Jump to content
HAPPY NEW YEAR, TO ALL OUR HARMONY CENTRAL FORUMITES AND GUESTS!! ×

i want to learn flamenco


Recommended Posts

  • Members
Posted

i want to learn some flamenco guitar. ive been working on my right hand technique but i want to learn some songs. can someone recommend me some songs that i will be able to find a tab for?

 

all i know now is the intro to a song but i dont know the name of it. the chord progerssion is: Em#9 D7th C B7th

whats the name of that song?

  • Members
Posted

I've never found many flamenco tabs but then again I never really looked.

Flamenco is more about the rhythm than about "writing" a song anyway. For example the bulerias works on a 12/8 with the accents on the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th beat. at least that's the standard rhythm of it.

As far as key goes, most flamenco is just in a phrygian mode.

TLDR; Learn the different rhythms used in flamenco. Make some odd progression in a phrygian mode and you're playing "flamenco".

  • Members
Posted

Like any other style, the first thing to do is aquire some listening material. Here are a few artists you'll like if you want to learn about flamenco:

Sabicas
Paco Pena
Paco de Lucia
Carlos Montoya
Rene Heredia


You might get Juan Serrano's "Flamenco guitar basic techniques" book or "Flamenco guitar" by Hal Leonard as a good starting place.

The chord progression you mentioned is fairly common in a lot of flamenco song forms. For example, if you go to my website and play "malaguena" (4th song on music player at the bottom of the intro page) it has that progression in it.

Hope that helps to start. Let me know if you have any more specific questions, and I'll try to help.

- Jasco

Posted

Wow... two informed replies about flamenco! :cool: This is one of those styles that everybody thinks they know all about, but few people actually know anything about. It's good to see some real advice posted. (For the record, I don't know enough to feel qualified to offer advice)

  • Members
Posted

i want to learn some flamenco guitar. ive been working on my right hand technique but i want to learn some songs. can someone recommend me some songs that i will be able to find a tab for?


all i know now is the intro to a song but i dont know the name of it. the chord progerssion is: Em#9 D7th C B7th

whats the name of that song?

 

 

Em#9 would really just be Em (the b3 and #9 are enharmonic Intervals against only a Root and 5th).

 

That progression is the outro to Guardian Angels by Mclaughlin, Dimeola, and De Lucia.

  • Members
Posted

is flamenco at all like jazz where a player improvises with a chord progression in mind? or is it very structured and played the same way each time?

  • Members
Posted

I don't know if I'm really qualified to give much advice either, as I'm not a true flamenco artist (I've only been to Spain once - on tour with a blues band. :lol: )

However, I've taken some lessons with a few great flamenco players, including Rene Heredia, and I can play well enough to impress coffee-shop crowds. But it's all memorized material, like a classical player.

True flamenco relies on song forms, similar to blues and jazz, and has an element of improvisation. So one thing to do, via listening, is to get familiar with the various song forms - bulerias, soleares, rhumba, alegrias, tarantas, ect... Each has a specific rhythm and characteristic chord sequences.

It could kind of be compared to blues like this: If me and another person well versed in blues sat down together to play a "Slow 12bar blues in A", we would each be playing/improvising different things on guitar, but because of our knowledge of the song form our parts would fit well together and sound like music.

Same thing with flamenco. If two flamenco guitarists play a 'soleares' together, both can play/improvise different parts that fit within the 'soleares' song form.

  • Members
Posted

is flamenco at all like jazz where a player improvises with a chord progression in mind? or is it very structured and played the same way each time?

 

 

Funny, I typed my reply before reading your post.

 

Anyhow, as with all genres of music, there are sub-genres too.

 

For example "Flamenco Nuevo", which starts to sound like latin jazz played with classical technique on a nylon string to my ear. For that style, check out guys like Jesse Cook and Otmar Liebert.

  • Members
Posted
how does paco de lucia play fast single note stuff? it looks like he uses 2 alternating fingers



Yup. 2 alternating fingers. Rest-strokes. Loud and fast.

Alternating index and middle finger is the most common, but great players practice with all different combinations.

I once asked one of my flamenco teachers what he would do for fast runs if he broke a nail on his index or middle finger during a performance. He just shrugged and said to subsitute the ring finger for whichever finger had the broken nail.

Easy for him to say. :lol:

  • Members
Posted
I don't know if I'm really qualified to give much advice either, as I'm not a true flamenco artist (I've only been to Spain once - on tour with a blues band.
:lol:
)


However, I've taken some lessons with a few great flamenco players, including Rene Heredia, and I can play well enough to impress coffee-shop crowds. But it's all memorized material, like a classical player.


True flamenco relies on song forms, similar to blues and jazz, and has an element of improvisation. So one thing to do, via listening, is to get familiar with the various song forms - bulerias, soleares, rhumba, alegrias, tarantas, ect... Each has a specific rhythm and characteristic chord sequences.


It could kind of be compared to blues like this: If me and another person well versed in blues sat down together to play a "Slow 12bar blues in A", we would each be playing/improvising different things on guitar, but because of our knowledge of the song form our parts would fit well together and sound like music.


Same thing with flamenco. If two flamenco guitarists play a 'soleares' together, both can play/improvise different parts that fit within the 'soleares' song form.



Sounds to me you're quite qualified to give advice. :)

I'd like to add to this that a typical flamenco group will quite often only have one guitarist who will need to handle the rhythm and harmony at the same time while improvising, which restricts you a bit in how much freedom you have compared to a jazz player with a full band behind him. Flamenco improv is often done in the form of "falsetas", which amount to melodic variations within certain rhythmic/harmonic forms. You're drawing on a repertoire of musical elements that are a bit more pre-defined than what a jazzer would use.

The best thing to do would be to get a teacher and learn about the various traditional forms, many of which use the rhythmic pattern as already described by Aether24. If you want to use a "song"-based approach, you could check out Paco Pe

  • Members
Posted
Yup. 2 alternating fingers. Rest-strokes. Loud and fast.


Alternating index and middle finger is the most common, but great players practice with all different combinations.


I once asked one of my flamenco teachers what he would do for fast runs if he broke a nail on his index or middle finger during a performance. He just shrugged and said to subsitute the ring finger for whichever finger had the broken nail.


Easy for him to say.
:lol:



I've found it quite a good exercise to learn to play rest-strokes with the ring finger, you could also apply that to arpeggios with three fingers, it sounds incredible. Vicente Amigo does that in the intro to Gitano de Lucia on his debut album. It's not easy to learn though, I'm still struggling with it as well.

  • Members
Posted
Sounds to me you're quite qualified to give advice.
:)

I'd like to add to this that a typical flamenco group will quite often only have one guitarist who will need to handle the rhythm and harmony at the same time while improvising, which restricts you a bit in how much freedom you have compared to a jazz player with a full band behind him. Flamenco improv is often done in the form of "falsetas", which amount to melodic variations within certain rhythmic/harmonic forms. You're drawing on a repertoire of musical elements that are a bit more pre-defined than what a jazzer would use.





Good advice, well written.




The best thing to do would be to get a teacher and learn about the various traditional forms, many of which use the rhythmic pattern as already described by Aether24. If you want to use a "song"-based approach, you could check out Paco Pe

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...