I've been gradually going through all the Flamenco podcasts I downloaded, but I am still way behind because I cannot listen them fast enough to keep up. My method is just to listen, taking no notes, in the hope that eventually I will get informed simply by dint of repetition. Once I listen to a podcast it goes into the trash, unless it's something I want to save like Camarón's last concert. I am getting a good sense of the canon, of the literary aspects of the music. it seems that the most highbrow, canonical singers are those with the most interest in singing poems by Lorca, Hernández, Cernuda, Alberti... It is really quite amazing how literary this art form is.
I only have about 70 hours left to listen to.
Tangential to your interest in the literary side -- are there some performers you find especially effective as musical improvisers? So far, while digging the various guitar and vocal styles, I've found the musical form a bit relaxed, compared to say our favorite canonical jazz performances.
ResponderEliminar(It's clearly not that musical rigor is inconsistent with regard for texts, as jazz shows -- and I'm not thinking mainly of highbrow texts, as in the peculiar case of Steve Lacy.)
I don't know. The line between improvisation and just playing doesn't seem firm to me in flamenco. When I listen to jazz, I know the melody and so I know when something is improvised. I am much more of an expert listener.
ResponderEliminarFlamenco doesn't make a fetish out of improv per se... It has other fetishes, like authenticity.
I believe that's one of those irregular verbs -- I value improvisation, you overemphasize it, and he fetishizes it altogether.
ResponderEliminarI don't know this for sure -- but flamenco sure sounds as though there's agreement on the tune and the changes, permitting improvisation at the level of ornament, and only when singing or playing alone, broader harmonic and rhythmic freedom.
I didn't mean fetish in a bad way. i share this fetish as a jazz listener.
ResponderEliminar