cante in many bars. I took a few lessons from an old guy who was the house guitarist in one of the bars. I sampled the scenes in Jerez and Cadiz.
Somehow I never heard of the scene which attracted so many Americans to Moron de la Frontera, centered around Donn Pohren's place, Diego del Gastor, Fernanda and Bernarda until I got back to the USA. My exposure was to Madrid and the bigger cities in Andalucia.
So my introduction to flamenco was heavy on cante, and light on solo guitar and baile. But back in Texas there was very little baile, and even less cante. For the real thing the closest source was Manolo Caracol's place "El Rincon de Goya" in Mexico City, or his competitor "Gitanerias." I worked pretty hard on solo guitar, got to where I could play all the published transcriptions of Mario Escudero's stuff, copped a little Sabicas and Niño Ricardo off records, and hung out with some of Ed Freeman's students when I moved back to Austin for grad school.
Ed knew what he was doing. His transcriptions were accurate, the technique he taught was authentic. He was a literate and educated musician who played dance bands and jazz in his native England, then pulled up his tent stakes and went to Spain after WW II to become a flamenco. I got a little acquainted with him, but had the good sense never to take lessons from him. Our temperaments were not a good match for a student-teacher relationship, but I liked him. He was a great guy, and he attracted some great people as students. I never knew how he ended up in Dallas, Texas, but I'm glad he did.
I suspect my introduction to flamenco differed a fair amount from that of those on the Foro who came to the art mainly via the guitar.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 21 2016 2:40:52
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Ricardo
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: I'm kind of over solo guitar (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Ed knew what he was doing. His transcriptions were accurate, the technique he taught was authentic. He was a literate and educated musician who played dance bands and jazz in his native England, then pulled up his tent stakes and went to Spain after WW II to become a flamenco. I got a little acquainted with him, but had the good sense never to take lessons from him. Our temperaments were not a good match for a student-teacher relationship, but I liked him. He was a great guy, and he attracted some great people as students. I never knew how he ended up in Dallas, Texas, but I'm glad he did.
A friend of mine was a close friend and student, and when Ed passed his widow unloaded some cool stuff on him. Namely, a 60's era Ramirez I got to play the other day that was just fantastic. He also was a luthier apparently as my friend has one of his personally constructed guitars as well. Glancing at his transcriptions I found it odd he viewed the Phrygian key forms as actually in the normal major key, with accidentals against the key signature all over the place. For example siguiriyas por medio or Alegrias in A major would have the same key signature.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Mar. 21 2016 9:55:45
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: I'm kind of over solo guitar (in reply to Grisha)
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Could be worse. Imagine being a professionnal Alaskan throat singer 
Personally I see a huge difference between recitals and other kinds of concerts. Though I may be misusing the term "recital". What I mean is that it is too very different thing between having one guitarist or two on stage, and having one guitarist as the center of a band. IMHO, the former is more introspective, it's about full immersion in the sound and not so much about what is being shared with other people in the audience (kind of as if the artist was communicating directly to each audience member individually but not to them as a whole). But V. Amigo style shows mimic what you'd see in the tablao, the other artists are present. It starts to feel like a rock concert where there's is as much if not more sharing between audience members than between the artists and the audience. In that setting, it's a bit weird to have the guitar take center stage all or most of the time. To me the impression gets even stranger the more "support artists" you add. That to me is the "issue", the set-up of having a band somehow gets me to expect something like a tablao, but then I'm "deprived" of the art of the other band members present. One of the most moving recitals I've ever been to was one of Javier Conde (unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to see you yet! But whenever you drop by Madrid next I'll be there!). He managed to take us on a journey of emotions. Was really amazing. But I get the feeling that if he had added any other instruments, or a singer to accompany him, it would have made the experience less intense and not the other way around.
Anyways, just my 2 cents.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
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Date Mar. 21 2016 15:51:50
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: I'm kind of over solo guitar (in reply to Grisha)
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quote:
I am sorry for the bitterness, but it has been in me for a very long time. Sometimes I feel like the past 32 years of my life with guitar have been wasted, but I only feel that around flamenco community. I understand it's my problem and I have to come to terms with reality. My apologies if I have offended or disappointed anyone. Better if I stay away from foro for a while. Please carry on with the original topic.
Not everyone is "over solo guitar," Grisha. As I mentioned in my post above, I still very much long for a solo guitar concert by Sabicas, or even Carlos Montoya, who first piqued my interest in flamenco when I was 17 years old, both live in concert and on vinyl LPs. I have since learned a lot that I did not know then, including a love of and appreciation for cante, but I have never lost my love of the lone flamenco guitarist, just the man and his instrument, producing amazing music. There are many ways we express ourselves, and if yours is as the lone guitarist, by all means continue without apology. You need not acquiesce to current trends or the taste of others. I haven't, and I am very comfortable with my choices. You should be too.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 21 2016 17:25:37
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