You find it in the most unusual places...

I've been to Mumbai a few times. A one off. Like much of India, packed to the rafters with the most outrageous contradictions. And some of the best food in the world....but not a lot of flamenco (so I presume). Which allows the locals who do try to find out more the chance to see big names up close & personal: Carmen Cortes & Gerardo Nunez.

www.fractalenlightenment.com/2007/11/spanish-flamenco-performance

Lists

Good lesson last night. Played quite well. Too much talking as usual, not enough playing. But good nonetheless. But the Bulerias is stretching me to breaking point. Not just how hard it is to play but how hard it is to memorise. If it’s not bad enough having to think about technique, about timing, being able to count to 12 etc etc, now we’re up to 10 falsettas in the Bulerias. Ten. Imagine a rock song with 10 completely different sections. OK, the Grateful Dead did that, Dark Star being the classic example but they’re a one off. 10 compeltely different bits. So I’ve taken my general passion for writing lists (Writing a good list is so rewarding isn’t it?) and brought it into my flamenco world. The key to a good list is as follows:

1. It’s simple.
2. But only to you.
3. It should be written in some code you make up on the spot.
4. And later forget.
5. So you actually have to stop and think about the basis of your code then eventually remember.
6. Which means it isn’t actually that helpful for playing guitar.
7. because you have to stop so often to think about it.
8. Like some 16^th century cipher.

Here is my Bulerias list. See if you can figure it out. If you can, let me know what it means because I can’t remember.

Bulerias

1. D minor – c – Bb – A

2. fast falsetta from high E

3. bass run on A

4. run on E

5. syncopated riff on A

6. All the A’s

7. Tumbler

8. break on 3

9. Circle of 5ths

10. Am/ E7 falsetta

12

The count to 12. Er...maybe I should have talked about this earlier. It's the most important thing. I've said that much in post number 1 but if you're not into flamenco that doesn't tell you much. You might be a guitarist who plays some simple chords, or some great finger picking blues or whatever. You're not really going to get '12' unless i explain it a bit more. And then I'll explain how it becomes part of you.
The count is up to 12. Sometimes 11 and 12 are silent with the finale on 10...
Steady on. Too. Much. Information. Let's keep it real simple. The count is to 12 whereas most music the count is to 4. With a lot of rock the accent is on 2 & 4: dum DA,dum dum DA. (Christ it's not easy writing stuff like this down without looking like a 18 month old kid. The Indians have a way to describe it but I'm not going to learn that as well, I can barely keep my head above water as it is...)
With flamenco the accents occur on the path to 12 in regular but uneven ways. That's the key characteristic. It's not evenly split, it's uneven. It's not always the same (although it kind of is if you just imagine you're starting from a different place (WTF, starting from a different place from where I'm starting, that's just madness, how can you imagine you're starting from a different place, what kind of crazy talk is that. Are you on drugs?!)
Stick with me: for example, accents in Solea and Bulerias (although not always…sorry I’m just confusing you now aren’t I?) are on 3/6/8/10/12. So:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

When you start you’re just counting. It’s music, it’s not rhythm. You need to internalise it, you need to be it. So you need to put in the work.
Clap it out, tap your feet, drum on the steering wheel.
When you walk, count it.
If you go for a run, count it.
When you’re in meeting, count it (in your head, not out loud: people will think you’re losing it.)
When on a plane, nod your head to it.
When in bed, dream it.
Emphasise the accents.
I promise you this: after a couple of years it will almost feel right.
Then you’re beginning to be a flamenco.

The burden of travel

I’m about to go away for a few days. In fact, I’m away a lot. Which I like. I love experiencing new or old places. Just something different, a place to find out about people, about life. To grow, to find something new within you. Being in Spain is part of how I got hooked on flamenco - presumably like lots of other people who love flamenco. But when it comes to travelling, there’s one enormous problem: you can’t take your guitar with you.
Ok, maybe you can if you’re going away for a while and you’re not travelling around too much. And you aren’t moving around too much. Or don’t care about carrying loads of shit around with you as you move from place to place. And you don’t mind the way the airlines give you more and more hassle. Or the looks from the security people it. And so on. So: no guitar.
And then what? What do you do for a week when the thing that defines your daily life as much as anything - namely playing/learning – is not available to you? Now I’m not complaining, the travel is the most important thing. But it’s only human to get those cravings, to have that itch, the need to pick up a guitar, to pick some arpeggios, to spin your wrist, to hold down a chord that conjures up thoughts of the rolling hills in southern Spain. Which is ironic, because that’s where I’m going for the next few days. Tapas, wine, roling hills, flamenco…but no guitar. Wish me luck

Moraito Chico

Moraito Chico. Don’t know much about him but I gather he’s from Jerez. What a place… I was there last year and ended up in one of those very basic penas, when you’re not sure if it’s a tourist thing or more real. Then they start and they do something to you. So you don’t care with a tourist thing or not. Good for them. The group weren’t on for long but it had a anarchic energy. Very simple, very earthy, lots of fun. A few days later I got home and put on a CD I’d bought a few months earlier at the flamenco shop in Sevilla, a CD I’d fallen in love with. Flicking through the cover I realised it was same dudes I’d seen in Jerez. Check out the CD, a compilation called ‘Nueva frontera del cante de Jerez’. If you can’t find it anywhere, go to Sevilla and find the shop in the you-always-get-lost-in-them back streets. it will be well worth the effort. Even if you get lost.

Rules/break the rules

The lesson was ok last night. There are so many falsettas in the Bulerias I'm learning that I begin to get confused in the latter sections and it gets a bit messy. I know that this will get better as it gets hard wired into my brain. I can deal with that pain. For now.
Bulerias is generally in A major. But the bit I’m on now is in A minor. And it’s beautiful. Rhythmically it pretty straightforward, my fingers can do it even though it looks complicated and it sounds great. So the kind of flamenco I can impress people with straightaway. Nice.
The A mjor to minor thing is a reminder of one of the things I love about flamenco. In many ways flamenco is about rules: in terms of rhythm, the underlying musical structure, the techniques. In terms of the underlying musical structure it’s surprisingly like 12 bar blues: you know where you are going and kind of how you’ll get there. But then in flamenco – and to some extent 12 bar – the rules are thrown aside because someone just wants to. So we don’t stay in the major, we go to the minor. Or even when we stay in the major we play a note in the scale that we shouldn’t. In A major you go to both C & Db. It should work. But it does work. It doesn’t necessarily make ‘sense’ but once you do it – and only once you actually do it - you understand. In fact it’s so perfect that when you try it the ‘proper’ way, it sounds dull, predictable, lifeless….in fact wrong.
I don’t invent in flamenco yet, other than some arsing about. Certainly nothing I’d call writing or creating. It’s not ingrained enough. But I know that when I’ll do I’ll look at the ‘rules’ and then figure out ways to break them, flamenco ways, which I guess is about technique or semi-tones and dissonance. Who knows when…