Travel Embargo

I've said it before: travel might broaden the mind but it doesn't help your guitar playing. Every time I go away I find myself craving my guitar. And I travel a lot.
So today at lunchtime I popped into a nearby guitar shop where I tried out one of those travel guitars. If you don't know what they are, see the picture. I played a Martin one. Guess what? They're rubbish. Well, they're rubbish for someone who plays flamenco. They have no body so it's nearly impossible to play most flamenco right hand techniques. There's nothing to rest your thumb on for rasgueado or picardo, nothing to tap your golpe on etc etc. It's obvious really. They have no body and the body is critical to flamenco. What was I thinking?! So what I might do is buy a quarter size classical guitar. I need to measure my bag and measure the guitar. I'll keep you posted.

Review: Nino de Ricardo Masters of Flamenco

This is great guitar playing. Beautiful, lyrical, feisty playing. From my position of ignorance, he reminds of Sabicas in that it is traditional & played straight ie. it's before Paco. But Sabicas is slightly flowery, showy, whereas Nino de Ricardo feels more kind of earthy, in his own bubble. Like he's playing for himself rather than for an audience. Which I love. Then again, what do I know, I'm just listening, he might have been a right show-off for all I know.
Because it's old some of the recordings don't sound so good. But that's flamenco for you.
As ever, here he is an action. Maybe I'm just a junkie for the old days, before everything was ruined by something I can't quite fathom. Then again, that's probably just bullshit.

Emergency Over

His nail isn't as bad as thought.
Thank God for that.
Now I need to get some practice in.
(I think that is practice with a 'c' rather than 's'. But I'm never certain. I always ask my work mate. He knows about these things. But he's not here right now. As I recall, practise with an 's' is a verb, the doing one; practice with a 'c' is the noun, the location or event one. The spelling idiots at Microsoft clearly know nothing.)

Only in flamenco...

It's been a few weeks. I've been away. Again. I didn't play guitar for a week. A whole week. But coming back & picking up my baby I played pretty well. I've got the Bulerias sort of nailed. As much as you can ever nail flamenco. But it's pretty good. So I was looking forward to my next lesson. I've only had one is the last 7 weeks. And in that time I've practised a lot. So I was out to impress. Get the teacher's nod.
And then I got a text. He's had an accident. He's broken his nail. Badly. But it's still his nail & if I told any one who didn't get flamenco they'd just laugh: you cancelled a lesson because of your nail? Only in flamenco...

Review: Paco Pena Fabulous Flamenco

I think this was the first flamenco LP I bought. I still absolutely love it. It's very traditional, which is what drew me to flamenco and still what drives my passion. There's perhaps a number of flamenco lovers who feel it is too predictable, or didn't move things forward. But I'd say it did simply by taking flamenco to a broader audience. And people still fill halls to see him: my mate emailed me from Boulder Colorado to say he'd got tickets to see him in a few weeks. he mixes passion with subtlety, craft with energy. Every track is a gem. Everything is beautifully played and well recorded (which is not necessarily true of flamenco from the 60s & early 70s). If you are looking for something to start your flamenco guitar collection this is as good as anything. 18 tracks of faultless, dramatic, evocative guitar playing. Buy it in the Amazon app to the left. Here's taster, the first track, the hypnotic Rondeñas.

Next Step

Maybe I'm getting cocky but I'm ready to move forward. Bulerias is done. I've learnt the last falsetta. It's a cool, smooth jazzy end in the circle of fifths (Dmaj7 - Dmaj7 with G bass (whatever that;s called - any ideas) - Cmaj7 - B diminished - E7 - Am. Nice. I'm practicing that & it's bedding in. But where to next? My guru thinks it should be Siguiriyas. But I wonder if that's too similar to what I've been learning. I kind of think I should try Tarantas, largely because it starts with the magic chord, the one I fell in love with, the one that carries me of to the heat and mountains of Andalusia. Listen to this version from Paco Pena. Sublime.

Gig review: En Mi Aire

I've been to lots of flamenco gigs over the last few years. But only now have I thought about reviewing them. And quite honestly, I don't feel very comfortable doing it. After all, I'm still learning...and what do I know? Do I have any right to critique someone's art, something I know they have dedicated their life to...way more so than I have & God knows I've put in some hours. So I say this with an acknowledgment of their expertise, their commitment and my own subjectivity.
The show had two halves, both structured in a similar way: 3 or 4 pieces, starting with song or guitar, then song with guitar, then with dance. I though the guitarist was great, Jesus Guerrero. Young and light fingered he played beautifully. Now I don't always think flamenco guitar should be beautiful, sometimes it benefits from being passionate, exciting, chaotic...but that wasn't his style. He played a great solea and I wish there was more of him. The dancer was unusual, lots of hips and angles. With a focus on shapes and body structure, it reminded me more of contemporary dance than the flamenco I'm familiar with. The singer had an intense vibratto and indeed great intensity. Again, I'm more familiar with a more robust sound, with more definition and certainly a less pronounced vibratto. I felt it got in the way. Overall though I didn't really connect with it. it was probably very technical but I wasn't carried along, there was no narrative to the structure, it didn't build and I didn't find myself carried along. it was kind of rational, and maybe technically excellent. Not my cup of tea. Which is sad because I took some friends & they were polite but I want them to see that flamenco can be a truly trans formative experience. This wasn't. So we'll go searching for something else.