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I have no doubts. Nonetheless, I find that Paco, followed by many guitarists, have shaped a niche or a sub-genre. It’s not properly flamenco but it’s a genre with it’s own dignity. I for one listen and like both.
At a certain stage Paco used to play quite regularly what you call ‘fusion’. ‘Tierra’ from Vicente Amigo is somehow world music. Gerardo plays a good amount of fusion as well. In my view these are all people trying to take new paths.
No doubt they are trying to take new paths. But in doing so they expedite the dilution of flamenco and its eventual absorption into "World Music." While some may like it, it will no longer properly be termed "flamenco."
The irony in all this is that the demise of proper flamenco is being spearheaded by flamenco tocaores and cantaores themselves in their attempt to remain "relevant" to todays shallow listiening public. This is a public that depends on the internet for "sound bites" of news and YouTube videos for everything else, a public that is ignorant of flamenco and doesn't care. The genre doesn't fit their definition of instant gratification in musical taste.
Bill
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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."
The record tierra or the track? In both cases to me the record contains a lot of great flamenco guitar. He simply surrounds his flamenco playing with the other instruments. Specifically the track Tierra contains a falseta that is one of the best falsetas for accompanying dance por tangos that I've ever heard. While there is no dance on the track, when I hear that falseta I can hear the steps that could go with it. No way a player who doesn't love dance writes that. Strip away the trappings and there is great flamenco playing on that record IMO.
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ORIGINAL: Echi
At a certain stage Paco used to play quite regularly what you call ‘fusion’. ‘Tierra’ from Vicente Amigo is somehow world music. Gerardo plays a good amount of fusion as well. In my view these are all people trying to take new paths.
I agree-it's an assault on the ears. I can't imagine how a player that good could stand it. I don't know how much better it sounded in the hall, but just......no
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ORIGINAL: Leñador
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Not sure which transducer is Ana using in her guitar but listen what it can do to the classical sound
Why would a tone obsessed classical player let that happen??? Why does she even have a 1/4" jack on her guitar?? That's brutal.......like the "nylon guitar" function on a cheap Casio......
Lol y’all need to go to old school foro.... if it still exists
The topic under discussion is not so much "old school" vs. "modern." The discussion, as I see it, is more, "Whither flamenco in 20 years if it becomes a form of "World Music" and evolves into a form unrecognizable as flamenco, or at least flamenco as we know it?" I have stated before that I don't hold a claim to "ground truth" and I may be wrong, but I see the odds pointing in that direction.
I cherish being a member of this Foro, even though I might appear to be an outlier in my tastes. I cannot imagine the group at the "Old School Forum" being as interesting and engaging as the members of this Foro. What other forum combines comments on Ramon Montoya, Sabicas, PDL, aircraft drawings, and speculation on the make-up of the Cosmos?!
Bill
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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."
That's why it's a boring topic. After making a guitar if some idiot wants to put a piezo in it fine. What the hell can I do about stupidity? Nothing. Why get mad?
I'm not particularly interested in big show flamenco, I buy tickets when I can afford it to support artists. I go to shows and mill around in order to get into the after party to see if anything happens like the singers get with the guitarists and sing what they feel like singing. For me that is flamenco.
I'm not that old and I'm decidedly interested in older flamenco.
I resent the implication that being into older flamenco dates one, or casts one into a category of ignorance of more recent Flamenco. That type of categorizing is ignorant and uncool.
I don't personally like Paco's music as much as other flamenco, but I recognize his achievement. You would have to be deaf not to get it. But there is a lot of music chauvinism in flamenco and the worst of it comes as nagging at people who prefer older flamenco who distinguish cante as the most important part. Period.
So cut the crap and stop bagging on people who defend real flamenco. Paco is opptional, cante isn't. And any fool knows Paco is significant, but worshipping him is not important if you're not into him as a guitarist.
So cut the crap and stop holding up Paco as an idol we all need to genuflect to daily.
On the topic of amplification, the Bartlett mic systems in my opinion are among the least bad. Menos Mal. But what happens with sound is out of the control of guitar makers, it's not part of the craft. It's a part if performance that musicians need to work up the sound system that works for them.
I dislike the concept of making guitar that are easier to mic up because it's antithetical to the whole concept of making a guitar. That's another fallacy for another day. But pick ups and dead guitars are not a way forward, it's just a way of broadcasting bigger sounds. It has zilch to do with Flamenco.
Take your four saxes and shove them up a gorillas poop shute.
Your hook is showing. Pull that line out of the water and bait it right.
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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."
The cantaor, startled by the hook up his ass, belted out the initial quejio: Ay ay aaaaaayyyyyyy In the background, a Faulk guitar equipped with a piezzo started playing: quack quack quack quaaaaack. quaquaquack quack quack.
A man in the audience leaned over to his wife and said "God I hate it when they play this modern world music stuff". "What's the difference?" she asked. " It sounds flamenco to me." "The modern stuff sounds like this: 'quack quack quack'. But this is how real flamenco should sound: 'cuac cuac cuac'. See?"
The moral of this story is that if you're going to quack like a duck while playing flamenco, you should at least quack like a Spanish duck.
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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."
As I said, I can't prevent every drug addled hippie from plugging in any guitar.
Iss not my yob mang.
I think someone made the duck into morcilla. The more I see ya the more ducky you get.
Now thus thread is much less boring.
The thing I don't like about guitar making are the unwritten laws that people put on makers; like having an opinion about Flamenco style and taste is not cool. It turns off certain people should would be buyers. It's not interesting, people' who make guitars should be able to have strong likes and dislikes and not have to remain neutral in order to please everyone.
I don't care what music people play after they buy. I don't judge what they use the instrument for, I may or may not like it, but I'm not a person who thinks my precious instrument was wasted on any kind of music I don't like. Even in my heart I don't judge people for how they choose to use it. It's not my nature, I'm simply amazed that you can make a this thing that makes sound and someone will give you money for it. It's utterly astounding. If they need to put some sound gear on it and play fusion, it's not my call to judge. I did my job. Perhaps I'd rather not hear about one of my guitars getting that role and treatment, but after I release it into the wild it's on it's own, it's a grown up.
It makes me sad in the few instances when something I made was truly abused, but pick ups and the kind of music people play that doesn't grab me is what musicians need to do for themselves. The guitar is not an extension of the makers ego, it's a tool, like a medical device, it's an instrument for service.
That's why I like some music and not other music and am not too shy about saying so. I respect the musicians choices about how the instrument serves them. I return I like to be left to my strange atonal music and my Webern and horn jazz without being assaulted for liking Moraito more than Paco. I'm not stupid, I just have my own taste.
Man it's 5am. Isn't there some kind of curfew on fowl puns?
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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."
I dislike the concept of making guitar that are easier to mic up because it's antithetical to the whole concept of making a guitar.
In my understanding it’s just a matter of a guitar with few overtones and with a good presence in the mid freq. You can make a quality guitar within these factors without being antithetical. Forgive me the blasphemy, but it’s more or less the concept behind a good Hauser guitar (with any due distinction).
God you really don't understand the art of the tirade. I just threw down a masterpiece and all you can say is - 'Its my understanding blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah you yyyyy know blahs a few
"
Jesus H ffing Christ it's flamenco, rip your shirt and get out of white freaky mind...
Sometimes I ask myself, why do I waste these high minded elegant and elitist rants on you people. Why?
Got to be polite to pay the bills. Might not be enough to live like a cardinal but you might be able to spare, oh, at least a bit of money to live in peace until you crowke. You dodon't have to be tacitern, but you have to treat your flamingo buddies like equails and learn tucan it once in a while.
If Tucan, so can I.
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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."
Piwin the poet write a tome of rime. The ancient mariner will squirm in time, His compassion and compas for your words and faulksetas a thousand journeys will entertain.
But to thee a half bag of burrito farts I would never give for your albatrosses. Pen on your glossas, wearing your madrasas and drinking with your bosses.
"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."
"The Moving Feather writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Duckery nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Quack, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Chirp of it.”
Crowmar Khayyam
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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."
I got an email from a guy in Spain yesterday, he asked me to make him a guitar that was muy chingona. He sent a picture of. A Mexican guitar with a double cutaway. He's serious. He's molecular biologist by trade.
I think it just goes to show that you can't be too careful.
As Milton Crowmore used to say: "One chingon to another, I think you're ostriching for truth where egrets dare not plover."
But I will move along lest I become too much an anapest and trochee on my words.
Now I'm thinking big butt + double cutaway. If the rosette could read "piezzo" that would be a plus.
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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."
"Hello Condi, ( my nickname is Condi after condoleeza rice. Because she's so uptight)
where are you these days? Still in Japan? I am tired of Spain and Spanish mediocrity. Fortunately, I have a wonderful girlfriend, so, any intentions of moving out of here are now gone. What about you? I was talkin to Frank the other day and he mentioned that you would be visiting California soon.
I was watching this video of the mexican singer "La Rumorosa" and I saw the most chingona guitar ever. Take a look, min 1:23. Can this guitar be made? If so, how much would it be? I always wanted one of your guitars. Maybe it is time to get one. I can't buy anything right now but hopefully very soon.
A."
I'm not sure if I shouldn't just order the guitar from a Mexican shop have it sent to Japan, then put my label in it and send it to A in Spain.
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