Apologies to all magpies for adding to the (apparently unjustified) bad press.
Another catch up of something I created quite a while ago.
I play, and have played, quite a few restaurants and situations where I am basically background. I quite like this: the occasional audience awareness, the contributing to a moment, the helping to create an environment…
A few years ago, while developing material for this I needed something to warm up, and a first piece to start playing. Something relatively easy. A groove. Besides the guitar, I’m also very interested in rhythm. And have taught percussion and hand drum skills for many years, however unfair that might seem to all drummers out there! Samba is on the very edge of flamenco (in my understanding), so I created a 2 chord groove to basically mess about with.
Then there is Farruca. When I first started studying flamenco I was obsessed by the Farruca. At one time I calculated that I could play Farruca for over 30 minutes without repeating myself.
Samba Farruca is a combination of the 2 forms, as it’s name subtly implies… Ok, I’m not great at naming.
Also, I wanted to explore composition. So I took small pieces from various places – sometimes a straight Farruca, sometimes from other forms, sometimes changing major sections into minor sections etc. For example, the last section, from around 3:53, is an almost straight take of a Moraito Sevillana, with the rhythm changed. I’ll try and video those Sevillanas next, as a comparison.
My exploration for this post is therefore –
Is this a valid way of composing? I’ve heard similarities between sections in ‘real’ flamenco pieces. Someone changed a Buleria falseta into a Tangos, etc, so it must be ok, no? Would this only work in flamenco?
I’ve also added my pickup to the audio mix. The first post was just an iPhone, uploaded as recorded. I don’t know if anyone notices the difference. Also I used a video editor on the iPad to mix the audio, and add a fade in and out. In this case I used LumaFusion, a fairly new app which I’m going to explore over the coming months.
Still the Savarez strings, although they’re perhaps on the edge of dying. And naked nails, as I still wonder about this allergy thing.
On The Shoulders Of Giants 
First: I like
Then: what’s music if not an expression of thought, feelings, a moment, and so on? So if the result empresses then how it was composed is purely a process, secondary.
Third: I have tried a few strings over the years but always come back to La Bella. At present & for some time now I’ve been using the Flamenca Negra, medium tension but they have others on the range.
Last: keep playing man I life be it!
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Sorry for typos: empresses = expresses
I life be it = I love it
Predictive text!!
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Thanks for the comment Vic. I suppose I’m mainly curious about the flamenco world really. I’ve heard pieces that were almost exactly the same as another piece by another guitarist, and they’ve given it a different name, and it looks like it’s theirs. Also, when listening to some pieces I feel like I can almost hear the piece they were ‘studying’ when they were composing. It then becomes a ‘how many times removed until it becomes original’ thing. I have questions like this, but no access to a ‘real’ flamenco community. We’re pretty detached here in Cumbria, no?
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