I have now written out, in tab and stave the scales based on A. Go to the “scales the notes” to find the pdf.
I am the creater and administrator of the site. Any comments and suggestions are very welcome. Please feel free to post comments or email me.
So many people claim to be self taught guitarists. But in reality, few successful guitarists are self taught: everyone has a teacher, thıough Abel Carlevaro is a possible exception. Some people have formal lessons and others, less formal lessons.
Many elite guitarists had formal lessons:
- Tomatito? Pedro Blanco (from Málaga Musical), amongst others.
- Vicente Amigo? Manolo Sánlucar, amongst others.
- Deigo del Gastor? Pepe Naranjo, amongst others…
If you are living in flamenco circles you will know that while there is an element of competition between guitarists, there is also a good deal of camaraderie. These are informal lessons and most often take the form of falseta swapping but also extends to analysis of fingering and help with technique. A guitarist that does not swap and share in this fashion will soon be known as ‘antipático’ and ‘pesetero’.
Having a teacher or living amongst this swap and share culture both inspires and puts pressure on you to be able to play your stuff properly because people will listen to it and take it apart. If you do not live in this culture, then you need to find a teacher. None in your area? Use the internet and nowhere better to go than Juan Ardila’s guitar2000.
There are many advantages of studying online as opposed to self study:
- It will help you to get rid of bad habits and/or prevent them in the first place. Bad habits take a huge amount of perseverance, analysis and time to correct. I know.
- You will not learn your music thoroughly because:
- you will not have a target to aim for in front of you
- you will try to learn things that are too difficult
- you will not compare what you do with a falseta and what someone else can do with it.
- You will not learn the musical language behind the music
- You will not be able to ask someone who has walked the path you are on now when you have doubts.
- You will not get the little, though valuable commentaries that add you your understanding of what you are aiming towards.
- You can watch as many video lessons as you like and you can watch them as many times as you like.
You can see how the the guitar2000 classes work by following these links:
Do not believe those web pages that tell you that you will learn to play the guitar in a mere weeks. Both flamenco and classical guitar require dedication, time and consistency. To become a very proficient guitarist, lifestyle choices have to be made - even if you are Paco de Lucía.
If you focus only on what you want to become as a player, you will miss this beautiful and fascinating journey where you learn to focus all of your mental and physical energy on this wonderful instrument you are playing. If you miss the journey, you will certainly miss your destination.
This first anthology was a collection of recordings of the basic flamenco forms of flamenco. This intention was more difficult than might appear at first sight due to the popularity of Opera Flamenco, and its most important representative: Pepe Marchena. A previous attempt had been made to preserve the old traditional otherwise known as the pure, unadulterated forms. This attempt was made by Manuel de Falla and Federico García Lorca in their ‘concurso de cante flamenco’ in 1922. However, this competition had little effect on the growing popularity of Opera Flamenco which obliterated any other interpretation that happened to be in its path.
The inclusion of Camarón immediately after the sections on duende and voice types in flamenco is because of the revolutionary impact that he had on the flamenco world. Stuffy, secretive and aloof might be words used to describe some of the driest and most earnest flamencos before Camarón. Camarón unwittingly gave flamenco a universal appeal and promoted him to a cult figure in Spanish popular culture. Read the rest of this entry »
Duende
The flamenco singer, Manuel Torre (1909-1933), a man who was completely illiterate was eulogized by Federico Garcia Lorca as having a greater and more important culture in the blood. Torre had his own theory on what is known as “duende”. He is reported to have said to a singer: “tu tienes vos, tu sabes los estilos, pero no triunfarás nunca, porque tú no tienes duende” (you have a good voice, you know the styles, but you will never reach the top, because you have no “duende”). The same man, Manuel Torre, is also reputed to have said:-
”In the “cante jondo”, the singer always has to look for “duende”, until he finds it in the blackness of the Faraohs” (Historia del cante flamenco, p.171).”
Another time, after hearing Manuel de Falla Read the rest of this entry »
The quality of voice is of supreme importance in flamenco as it can imbue flamenco with one of its most important elements: “el quejio”. “El quejio” is perhaps best translated as a “cry of desperation” and often said to be one of the basic elements of the ”cante jondo”, that is, those palos which are the most profound and deep. Here is a breakdown of some of the major divisions of types of voice. Read the rest of this entry »
There are perhaps two things which immediately seem to come to people’s minds on the first hearing of flamenco: unusual melodic lines and the timbre of the singer’s voice. The crystalline tone developed and favoured in the conservatory or in many types of popular music is not usually the type of voice favoured in flamenco.
Due to mixing of various cultures, flamenco has, to Anglo-Saxon ears, strange and perhaps oriental sounds. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the first sites that I created was a photo gallery with commentaries in Spanish to show my friends and colleagues in Latin speaking countries what I had been up to.
Recently I learned that a colleague from the University where I work will be going to Baku, so I thought that I would put up these pictures for some time.
There are lots of photos (click on the photos to see them full size), music and even film. The photo in this post will take you to the welcome page of the Azerbaijan site, so you will navigate away from the English language site.
I have finished the introductory page to scales. As yet, the page is only theoretical, but doing the research and understanding the information by giving practical application has proved very useful to me already. Armed with the theoretical knowledge from the theory, I have now gone onto write my own flamenco related scales, and these will be published as soon as they are finished.
Why is it useful to study scales?
- Scales are the building blocks from which all music is created:
- for melodies (horizontal structures),
- for chords (vertical structures),
- for arpeggios (oblique structures).
- Scales offer excellent rıght and left hand practice, and especially co-ordination.
- You begin to understand what you are doing when you play
At last! The chords page has some tablature for downloading. It is a simple, though long, series of six note chords that I often use to assist my right hand study and training.
“One of the maxims of effective practice is to break everything down to the smallest possible movement. Isolated problems
The only person to proclaim himself a flamenco singer (”cantaor”) in the census initiated by king Carlos III in 1783 was the gypsy Tio Luis el de la Juliana. This allows us to surmise that the “cante” did not begin to really develop until the end of the XVIII century; despite constant searching on the part of flamencologists, no document has been found which verifies the existence of “cante flamenco” before the second half of the XVIII century.
How was Andalusia at the very beginnings of Flamenco?
Andalusia has always been a melting pot of cultures; Aegean, Asian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic colonizations have all played a part in its development and cultural richness. From the discovery of the “new world” in 1492, Andalusia experienced economic growth. These economic changes were not however reflected on social changes. The ports of Cádiz, Sevilla and Sanlúcar began to grown in importance as a direct result of the American colonies - these Andalusian ports represented a door to the Atlantic. Industry in Cádiz was non-existent; Jerez slowly began the elaboration of its famous wines and sherries. Inland villages and hamlets were agricultural, characterized by an almost non-existent economy.
When the “cante” first appeared in the late XVIII century, Spain’s Latin-American influence Read the rest of this entry »
The technique page has been fully revised and is now waiting for photos and videos to be taken and inserted. It is has fuller explanations and a linked index for easy navigation throughout the rather long page.
Next on the list of things to do is a revision of the individual technique pages. The old ones will remain in place until the new ones are written. In the meantime, happy reading,
Miguel
In response to a request from Rand, I have transcribed two tientos falsetas that I have previously recorded. They can be found on this pdf file:
These falsetas can be found at the following locations in the recording: 1.44 minutes, 2.15 minutes and 2.35 minutes.
This tientos also features some falsetas from Manuel Granados’ incredible “Manual Didáctico de la Guitarra Flamenca”.
Overall, I am quite pleased with this draft - although there is still plenty of things to improve… as always ;).
The Gypsies first arrived in Spain during the XV century and were known by various names: Greeks, Egyptians, Zingaros and Hungaros. Their origin has been demonstrated by linguists to have been north east India.Their arrival in Spain provoked interest among the populace. The king Alfonso V in 1425 granted the gypsies “salvoconductos”, that is, safe conduct around the country. Read the rest of this entry »
For the cultured classes of Spain, until recently flamenco was nothing more than a “thing of the lower classes”; of taverns, violence, riotousness, drunkenness, and in the past, of beggars, thieves, bandits and gypsies. It was not until 1922 that a group of intellectuals (which included the composer Manuel de Falla and the young poet Federico García Lorca) organised a “concurso the cante jondo”. The first time that the intellectuals of Andalucia acted as a group to study, understand and for want of a better word, protect flamenco. At that time famenco had almost completely been forgotten, substituted by a light operatic form known as “opera flamenco”. Read the rest of this entry »
If you are looking for ELT, the site can now be found here:
* http://miguelbengoa.com/elt and here:
* http://miguelbengoa.com/elt/babel-placement-test/
Many thanks to all the staff at http://www.futurequest.net/, especially Bob, his anonymous technician and Melissa, without whose help I would not have got to bed last night!
Most importantly, thank you to all our visitors who have remained patient during the transition.
This is my first post featuring a bulería - and as always, the mp3 is at the bottom of the post. It took me quite some time to decide how I was going to introduce this palo. Read the rest of this entry »
guitar with palmas [0:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download guitar alone [0:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadHere is the final installment of our soleá. There are four rasgueado exercises that form the basic soleá rasgueados. More details about these are given in the newly updated rasgueado page.You can download the pdf here: 
At the top of the page I have shown some simple chords that are most often used for this toque. After there are four very simple exercises that form a part of my daily practice. They are numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4. Read the rest of this entry »
Rasgueado 1 [0:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Rasgueado 2 [0:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Rasgueado 3 [0:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Rasgueado 4 [0:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Soleá basic example [1:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Thanks to el hormiguero and this advice, I am finally able to prepare the family olives for eating here in Turkey. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is our second installment of soleá. Another fundamental part of the guitarists’ repetoire. The cierre (cadence or closure) is from Manuel Granados - more about this incredible man in later posts. Read the rest of this entry »
This lesson introduces the soleá with the most simple of melodies. This melody, played only with the thumb is a fundamental part of the guitar repertoire. Although easy to play there are some important things to consider. Read the rest of this entry »
How can you start learning the rhythmic forms of flamenco?
Start counting. Count the beats out loud, or in your head. Do it in any language you like, the idea is to start to develop a feel for the accents sub-consciously. Read the rest of this entry »
Warming up is making the joints, tendons and muscles of the fingers and hands ready to play. Use exercises that strengthen and make supple your fingers and hands to avoid injury (tendonitis).
Learning how to study the guitar is as important as learning to play given that we will only ever play what we practice. If we don’t practice well, we will never play well. For this reason it is important to learn how to practice: defining what we want to achieve and knowing how we are going to meet those aims. This series of posts will help us to make our practice more effective.
Click on the category “practice” for more. To find all categories, scroll down and look in the left hand column.
This tangos introduces thumb and index work and the thumb to play simple compás as well as the abánico technique.
Practise dead slowly, as always because speed will come alone. The focus here is to stay in compás and keep everything even and clean.
The fingering for the abánico can be found with the other rasgueado exercises here. The abánco is shown in numbers “e” and “f” on that page.
Guitar only [0:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Palmas only [1:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Guitar and palmas [0:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadHere is the first lesson. The “palo” is called “tangos” and there is no relationship with the Argentinian song and dance form.
In this lesson we will look at basic rasgueados and some thumb techniques. You can find some exercises and advice for rasgueados here and for thumb work here.
Tangos guitar and palmas [1:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Percussion [1:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadOne new site that I was pleased to hear about, created by one of our contributors Mikey, is Jerezflamenco.com.
Today I have spent some time adding and deleting links from the links page. Some links disappear and new members and visitors link to us here or otherwise contribute. One person who springs to mind is Estela Zatania whose comment you can find in the previous tientos post.
Here is another contribution, tientos. I have realised that there are so many other flamenco forms to add to the blog that I should just get started and record them, despite the extremely high interest in technical exercises. In fact more than 80% of the visitors to the site are looking for picado exercises. Maybe I should develop this side of the site a little more. If there is any interest, I can write out, in TAB, the three falsetas played here as well as the the alzapúa for you.
Tientos is a paused, melancholy form of Tangos which first appeared at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth centuries. It is most often heard as an introduction to tangos because it is such a close variant. Usually, this joining together of tangos and its slower form is known as “tientos-tangos”.
Please read the comments below for some more interesting insights into tientos…
After a long absence, here is a post in response to two questions. Firstly, “what is soleá por bulería” and the second a request for help with compás.
This recording is an exercise for soleá por medio using rasgueados alone.
Guitar and percussion [4:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Palmas and cajón [4:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadHere is a tangos that features a Solo Compas backing track. I have been practising picado recently and here are the results. Of course, still lots of work to do with respect to technique, but the practice is paying off, slowly but surely! Read the rest of this entry »
Here it is, after far too long, is some music for you. It is, after all the purpose of the site. Continue reading, using the link below to hear the mp3. This soleá is por medio and the cejilla is on the fourth fret. It is really a technical exercise, but with some very useful vocabulary for soleá por medio. The idea of practising crotchets and triplets came from Gabriel Cabrera in Málaga.
Thank you to all those who are linking to the site. Here are two that particularly deserve a mention:
- Guitar Lesson Info * Road to Info
- Pipe my tune. By First Monsoon, from India.
When I get some time I will write a short review of each of these interesting sites. In the meantime, thank you very much guys because details like that make me feel that it is, in fact, all worth while.
And here is how to do it - start young! Here is my one year old niece learning. What can you say? 
I received in my in-box today a news bulletin from jondoweb.com. After a quick glance I decided to have a look and to my pleasant surprise, I found a great site with a whole series of links to artists’ sites. The link that started my journey this one, copied directly from the email: Read the rest of this entry »
Continuing from the previous post… here is some alegría. Nearly everything consists of rasgueados and a couple of very short falsetas. You will notice that the compás (featuring cajón, palmas">palmas and jaleo) is excellently done. Read the rest of this entry »
This week I am back to recording and study. This recording follows the great meeting I had on Friday night with Çengizhan. Another flamenco fan, he has been playing for many a long year. Unfortunately, as with many guitar players who have never visited Andalucia,
I have started a new link category: ¨what is flamenco¨. Here you can find sites that describe what flamenco is, where it comes from and its forms. I am happy to add any other site that you may find. Just leave a comment and I will follow it up. Miguel.
Very upset I was when I was told that flamenco compás can be changed as you like and that inserting extra beats and/or chords in non-usual places is called syncopation. This is an error.
Compás cannot be changed, it is the fruit of decades of evolution and forms part of the cultural legacy of the people of Andalucía. Compás is what makes flamenco what it is (as well as the words of the cante). In Andalucía it is respected and almost venerated. Read the rest of this entry »
As some of you already know, I have been intending to move from TRNC to Turkey. Everything has now started: I have gone from intending to move to actually moving. Leaving date is on Friday the 16th.
This means that there will be a short break from the site whilst we move ourselves and belongings to Izmir, Turkey and collect our furniture from our village near Çanakkale. I will start up again when the dust has settled.
Take care and happy playing.
Miguel
Recently I got an email asking if I would be interested in recording any more rhythm tracks apart from bulería and soleá already done. Here is a part of the mail:
I spent in vain hours on the net to find realistic -natural and beautiful sound- palmas">palmas, something else than those awful synthetic metronome clapping I mean. Your bulerias mp3 palmas is just fine to play with. Do you plan to make some more for the other main palos (solea, tientos, siguiriya, etc.)?
The answer is a yes. And here Read the rest of this entry »
After an afternoon’s fun making videos of the various techniques listed and described in the technique page, we realised that our old digital camera is not quite up to making videos. The sound is really quite poor and the resolution of the video does not really provide enough detail. Rather than waste the footage, we decided to include some of it in a post. So, until we get a better camera, this is what we have to live with. Maybe I should put a Paypal donation button on the site - ha ha!
Alzapúa upstroke exercise: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Full alzapúa: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Bulería de Jerez: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Soleá de Morao: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Tangos alzapúa: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Bulería de Morón: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Alegría - cierre: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadThe technique contents
- - Tirando & apoyando
- Picado & scales
- - String walking
- - Speed bursts
- - Staccato practice
- - Chromatic scales
- Arpeggios
- - Block planting
- - Sequential planting
- Rasgueado
- The flamenco thumb
- - Alzapúza
- Trémolo
The technique page in nearly finished. Well, finished in the sense that it is useable: the explanations are clear and that the downloads work. Currently the contents read as you can see in the box to the right.
The aim of this page is to show the basic flamenco guitar techniques and provide exercises that I am currently focussing on. Deliberately, the exercises are not particularly musical in order to isolate the technique in question. I will be adding more exercises that are much more flamenco in later posts. Read the rest of this entry »