Rasgueado question

[ncsolea]

I am a classical guitarist who is new to flamenco. I have Dennis Koster's books, "Keys to Flamenco Guitar", and "Advanced Flamenco Guitar". I have a question regarding rasgueado. In the first Volume, Dennis introduces the five stroke rasg., called the "Ramon Montoya rasguado", which is given as eamii: starting downstroke with the little finger and finishing with an index finger upstroke. He gives a very basic compas for farruca, with even eighth notes down and up with the index finger. Then the same compas uses the five stroke rasg. on the second beat of each 4/4 measure. My question is this: the 5 stroke rasg. is notated as 16th note quintuplets -- ta ta ta ta ta. But on the CD, Dennis plays this up to speed and then at half speed. On the half speed version, the 5 stroke sounds as a 16th note triplet followed by two
16th notes: ta-ta-ta ta-ta, ta-ta-ta ta-ta, etc. I realize that "up to speed" it probably doesn't matter, but it makes sense to me the "think" of the 5 stroke as 16th triplets followed by two 16ths. Hope this makes sense.

Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

[Bob Weisenberg]

Sorry. Can't really comment on this without hearing it.

[Frontera]

IMO you need to change your approach to flamenco. You are analyzing it as if it were classical guitar. Before learning any technique you must learn the compas of the basic palos ... Soleares, Siguiriyas, and Bulerias. Then work on the rasqueados. It is confusing because of all the methods available and all the different ways of playing rasqueados. I think it best to start with the old school sami. Dennis adds the i upstroke to help give his rasqueado smoothness when playing more than one in succession. Despite what many moderns say, the old school players could do samisamisami, etc. very smoothly.

Graf Martinez teaches amiiamii ... for a continuous rasqueado. This is the modern trend. If you have any disabilities in your hands then you may have to experiment to find the right rasqueado.

THE IMPORTANT thing is that the rasqueado fills the correct time. I use 6 strokes to fill the time of 4. On a single rasqueado many modern players use 3 strokes ami to fill the time of the traditional 4 sami.

Juan Serrano uses iami downstroke on the first i. He uses 5 stokes to fill the time of 4.

In other words using a Solea as example strumming the 1,2,3,4,5,6 count with the index finger then using a continuous rasqueado to fill the time of 7,8,9, 10, (11 and 12 letting the chord ring not playing) then regardless of what rasqueado you use it must fill that count at the same speed set with the 123456 count.

You have to develop your ear for compas and forget the musical note value. Hope this helps.

[ncsolea]

Thanks Sam -

I certainly agree about the necessity of learning compas for the basic palos as a first step. I was just curious about the playing of the 5 stroke ras, having read about the many variations that are used by various players.

By the way, postings on this forum are so infrequent that I was surprised to find another response.

If you don't mind my asking, what is your opinion of the various methods that are available (Koster, Graf-Martinez, Juan Martin, etc.)?

[Frontera]

MC, I haven't been able to bring up this forum until recently. I usually just hang out on the "Old School Flamenco Foro" as it is my only interest in flamenco. I check this one out on occasion as I enjoy helping anyone I can that is having trouble learning flamenco, because I am mostly self taught and still struggle with phrasing and compas and understand their difficulty. Also Caesar is a good guy trying to promote flamenco and I hate to see this forum die out due to lack of interest. I have used many different methods starting back in the 70's with LP's, tapes, books, and 3 flamenco lessons from a student of Diego del Gastor. I also had material I purchased from Mariano Corboba, Juan de la Mata, and Juan Serrano back then. I went Brazialian classical (mainly Villa Lobos" and attended a Christopher Parkening master class. It was then i realized my flamenco and classical both was bad. I gave it up until 2003 when I went all gypsy old school flamenco with emphasis on Moron de la Frontera.

In recent years I have used Graf Martinez, Juan Martin "el arte", Juan Serrano's books, cd's, videos, and Manuel Granados.

If you are at least an intermediate classical player, then I will advise the Manuel Granados series. They are expensive and the text is all Spanish. He uses a progressive method that IMO is more a classical approach than traditional flamenco, but it is excellent. His demo playing is done in a way one can understand what they need to do. I have all 4 books with cd's that I have only looked through. I decided it was not what I was looking for, but with your knowledge of music and classical guitar it might be perfect for you.

Juan Martin is good traditional teaching. I don't care for his DVD's. His looks and voice tend to bother me, but that doesn't make him less of a player. I think the bashing we see concerning him is wrong and his method books and cd's are great for anyone to al least learn some basics.

Graf Martinez is excellent. My only objection is his teaching mostly modern technique and considering some old school technique of no use in flamenco today. His voice also disturbs me. I don't feel the "flamenco atmosphere." He is a bit to rigid IMO.

Juan Serrano is also excellent, but teaches a rasqueado that is a bit difficult and cause problems if one can't do it and tries to substitute an easier rasqueado. With you classical training you might find his method book and cd the best way to go.

Dennis Koster I haven't worked with, but I understand it is good, maybe on par with Graf Martinez or better.

The best way to learn is to find a teacher that is a real flamenco. One that understand cante and dance as well as guitar. Good teachers are hard to find and expensive if you do. Buy all the different methods if you can afford them and find which one appeals to you.

I hope this helps. Also consider the many utube instructional videos. Jose Martinez Caro is one of my favorites.

[Bob Weisenberg]

I have nothing to add to this thread, but I would also like to express my support for this forum if it's still in operation. I only stopped coming here because it seemed like nothing was going on. I even sent a message to the administrator to ask if everything was ok, but got no response that I'm aware of, so I assumed it was just out of operation or something.

I have my e-mail set to notify me whenever anything happens here, but I haven't been getting any at all for the last couple of months until this latest thread.

Bob

[falseta]

Hello Everyone,

Sorry ahead of time for hijacking this thread...

My apologies for the down time on the forum. We had technical issues that have now been resolved and are working hard to make 2009 a break out year for Falseta.com and especially the forum!

Thanks to you all for hanging in there and keeping the forum going I really do appreciate it!

Cesar

[Bob Weisenberg]

Good news, Cesar.

We're behind you 100%.

Bob

[ncsolea]

Reply to Sam (Frontera) -

Thanks for the detailed response on methods. Currently I have Vols. 1 and 2 of Koster, Vols. 1 and 2 of Juan Martin's solos (not "el arte"), and Paco Pena's "Toques Flamencos". All are good, in my opinion. Pena's material is not really instructional, other than a brief introductory section. It is a book of solos. The material is very traditional, and I love the CD of him playing them. Not at all easy material for someone new to flamenco, but something to grow into.

I also feel that Juan Martin is unfairly bashed. On the "Foro Flamenco" he is apparently held in almost complete contempt. The two solo books that I mention have very enjoyable graded examples of various palos, using mostly traditional falsetas. Folks seem to not like him because of publicity describing him as one of the greatest current flamenco guitarists, etc. Whether he is or not (probably not) does not diminish the value of his teaching materials.

Again, thanks for the response.

[Frontera]

Caesar, I totally understand the problems of keeping a forum going. I appreciate the conduct of the posters here and the quality of the post and think this forum will grow some, but hopefully will always retain its integrity. Forums with large memberships and fast moving threads, always seem to degrade in quality.

Bob, Good to see you are still around. Several months ago we discussed a Taranta and finally I posted a clip of one yesterday. I would appreciate your opinion on it.

NC, It sound like you are on a right track. I think you will find that your knowledge of music notation is an asset, but it can also be a problem in flamenco especially in phrasing. Some phrasing just cannot be written in music notation. My best advice is to listen to recordings and watch videos of the old players. The first key to learning flamenco is listening. For every 30 minutes of practice, do 2 hours of listening. I don't participate with foro flamenco anymore. There is a lot of great players there and several nice folks, but the conduct of a few and the general egotistical attitude there, and their bashing of others (such as Martin, and in the past Serrano, and del Gastor) is a bit disgusting.