[Randal]

Began formal guitar instruction at age 12 and classical study at 15. Ten years later, was immediately bitten by the flamenco bug in 1992 in Denver upon hearing Rene Heredia on the radio. Went to sheet music store and purchased only method book in the bin: JM's "El Arte de Flamenco." I immersed myself in it for 2-3 years I guess. But soon experienced solo-playing ennui--most of my playing was for myself. Although whenever I played for others they enjoyed it very much, I found that my opportunities to share the music were limited. i think I desired to engage musically with others...playing for dancers would have fulfilled that aspect for me I think, but I knew of no dancers in my area and was too lazy to seek tham out. Anyway, my musical ADHD kicked in and I was on to doublebass at that time. Spent the next ten years with upright, drums, fiddle, mandolin, banjos, bouzoukis, concertinas and accordians...with forays into jazz, bossa nova, folk, bluegrass, old-time, celtic, cajun, scandanavian...even learned some Satie Gnossienes and Gymnopadies on the piano...and all the while trying to keep my Bach chops up. This--in addition to the recurrent frustration of losing fingernails at inopportune times--caused me quite a bit of consternation and growing disdain for nylon-string guitar (my first instrument after grade school sax). About two years ago, I'd decided, "that's it!" and filed off my nails after fastidiously keeping them for some 25 years. A week later I got a gig playing nylon-string. Most recently, I found the opportunity to accompany some dancers, and I'm excited to be going back to flamenco guitar. At this point, I'm very motivated to stay with this, doublebass and drums--I'm a rhythm junkie. Besides, there's nothing cooler than jazz and flamenco.

Anyway...that's my story.

[falseta]

Hi Randal, welcome to Falseta.com!

I am glad you found us and we can be part of your journey.

[hobersmith]

Hi,

I started playing the guitar about 6 years ago and a short while after that i saw Paco de Lucia for the first time. Not surprisingly, being ambitious, I started practicing on my rugged 25 year old classical guitar which belonged to my grandfather or something like that.
I tried really hard even though there still aren't any professional flamenco teachers where I live, and spent a lot of my days practicing picados and rhythm. So now I have been playing for 6 years and I really need a new guitar since old classy can't take much more punishment from me :P

So that's pretty much my story.

PS: I recently set up my site, check it out :P my flamenco site

Regards