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RE: What's up with this newfangled culture of "interpreting" others intrepretations?
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mark indigo
Posts: 3625
Joined: Dec. 5 2007
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 RE: What's up with this newfangled c... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
For me the idea that someone would copy a John Coltrane solo or a Miles Davis solo note for note and take it out on tour is the epitome of boredom. Yet it’s what guitarists do all the time and it’s considered sacrosanct. If you’re going to copy some piece note for note, I’m not buying a ticket because I’m not interested. If it helps them develop that’s completely valid, but in my book it’s a bit sinverguenza to not play for singers and dancers and treat album pieces like museum pieces. It’s not dead, it’s just pandering to nostalgia. I really don’t like it.
I'm not so sure how valid a comparison Coltrane and Paco is (apart from both having been great artists). I get the impression Coltrane and Miles would have found the idea of themselves repeating their solos equally boring. As I understand it they were trying to create something new each time, to compose spontaneously in their solos. I don't think anything like the same thing is going on in flamenco guitar. I do understand Paco got really interested and inspired by this concept of Jazz improvisation from playing with Mclaughlin etc. and tried to bring it into his music, but there it is usually single line soloing over chords. I know there are other guitarists like Rycardo Moreno experimenting with improvising falsetas, but most of the history of flamenco guitar AFAIK has been one of composing falsetas.
Paco de Lucia played pre-composed falsetas pretty much the same way each time. Sure, in live performances he mixed falsetas that appear on different studio recordings (so I agree with you that they should not necessarily be seen as a "piece" in the classical sense), or put different endings on falsetas on cante albums, but in the material I am most familiar with (early solo albums up to Almoraima, En vivo desde el Teatro Real, Camaron albums up to Castillo de Arena, Fosforito, Lebrijano albums etc.) the falsetas are played more or less note for note the same. I don't know how often the arrangement of falsetas changed on live tours, whether it would stay the same for long stretches of tour dates, or whether the arrangement of falsetas was improvised each show.
quote:
The late Carlos Heredia the Sevilla guitarist said he stopped listening to PDL for long periods of time because he said he could get too caught up in his mannerisms and style and Carlos wanted his own.
Enrique de Melchor said the same thing. He also played his pre-composed original falsetas the same each time.
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And it’s too bad he never recorded his own material because he had two albums worth, but he wasn’t as good a business man as he was a composer. So Carlos died and took great original toque to his grave
I have a solo CD of his, and also a CD/DVD of him accompanying Luis Agujetas.
Carlos Heredia - Gypsy Flamenco:
https://www.discogs.com/Carlos-Heredia-Gypsy-Flamenco/release/5353891
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Carlos-Heredia-Gypsy-Flamenco/dp/B000003GGL
(they have it in the US but no pic)
https://chesky.com/products/gypsy-flamenco-carlos-heredia-wav-download
check out the Cajón player: Jason McGuire!
Luis Agujeta - El Turista Soy Yo:
https://www.discogs.com/Luis-Agujeta-Con-Carlos-Heredia-El-Turista-Soy-Yo/release/5973423 (check the for sale on this page, there is one for sale in Japan)
https://www.amazon.com/El-Turista-Soy-Luis-Agujeta/dp/B01G7N3Z4Q
(weirdly the UK site lists one copy for £45, but clicking "See all 6 formats and editions" has several new copies for £11.86 and used for £10.86 - coming from Switzerland and Germany, so available throughout Europe for anyone interested).
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Date Dec. 2 2020 11:13:15
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Ricardo
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: What's up with this newfangled c... (in reply to aaron peacock)
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Ok I tried to be nice and respectful earlier with my comment about copying in art. But it’s time to be frank.
Flamenco is not an improvisational art at all. Only by mistakes or accidents. The most important thing for a guitarist is to sound flamenco, period. Same for singers. If you have learned HOW to do that with your OWN falsetas, or THINK you have, well good for you. For sure there is someone out there that doesn’t think your falsetas work at all. When you have other flamencos using YOUR falsetas then yes, maybe what you are doing is valid. I will say that again...when OTHER PEOPLE PLAY YOUR FALSETAS....OTHER PEOPLE....PLAYING YOUR FALSETAS.
That is the end of it. Of course there are some crazy egos that think their falsetas are soooooooooooooooooo amazing they have to be kept a secret, but even there would have to have been some sort of vindication that the ideas were in fact good, plus you feel you were robbed out of credit or notoriety...but in flamenco tiny world this thing is SUPER RARE.
No, the vast majority of people involved in flamenco have to earn respect for even attempting the genre by showing how they interpret SOMETHING from the maestros that came before, something recognizable. IT IS NOTHING NEW!!!!! It is not easy work, but it is essential work. Are there people who take it too far? NO THERE ARE NOT!!!!!!!! As can already be seen by examples. It is not about age, PDL stuck montoya falsetas on siroco so get over this whole concept that one needs to be ORIGINAL in the flamenco genre. It is a totally backwards concept and to criticize people putting in the work is totally ridiculous. AT once you ask in another thread if aficionadas actually have THE MENTAL STORAGE CAPACITY to recognize falseta origins from history, and over here CRITICIZE the very deep and involved activity of do just that. No, sorry, it’s time to ERASE that nonsense and learn to accept that it’s hard work involved and time is short.
Enrique and Carlos are full of BS. They are paco freaks and afraid to admit that’s what they spend their time on despite having their own material. I am the same way but can admit it at least. The reason Carlos recorded all PDL falsetas is the same reason I saw him playing them live in Sevilla....that is what he works on. Period. No shame about it. Normally it is to be commended in flamenco world to do this copying thing and the better you are at it the more advanced you are both as a player and aficionado. You can’t be doing it to the degree that you don’t understand cante accompaniment or choose to ignore the work needed there, but when not accompanying you better be doing something.
If you happen to, while diligently working and learning, to stumble upon a new idea that works, GREAT! Maybe it will stick. Maybe folks will love it and it will be the new thing (David Serva). Maybe it will be considered garbage by everyone else. Maybe it will the the thing that defined YOU as a flamenco artist only. In the end what matters is only that the guitarist sounds FLAMENCO and does good accompaniment.
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CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Dec. 2 2020 15:41:36
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aaron peacock
Posts: 141
Joined: Apr. 26 2020
From: Portugal
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RE: What's up with this newfangled c... (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
Flamenco is not an improvisational art at all. Only by mistakes or accidents. The most important thing for a guitarist is to sound flamenco, period. Same for singers. If you have learned HOW to do that with your OWN falsetas, or THINK you have, well good for you. For sure there is someone out there that doesn’t think your falsetas work at all. When you have other flamencos using YOUR falsetas then yes, maybe what you are doing is valid. I will say that again...when OTHER PEOPLE PLAY YOUR FALSETAS....OTHER PEOPLE....PLAYING YOUR FALSETAS.
So, improvisation is one thing, and I'm not referring to improvisation at all, if you read what I wrote. I speak of the palo itself as being THE musical piece. La Tumbona is a Buleria, and contains falsettas PDL developed and used during his career. You are surely an expert is his career more than I. I've seen that here on the foro. No doubts about that.
An honest, perhaps stupid, question: I want to know if you are saying that ALL of PDL's falsettas are basically derivatives of falsettas others played before him?
Are those not his falsettas? Are they slightly derivative? Are there "families" of related falsettas that can be mutually inspired?
These are earnest questions with no snark nor sarcasm.
What is the way flamencos consider the body of falsettas and how do you know if you are not accidentally copying someones etc?
These are real questions that I've not seen discussed.
Do families share falsettas, is quoting a falsetta in a modified context a "thing" as in jazz? etc.
Illuminate these areas please! What level of derivative is considered acceptable in ones original falsettas? Is one permitted to use falsettas from a locale if one is from a locale or barrio? Can one use ones fathers falsettas as-is?
quote:
It is a totally backwards concept and to criticize people putting in the work is totally ridiculous. AT once you ask in another thread if aficionadas actually have THE MENTAL STORAGE CAPACITY to recognize falseta origins from history, and over here CRITICIZE the very deep and involved activity of do just that. No, sorry, it’s time to ERASE that nonsense and learn to accept that it’s hard work involved and time is short.
On this other thread:
I've asked is there is an etymology of falsettas, a study of the origins and temporal passage of falsettas through history, or at least recorded history.
I ask this respectfully fully expecting that
1) there may be, as this community is dedicated and contains much expertise.
2) there may be common knowledge and banter among a global fan public since the dawn of the internet that may not be formalized, but that people refer to things and appear to have a "in-group common knowledge" of things. This stuff gets lost as people die.
at no point do I
1) question folks mental capacities, other than presuming great mental capacities, that I queried.
2) suggest that being capable of remembering hours of flamenco precisely as recorded was in any way easy or not a worthy task. It's what classical musicians strive for. Grisha is precisely not puzzling to me this way, in that he plays a classical repertoire of flamenco, in some sense.
I don't suggest that he needs to be a composer in order to be a good musician.
I see this as a transformation from a previous role of accompanying singers and dancers and knowing the palos and the general harmonic formats/shapes, into this CLASSICAL Solo Guitar Performance Art. Is this true?
What about flamenco composers and how is this to be approached at ALL, in your opinion?
We respect our forebears. Some are considered greats.
Are you not a fan of certain of these greats?
Are your greats not known for their original compositions?
This indicates that Composer is the legacy PDL leaves strongest, as others surely could have played his pieces better than even he could, even as the amazing player he was.
I thoroughly agree with your statements about ones falsettas standing the test of time or not, being copied by others, or not.
I thoroughly disagree with your statements about earning respect by playing others pieces well. I respect many musician/composers in flamenco who are perhaps incapable of the technical prowess required to do what Samuelito can do, but nonetheless have music (not always radically original! but always their rendition, accidentally so or otherwise) I enjoy.
My entire point was rather simple.
I saw this as a modern phenomena, a result of the youtube instagram world in which a guy reviewing plugins gets 20k likes and some amazing band gets 20 likes.
If you watch the Antonio Rey interview that Wilson posted there's a clear separation of the roles of composer and performer, and he iterates a lot of what you speak of, in terms of "you have to show up to play flamenco to support flamenco singers and dancers" and the need to do a certain job and fill a certain role.
I like your original Bulerias on youtube, Ricardo, it's soulful so nobody is picking on you... i can't even imagine what it's like to try to pay rent playing gigs related to Flamenco and the things one would need do be prepared to do.
I half expected you to say "yeah man, it's a rough circuit these days"
Getting Rock gigs only pays with cover bands these days, I'm fully aware of the state of originals in rock and the market...
In this sense, Nostalgia is deadly! nostalgia has killed any public demand for new rock. Play Nirvana, man.
What's actually at play here?
PS: Ricardo, that post you made on the "what is modern" thread is dense and rich and precisely full of the lore... THANK YOU
I'll study that for awhile.
The link in that post is relevant here also.
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Date Dec. 2 2020 18:38:37
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: What's up with this newfangled c... (in reply to aaron peacock)
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It'll come as no surprise that I agree with Ricardo on this one.
quote:
I thoroughly disagree with your statements about earning respect by playing others pieces well. I respect
Probably important here to define whose respect we're trying to earn. And I don't mean this to be disrespectful to you at all, but it's not yours. It's also not mine. Nobody should give a flying **** if I don't like their compositions. I'm a nobody in flamenco, but the people whose respect I want to earn for the most part aren't the people likely to be on this forum. It's not that I don't care about their opinions of course. I very much do. Beyond just the social aspect of friendship and whatnot, many of them are very knowledgeable people so I would care very much about what they had to say about my playing (and of course, then there's the handful of actual pro flamenco musicians, but they're not the majority). But the people whose respect I'm really trying to earn as a musician are the singers, dancers, guitarists at the local penas and the like. And I'll leave out the gitano/payo distinction because that's a whole can of worms in itself, but it does sometimes have some bearing on whose respect I'm trying to earn.
And the difference between earning their respect or not is the difference between being allowed to continue to play or having the guitar ripped out of my hands. Maybe not all flamenco environments are like that, but the ones I've happened to be in were. The little respect I have garnered is just because I'm still there trying. A sense of humour also helps (not that I would know, but so I'm told, by people who have a sense of humour).
In practice, what that means is that whatever compositions I might have made on my own time, I'm keeping those in a stash somewhere, to be refined or (most likely) discarded at a later date, but for now, I'm not in a position to use that material in a local flamenco setting (with a few exceptions, like for example younger artists who want to branch out anyway and are much less strict, guitarists who want to improvise/jam like PdL, etc.). I could make youtube videos with that material. I couldn't play it at the pena. Maybe at a juerga, but only during the days of perigean spring tide, which is when they allot 1 hour and 15 minutes between 4 and 5:15am for non-standard guiri songs. I don't know how long it'll take before I'm allowed to use entirely my own material, or if I ever will. For now, I just pepper in some "detalles" here and there, and if I'm reeeeeaaaaallly sure of it, my own falseta, and see how much I can get away with. But yes, the way I earn their respect is by playing somebody else's material, and by playing it well enough that at some point I'll have the right (one can always hope...) to start making more substantial use of my own stuff.
That's in large part why I was saying that I don't think there's a binary between orthodoxy and innovation, and it's more of a spectrum. And as far as spectrums go (spectrae? spectrorum? expecto patronum?), I find flamenco to be much more on the conservative side, closer in some ways to "classical" than to rock or something like that. To be honest, I'd be surprised if there was any kind of "communal" music where this wasn't the case, where there wasn't this kind of conservatism.
It's easier to just leave aside concepts of originality, even though most of us, at least in Europe, grew up learning that it was the most valuable aspect of music. It obviously has its place in flamenco. But it's just a rather unwieldy way of thinking about things. Also just on a very pragmatic level, if you go in head first with that kind of focus on originality, IMHO you run the risk of becoming bitter pretty quickly.
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Date Dec. 2 2020 20:18:36
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mark indigo
Posts: 3625
Joined: Dec. 5 2007
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RE: What's up with this newfangled c... (in reply to aaron peacock)
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quote:
we are essentially talking about an improvisatory folk music with each rendition being an interpretation of a sort of Platonic palo form quote:
I have often heard it said that flamenco is not a "folk" music in the sense that not everyone in a community will sing or dance or play, that it is more specialised than folk music, that it is an art music form. quote:
Interesting point. Would this not depend upon the context?
While appreciators in a tablao may not be silent it's not quite the same as a neighborhood or family affair, in which one could join in palmas or other accompaniment.
In an informal gathering when many are doing palmas, most will be doing something very simple and only one or a few will be doing cross-rhythms or contra-tiempos whatever, not everyone will sing, and not everyone will play, and of those that do many will play a few chords to accompany and only a few will be accomplished guitarists. And while many will dance, say, a patada por bulerias, not everyone will dance extended performances of a palo, let alone all palos. In a "flamenco family" where there are many professionals the proportion will be higher than in a neighbourhood.
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Date Dec. 2 2020 20:36:53
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aaron peacock
Posts: 141
Joined: Apr. 26 2020
From: Portugal
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RE: What's up with this newfangled c... (in reply to estebanana)
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that's all fine and well, PiWin, but YOU know and I know that this (getting respect within the community by dancers/singers) all has very little to do with:
Memorized copies of a particular performers singular performance (which you all even reference by location and date and if you were there or not!) replete with the tiniest nuances copied.
Because I don't think I was arguing that one should ignore tradition, palos, etc.
and I HIGHLY DOUBT that you play PDL solo material while trying to earn the respect of those you accompany. Let's be real: you play traditional forms that are not the property of a modern artist, not renditions from someones album, or? (some new kind of artistic troupe?)
I mean, I'm kinda familiar with the "conservative" music thing, I played Rancho Folklorico here in Portugal for a decade... here in the interior we have a very reductionist and literal interpretation of what a FaDo is :D lol..
(fa do)
Let's please be clear what I was asking about:
falsettas, the culture around their appropriation/expansion/derivation/recitation/quotation
is there ever a line crossed in doing an exact copy of a performance with no personal interpretation, etc. (feel free to argue, it's healthy)
and I think the original thing I found shocking was note for note performances of pieces that HAVE particular variation on particular nights of the AUTHORS performances of them! and there is no denying the very breath of a particular performance being copied.
Even the classical world will have people arguing for decades about the particularities of a particular conductor or players vision for a given piece, etc..
I'm not attacking anyones gig here, I'm curious in exploring the dynamics of Youtube PDL covers, and spare me the "it's how you get respect in the juergas" stuff lol :) it's how you get respect from guitar players.
BTW, Ricardo, I loved your Paco de Lucia falsetta series on Youtube and found it's analysis to be thorough and useful as far as getting into the pieces themselves and learning how they are built.
I personally never manage to learn complete falsettas from anyone and never will but always find loads of inspirational points to jump off from.
Forgive me all for pointing out an elephant in the room that turns out to be a sacred cow.
*list of things I am NOT saying:
1) that flamenco is improv music
2) that people should just jam and surprise dancers
3) that musicians must be composers
4) that interpretation of compositions is invalid activity
*list of things I said that were wrong:
1) the greats didn't stoop to such
2) they only did so early in their career
*list of things that are probably true but no one likes to hear them
1) guitar was not generally the center of the show until relatively recently
2) it was probably sufficient to keep good compas, play the palo with the traditional chord voicings and not try to be a genius
While PDL may not be a total iconoclast, there has certainly been resistance and his continued success and regard within the flamenco world (odd for a crossover) is largely a measure of how well he managed to balance flamenco and fusion.
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Date Dec. 2 2020 22:00:50
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Mark2
Posts: 1871
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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RE: What's up with this newfangled c... (in reply to aaron peacock)
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If you listen to Moraito and his family, you can see how families can share falsetas, and how they are modified over time. Diego plays many of his father's falsetas.
I'm not sure if PdL will be remembered more as a composer than a player but I've yet to hear anyone play one of his pieces better than he did. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but I haven't heard it. I think Paco may be remembered more as an innovator of flamenco as a whole than either a player or composer, but
it was Paco's playing that put him on the map IMO. His innovations keep him there.
quote:
ORIGINAL: aaron peacock
An honest, perhaps stupid, question: I want to know if you are saying that ALL of PDL's falsettas are basically derivatives of falsettas others played before him?
Are those not his falsettas? Are they slightly derivative? Are there "families" of related falsettas that can be mutually inspired?
These are earnest questions with no snark nor sarcasm.
What is the way flamencos consider the body of falsettas and how do you know if you are not accidentally copying someones etc?
These are real questions that I've not seen discussed.
Do families share falsettas, is quoting a falsetta in a modified context a "thing" as in jazz? etc.
Illuminate these areas please! What level of derivative is considered acceptable in ones original falsettas? Is one permitted to use falsettas from a locale if one is from a locale or barrio? Can one use ones fathers falsettas as-is?
quote:
It is a totally backwards concept and to criticize people putting in the work is totally ridiculous. AT once you ask in another thread if aficionadas actually have THE MENTAL STORAGE CAPACITY to recognize falseta origins from history, and over here CRITICIZE the very deep and involved activity of do just that. No, sorry, it’s time to ERASE that nonsense and learn to accept that it’s hard work involved and time is short.
On this other thread:
I've asked is there is an etymology of falsettas, a study of the origins and temporal passage of falsettas through history, or at least recorded history.
I ask this respectfully fully expecting that
1) there may be, as this community is dedicated and contains much expertise.
2) there may be common knowledge and banter among a global fan public since the dawn of the internet that may not be formalized, but that people refer to things and appear to have a "in-group common knowledge" of things. This stuff gets lost as people die.
at no point do I
1) question folks mental capacities, other than presuming great mental capacities, that I queried.
2) suggest that being capable of remembering hours of flamenco precisely as recorded was in any way easy or not a worthy task. It's what classical musicians strive for. Grisha is precisely not puzzling to me this way, in that he plays a classical repertoire of flamenco, in some sense.
I don't suggest that he needs to be a composer in order to be a good musician.
I see this as a transformation from a previous role of accompanying singers and dancers and knowing the palos and the general harmonic formats/shapes, into this CLASSICAL Solo Guitar Performance Art. Is this true?
What about flamenco composers and how is this to be approached at ALL, in your opinion?
We respect our forebears. Some are considered greats.
Are you not a fan of certain of these greats?
Are your greats not known for their original compositions?
This indicates that Composer is the legacy PDL leaves strongest, as others surely could have played his pieces better than even he could, even as the amazing player he was.
I thoroughly agree with your statements about ones falsettas standing the test of time or not, being copied by others, or not.
I thoroughly disagree with your statements about earning respect by playing others pieces well. I respect many musician/composers in flamenco who are perhaps incapable of the technical prowess required to do what Samuelito can do, but nonetheless have music (not always radically original! but always their rendition, accidentally so or otherwise) I enjoy.
My entire point was rather simple.
I saw this as a modern phenomena, a result of the youtube instagram world in which a guy reviewing plugins gets 20k likes and some amazing band gets 20 likes.
If you watch the Antonio Rey interview that Wilson posted there's a clear separation of the roles of composer and performer, and he iterates a lot of what you speak of, in terms of "you have to show up to play flamenco to support flamenco singers and dancers" and the need to do a certain job and fill a certain role.
I like your original Bulerias on youtube, Ricardo, it's soulful so nobody is picking on you... i can't even imagine what it's like to try to pay rent playing gigs related to Flamenco and the things one would need do be prepared to do.
I half expected you to say "yeah man, it's a rough circuit these days"
Getting Rock gigs only pays with cover bands these days, I'm fully aware of the state of originals in rock and the market...
In this sense, Nostalgia is deadly! nostalgia has killed any public demand for new rock. Play Nirvana, man.
What's actually at play here?
PS: Ricardo, that post you made on the "what is modern" thread is dense and rich and precisely full of the lore... THANK YOU
I'll study that for awhile.
The link in that post is relevant here also.
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Date Dec. 2 2020 22:23:04
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: What's up with this newfangled c... (in reply to aaron peacock)
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Then I must not have understood what you were saying after all. The point about earning respect in a pena and the like to me is entirely related to this. And yes, earning respect from fellow flamenco guitar players is also part of that. Not sure why you would exclude it.
If you're speaking specifically about Youtube, then sure, the tendency is new. It's as new as Youtube is... Starting in 2004 or roughly thereabouts, Youtube popped up and guitarists started putting up renditions of set flamenco pieces. Not sure what else there is to say about that. I'm honestly really confused about what your point is. If it's something you noticed just this year, maybe it's just that more guitarists starting posting on youtube because of the pandemic, trying to get some publicity to give classes? Dunno man. Really confused here.
Especially by this:
quote:
*list of things that are probably true but no one likes to hear them
1) guitar was not generally the center of the show until relatively recently
2) it was probably sufficient to keep good compas, play the palo with the traditional chord voicings and not try to be a genius
which to me looked like moving the goalposts, which probably just means I really wasn't understanding what you were getting at in the first place...
But to those points:
1. Guitar still isn't the center of the show for the most part. But a branch of solo guitarra did exist at least since the first half of the 20th century, and is now for a lot of guitarists the pinnacle of a flamenco career. What happened before that, dunno. Murky territory for me. But if this is about solo guitarra, then yeah, nothing new there.
2. It still is, as long as all you aspire to is to be an accompanist. Not that this is a simple feat... But yes, you don't have to be a virtuoso to be a good accompanist. That said, a lot of the falsetas you will end up playing are from set pieces, so I'm not sure I understand the distinction here. I thought this was about adherence to the original, not about technical proficiency. Dunno. You take a kid and teach him that first bass falseta in Cuando Canto El Gallo. You probably won't teach him the whole piece yet, since the whole thing involves a lot more techniques than just the pulgar you need for that falseta, but still, when he plays that falseta he's going to have to play that falseta, as is, at least in the sense that it is recognizably THAT falseta and not another. If he wants to add "detalles" that work and he can get away with, sure, nobody will complain.
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Date Dec. 2 2020 22:55:35
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aaron peacock
Posts: 141
Joined: Apr. 26 2020
From: Portugal
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RE: What's up with this newfangled c... (in reply to estebanana)
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Sometimes I hear melodies.(and instantly remember it in an easy manner as i hear them with meaning like sentences, phrasing pitch rhythm all..)
Sometimes I hear strings of notes.
noodly doodly doo.
Same in rock, jazz, flamenco, classical, egyptian pop, bhangra, calypso, blues, goa trance, bouzouki, pimba, polka, and probably country, but I wouldn't know.
Distilling a simple catchy hook out of a pile of notes is its own art.
It's amazingly sublime at times.
On a primitive level it's a bit like finding ones voice in writing. One can certainly orate a work, but one would hardly write a book from quotes (unless you are Burroughs or it's Proverbs)
PiWin, we were talking about
1) what consists of "a piece" of music when strictly doing the traditional duties- whether a platonic form is the piece and ones interpretation is an inadvertent but unavoidable byproduct,
my questions relating to how much known falsettas from others are actually incorporated in accompianamento duties (I'm also noticing very little picado runs and soloing and a lot more harmonic articulation in a rhythmic fashion in anything resembling authentic shindigs of a non-soloist guitar nature
2) when considering the solo guitar art form, what are the appropriate levels of genuflecting to the past whilst embracing ones own responsibilities to combine musical intervals in a rhythmic fashion or whatever more clever contraption one has contrived to do otherwise.
What constitutes interpreting anothers recorded (audio/video vs having been communicated by sheet music across centuries) performance from a particular night in a particular place vs outright mimicry, whether the latter is actually up for questioning or shut-up-aaron it's normal always has-been. I will respectfully admit to possibly moving many goalposts always.
I think one can also avoid not getting rather obvious points and eschew taking offense and give charitable attribution to a fellow traveler, as it were. We are all smart folk with good taste, clearly...
actually, i now realize that the concept of this thread implicitly transgresses across one of the only means folks who dedicate their lives to flamenco lore have of gaining any typical humans attention span for 5 seconds. PDL.
I sincerely apologize. It must be seriously difficult to constantly encounter that human crossover funnel of large magnitude no matter where you go in flamenco land. It's this giant spectre hanging over all as the issues he raises are the same ones continually confronting an art trying to survive the waves of time, which can only ever be through reformulating itself and yet somehow keeping an essence... good luck.
people's way of hearing things also changes, which is a social issue, of course.
PPS: it's also possible that I am reacting to the witnessing unnamed performers copying that elegant gaze, that "look away" look, when we all know that it's simply hard to refrain from wrinkling ones nose and contorting ones face into grimaces like a tortured hound dog, admit it...
that is a patented gaze and should be disallowed in competition.
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 3 2020 0:47:44
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: What's up with this newfangled c... (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
Frankly, lot’s of people seem to know all about how important cante is and how accompaniment is some how “simple guitar” compared to ego driven soloing
I'm probably guilty of that to a certain extent. Well, not of thinking solo guitar is ego-driven or anything like that, but just of seeing accompaniment as less demanding as far as technical virtuosity is concerned. Not sure why that is, to be honest. I'd never really thought about it. Off the top of my head, I'm wondering if it isn't just an artefact of how I got into flamenco in the first place. I started out with pretty much an exclusive focus on solo guitar, which I think is pretty common for foreigners. By the time I finally got interested in accompaniment, I had already reached some level of technical proficiency. Not great by any means, but, let's say, comfortable enough to play some "OK" renditions of a certain number of set pieces (lots of Sabicas, a bit of early PdL, some Vicente Amigo, and a bit of Riqueni, though Riqueni was really pushing it for me). And focusing on accompaniment, since I was starting completely from the beginning there, meant that I had to leave a lot of that stuff to the side just to be able to focus on the basics of accompaniment. And then you get a few beginner's experiences where you pull through a performance while sticking just to the basics, with nothing flashy or all that technically demanding. So that might have led to this impression that accompaniment doesn't demand the same technical virtuosity as solo guitar. Dunno.
At the same time, I never thought for a second that accompaniment was easy. Never thought that, say, what Cepero was doing for cante or what El Viejin was doing for baile was simple, including just sheer technique. I guess there's a bit of cognitive dissonance there on my part. Damn it. 
@mark indigo my eengleesh iz zo bad zat eeven my spellinge as a sssick axaunt.
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Dec. 3 2020 16:21:12
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