Lesson number 25-ish

Played badly. Actually, I played the basic technique exercises well - 4 note arpeggios, 6 note, triplets across all strings. Smooth, quite fast, good rhythm. Then my teacher pulled out an old exercise we haven't done for a long time, one that switches the picking: 6-5-4-5-3-5-4-5...5-4-3-4-2-4-3-4. First I forgot the chord progression, then my fingers fall apart. After that, it's all downhill. Play Bulerias. It’s not terrible but the compas is poor. And my technique creeps as the glare of my teacher intensifies: I start playing my thumb strokes from my thumb instead of from my wrist; my three finger rasgueado sometimes becomes a 2 finger rasgueado. He reminds me: sit in front of a mirror, watch your technique. If it still sounds good that’s not so bad but it’s undermining your attack and therefore your flamenco feel.
However, I don’t like the mirror. I don’t like watching myself. You should never see yourself as others do, you should live in your own mind. Watching your self is what narcissistic actors do and the greedily ambitious young politician as they climb the slippery pole. But I’ll do it, for the sake of my technique, for the sake of flamenco, and remember these points:
1. Play your thumb from your wrist not your thumb. Your thumb should stay in front of your first finger always.
2. Play the rasgueado slowly and deliberately until you’re certain you have the rhythm. Keep the count, feel the count. Be aggressive to internalise it. Then speed up. Drop it into your practising regularly. For the rest of your life.
3. Remember: in Bulerias everything starts on 12. Apart from when it starts on 11. And apart from when it starts on 1. And apparently apart from when it starts on 4, the half compass that I hear about but like the young boy fearful of kissing a girl for the first time am frightened of.
So, back to the mirror….

Why?

I came from a place where music was everywhere. Every house had a guitar, or a piano, or even just a few pots to bang and a mouth organ. We'd sing the old songs, about the places our forefathers came from, and the new songs that now everyone in the world knows. Because I'm from Liverpool and our local heroes (amongst others) were The Beatles. I didn't know they were famous. They were just songs we sang about a world we were all familiar with, Penny Lane, girls called Jude, holes in Lancashire. At every party we went to, the instruments would come out, the beer would flow and the voices would be raised in harmony. So it's no surprise that I learnt to play guitar and sing a bit. And over the years I've played guitar and sang a lot. I was one of the blokes in the kitchen, dragging a people away from the main action at parties, creating a mass sing along to a Beatles classic, or REM, or Simon & Garfunkel. Beautiful, raucous, melodic drunken fun.

But then something happened that changed how I understood music: I saw Paco de Lucia play. And I realised I'd missed half the story, that music was this much bigger world. Because, like many people from my kind of background, I'd been listening in 4/4. And now I needed to learn to count to 12.

That's what this is about: my journey learning to count to 12. Because when you are brought up in a world of 4/4, flamenco is about 12. And flamenco is what I've become obsessed about. I'm two years in and I'm getting there. But. Very.Very. Slowly. I've signed up to it for life. One day I'll be a good flamenco guitarist. As it stands, I'm a very bad flamenco guitarist. But that's a start. At least you'd know it was flamenco. I’ll get there. Hopefully I’ve got years left. This is a collection of thoughts on that journey.

This is a video of the man who got me started.

>