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