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RE: Which scales?
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canteytoque1
Posts: 9
Joined: Apr. 29 2020
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 RE: Which scales? (in reply to Ricardo)
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1:39: “(Gypsy communities) became a haven for Jews and Muslims who didn’t want to leave the country.” Who proved that? When have gypsy communities ever been known for taking in outsiders? There’ve been a few cases of individulas (Silverio), but it seems unlikely that entire groups of people would be taken in. Maybe there was some kind of uneasy collaboration, but I don’t think haven is the right word.
Starting around 2:16: Padre Antonio Soler was from Catalonia and died near Madrid (El Escorial) in 1783. Félix Máximo López was from Madrid, where he died in 1821. It seems to me that both were too close in time to flamenco’s roots and too far in distance from its birthplace to prove anything. If they’re meant to be just two examples to make his point, that’s okay, but he would have done much more in this regard if he’d included compás in this part of his analysis.
Starting around 6:35: He points to the cajón player’s syncopated delivery (“hemiola effect across the triplet”) to say that the connection between flamenco and Chaabi seems inescapable. Unfortunately, she plays in an aire that’s been around for less than 50 years, and the music heard at 7:16 doesn’t sound anything like flamenco. Someone in that group sings “wee-wee, wee-wee-ooh,” so maybe he thinks it sounds like Agujetas or something.
7:39: Flamenco is based on the guitar, and “you can tell this is the case because many of the unusual chords played in flamenco seem to be a direct result of the guitar’s tuning.” In the best of cases, this sounds like circular reasoning, but I’m not sure how this statement is supposed to make any kind of point. Cante is not by any means based on toque.
When he says “so-LAY-a”he might as well have been saying “flamingo” the whole time. Hearing that feels like getting slapped in the face after paying attention to him and giving his words some consideration.
As long as I’m at it, I’ll say that seeing the guitarist’s left-hand thumb wrapped around the neck just added to my disappointment.
I’ll give him points for trying, but I think it’s (reheated) weak tea.
"Next up: Does God exist? Find out the answer in this 10-minute video!"
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Date May 6 2020 10:55:36
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Which scales? (in reply to canteytoque1)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: canteytoque1
1:39: “(Gypsy communities) became a haven for Jews and Muslims who didn’t want to leave the country.” Who proved that? When have gypsy communities ever been known for taking in outsiders? There’ve been a few cases of individulas (Silverio), but it seems unlikely that entire groups of people would be taken in. Maybe there was some kind of uneasy collaboration, but I don’t think haven is the right word.
In "La Llave de la Musica Flamenca" (page 32)David and Antonio Hurtado Torres have this to say,"...una de las estratégias más comunes que emplearon los moriscos para ocultar su identidad fue la de hacerse pasar por gitanos pues sobre este grupo social la presión era menor en comparición con los primeros, ya que la principal causa de las persecuciones contra los moriscos--la cuestion religiosa--no pesaba sobre los gitanos. Además son numerosos los testimonios de la época que afirmaban que los gitanos acogían entre ellos a los perseguidos del Estado y, en general, todas las gentes de vida errante [38], todo lo cual nos pone de manifiesto que, incluso étnicamente, los gitanos constituían un grupo humano muy heterogéneo."
And in the next paragraph, "...podemos leer en un informe del año 1610 manejado por el Consejo del Estado y conservado en el Archivo General de Simancas, "Hay presunción que muchos que andan como gitanos son moriscos."
[38] Manuel Barrios, Moriscos y Cante Flamenco. RC Editor, Sevilla 1989, págs 52 y 53
Barrios actually states that the moriscos and other migratory people were "received" by the gitanos, while the Consejo del Estado merely asserts that moriscos presented themselves as gitanos.
This was all news to me when I first read "La Llave.." While it tends to support the classical professor's assertion that the moriscos melded with the gitanos, it does not excuse his numerous errors, nor lend credence to his other dubious assertions.
RNJ
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Date May 7 2020 19:38:41
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Which scales? (in reply to canteytoque1)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: canteytoque1
The point of contention here is whether or not gypsies would take in outsiders, and I don’t see how that relates to your cites.
Sorry, didn't mean to annoy you. I certainly would have agreed with you, had I not read "La Llave de la Musica Flamenca."
However, this relates directly to the question whether the gitanos would take in anyone else, and it contradicts my previous opinion, so I now have my doubts: "Además son numerosos los testimonios de la época que afirmaban que los gitanos acogían entre ellos a los perseguidos del Estado y, en general, todas las gentes de vida errante [38]..."
"[38] Manuel Barrios, Moriscos y Cante Flamenco. RC Editor, Sevilla 1989, págs 52 y 53"
Here is the definition of "acoger" from the Real Academia de la Lengua Española:
https://dle.rae.es/acoger
and here is the English translation of "acoger" from the website
https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/acoger
Note that I did not assert that the gitanos did in fact take in the moriscos. All I said was that the Hurtados tended to support the professor's statement, then agreed with you on your other criticisms.
Given the fact that I didn't see right away what it had to do with the subject of our posts, I didn't view the video.
RNJ
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Date May 8 2020 0:56:16
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: Which scales? (in reply to canteytoque1)
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quote:
When he says “so-LAY-a”he might as well have been saying “flamingo” the whole time
 Pretty sure he's off the mark for hijaz and chaabi too, at least compared to how a native speaker would pronounce them. Though personally the so-LAY-as, rasgwados and the like don't bother me at all.
I like a lot of what David Bruce puts up on youtube. Clearly he's a neophyte to flamenco, so there are bound to be a lot of errors in there. Would be nice if on videos like this people were more upfront about what they actually know and how familiar they are with the topic. He could even keep the click-bait title IMHO as long as he added some sort of disclaimer in the video itself. Perhaps a larger problem is that it's not particularly difficult to imagine him getting the information he presented from sources that seem fairly reliable.
The one that I found most odd was the comparison with chaabi. I could maybe hear some similarities to tanguillos but I fail to see any rhythmic similarity with solea/buleria. If there is some common root to them, it wasn't made apparent by the comparison of modern forms of the two.
Anyway, devilhand if you want to learn how to compose falsetas, you'd be better off IMHO just learning falsetas and letting the theory slowly emerge from that. I find these discussions interesting, but if after 12 pages of this were going back to the video of a flamenco neophyte, well, it just makes you wonder whether there was any point to any of this for you, despite you continuing to push the conversation forward with further questions. I seriously doubt that someone explaining that bit in Bruce's video where he talks about how in his opinion modal and tonal are balanced out in flamenco will help you learn how to compose a falseta... But, to each his own.
It's not an exact parallel, but I can tell you that I've seen plenty of language students get bogged down by theory and come out largely unable to speak the language. Certain levels of theoretical knowledge can be useful, like basic grammar, but others, like more arcane explorations of linguistic structures and how they evolve, are completely irrelevant to the person learning a language. You want to "understand" what you play, which is fair, but "understanding" doesn't have to be this theoretical. There are plenty of flamenco players who compose their own falsetas and understand it just fine, without having gone even remotely close to some of the theoretical topics discussed here.
Maybe compose something, post it and get feedback on it? That might be a more efficient way to learn.
_____________________________
"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 May 8 2020 14:41:28
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Which scales? (in reply to canteytoque1)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: canteytoque1
You’ve been at this for, what, decades now? If you’re actually interested, you could try learning about history from someone other than musicologists with an agenda.
Screw this, I’m outta here.
The Hurtados are the only musicologists, with or without an agenda, whom I have read about flamenco, among at least a dozen others. The Hurtados seem to have a particular animus against Mairena and Molina. A serious flaw with their approach is when they assert that a palo, or its predecessor didn't exist before the earliest known (at the time of writing) documented example. They go too far when they claim, but can not prove, that flamenco was created by the professionals, denying any popular origin. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
There's enough controversy among the authors I have read that I take much (but not necessarily all) of it with grain of salt. I'm not saying it's wrong. But I think there's a lot of it that wouldn't hold up in court--which is true of much of what I read every day.
I vaguely remember starting another book by a musicologist. He (they?) were trying to trace everything back to Arabic sources. I thought it was a bit far fetched. I didn't get very far before I put that one down.
I mentioned the Hurtados because you asked (rhetorically?) "who proved that?" I didn't say the Hurtados had proved anything, though their claim has some documented support. But "andan como gitanos" doesn't necessarily imply "acogidos entre gitanos." I said they "tended to support" the professor.
"La Llave..." doesn't have an index, so I'm not going to page through it to find the exact reference, but the Hurtados also document an unusually large increase in the "gitano" population in the first census after the "expulsion" of the moriscos. Were the new people really integrated with the earlier gitano population? Government officials suspected many of them were moriscos attempting to obscure their identity.
Since you know a lot more about cante than I do, I will ask, do you think there is a Moorish/Arabic element in the roots of at least some of the cante? To me the question is not whether the moriscos were integrated into gitano culture, but what are the cultural roots of the cante. The gitanos demonstrated plenty of ability to absorb elements of andaluz culture without fully integrating into it.
Who would you suggest I get history from? It's a sincere request, and I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, a serious and very informative student of flamenco.
RNJ
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Date May 8 2020 19:20:31
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Ricardo
Posts: 14800
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Which scales? (in reply to devilhand)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: devilhand
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
It looks like no one knows it. Even Mr. Marlow doesn't seem to know it too.
 
It’s like the hundredth time myself and others point you back to page one of this thread. You are are broken record dude.
You're a bit confused, aren't you? It's the year 2020. 16 years have passed since 2004.
Last time I’m gonna help you with this subject. The section of the video you asked about has been addressed thoroughly in this thread going back to page 1 when burdo and others described the 8 note scale (same hybrid mentioned in your video that references both Arabic and blues practices). Here I quote myself from page 6 of this thread, I was critiquing the music theory explanation in Claude Worms book, loaded by Mark indigo, specifically at the request of kitarist. The quote I chose here is saying the same thing I’ve been reiterating through this entire thread topic, and the fact you pointing it out again, and further say nobody understands or can expound on it, is beyond frustrating to the point of insulting. If you were not intending to be, then you just need to read everything more carefully. Please.
quote:
Ok so next the “unstable third”, already flying in the face of “identical” to the Greek mode, so what’s up with that? Anybody that might have already encountered music in the key of A minor, probably has noticed the issue of the G being raised for the sake of the Dominant chord “E major”, and the issue with the flamenco mode here is no different. “Unstable” therefore, is a poor word choice, implying perhaps something like what happens in blues. This fact needs to be pointed out immediately so that someone that understands this concept already (how and why the G changes in A minor key) can relate better, and not think the author is describing some other bizarre exotic thing related to Ancient Greece, medieval times, or other! (Indeed, I think it’s why folks go on about a nonsense 8 note scale, but never do that for basic minor key songs!)
You can insert your video example in place of “other!”, and consider the issue addressed.
To further drive my point, the vid example of Maria singing she is singing over the F chord so it’s not raised third, it’s #2, it’s approached from the natural 2...”de menos” is G-A-A-G#...she drops to F-E note for E chord. The next scale going up called “flat 3rd”, again a scale FGABCBC over or leading to F chord, or lydian scale, but comes down BAG#voice crack F# held. I repeat F#!!!!! Then she repeats de menos. So no minor or major thirds in context... you have chromatics over an F chord (lydian vibe) that finally resolve to E in the example. The song is called buleria larga. On the held F# it’s not wrong to toss in a B7 chord if you are good, so long as you still catch F-E resolution with her. Her guitarist is using Dm chord in place of F at times. (If you cant tell I’ve transposed it all to Arriba for ease of description and relevance.)
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CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date May 9 2020 5:13:57
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tf10music
Posts: 112
Joined: Jan. 3 2017
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RE: Which scales? (in reply to devilhand)
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quote:
the part starting at 5:00-5:46 made me wonder if something like blue notes exist in flamenco. It looks like no one knows it. Even Mr. Marlow doesn't seem to know it too.
I think this is illustrating quite succinctly the dangers of the one-to-one comparison between blues and flamenco that some like to meet. There are similarities between their histories, development and coding, of course, but there are also so many differences.
To be clear: there are no equivalents to the blue third anywhere, because the blue third is the blue third. There are flat thirds in flamenco, of course, but the importance of the blue third in blues has less to do with its existence and more to do with what it DOES and how it is articulated. It determines so much on a formal level within songs, and but, just as importantly, determines the forms that the lyrics take. This is not just related to the I-IV-V structure; the place of the blue third also determines the way syllables can be patterned in the lyrics, because singers do not typically want the emphasized blue third to fall on a destressed syllable. I would also argue that part of the blue third's power is due to the way in which blues tends to be locked in behind the beat -- this causes the singing to 'follow' a particular momentum. In this regard, the dynamic is a different in flamenco.
In short: the blue note isn't just a note. It's an 'affect' that is created by a convergence of circumstances within the music. Identifying an added flat third in another music doesn't make it anything like the blue third.
I understand the desire to analyze and make connections between different musics. I feel that same temptation. I'd like to suggest, though, that insisting on these kinds of rigid categorizations and equivalences or selecting the 'key scales' that you have to look at puts you in danger of ending up farther away from flamenco rather than closer to it. You've got to dive in and, even as you analyze, accept that you need to tap into the way in which flamenco understands itself in order to do that analysis properly later on.
Besides, you can look at all the scales you want, but if you go listen to unaccompanied cantes sung in the old style, you'll have to throw all of that out the window. Flamenco really becomes flamenco (as opposed to simply an imitation that hits the right notes) in its microtonal activity and the textures of its transmission.
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Date May 10 2020 3:28:42
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