Hi everybody!

I just found this forum in a search to find a good resource to learn about flamenco music, it's styles, rhythms, traditions, and so on.

My name is Shane, I'm from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. I'm a upright/electric bass player, trained in jazz. I write and play jazz, and death metal right now. About a year ago I started to become very curious of different types of music around the world. Since than I've grown a passion for classical Arabic, Turkish, and Indian styles. It's become my goal to understand music of the world as deeply as I can, and be able incorporate it all into my own playing.

Even more recently I've become interested in Flamenco. Like any style of music with a long history I had no idea where to start (and I still don't). So I'm hoping to spend quite a lot of time on this forum to discover some amazing music, and learn as much as possible.

Welcome to the forum, Shane.

If it's history you want, start with our subforum "Información Histórica". Then explore all the other subforums. Enjoy your time here, and again, Bienvenido al foro. We are glad you are here.

Lorette

Shane, I share your passion for classical Arabic, Turkish, and Indian musical styles in addition, of course, to flamenco. I spent years traveling in those parts of the world and became fond of their music.

Lorette is correct that our "Información Histórica" section is a good place to start learning about flamenco history. However, learning the true history of flamenco is fraught with problems because the roots of flamenco are ancient, portions were created and evolved over long periods of time by diverse racial, political, and religious groups that spoke a variety of languages and dialects and that sometimes had, and still to this day have, strong biases, animosities, and even hatreds relative to each other. Furthermore, little written history of flamenco exists far back in time and fragmentary evidence is based mostly on information passed aurally through generations of possibly-biased family members.

I knew nothing about any of that when I first visited Spain in the 1960's and asked what I thought were simple questions that could be easily answered, such as where did the soleares, alegrias, farruca, etc., originate. I often got simple answers, but it didn't take long to discover the answers depended on who I would ask. Today, answers will vary depending on which website you visit and much of what is being written about flamenco these days is being written by people with more imagination than knowledge.

Evolution is another compounding factor. Imagine that someone played a soleares faster than usual and called it a bulerias, because it sounded "funny" at that speed. Imagine others started playing soleares fast and calling it bulerias. What would be the origin of the bulerias? Would it be the time and place where soleares was first played fast and called "funny" or would the bulerias have the same origin as the soleares? If you think the origin would be the same as the soleares, how much would the bulerias have to evolve differently over time to not be considered a soleares? If the bulerias evolved over many years to become significantly different than the soleares, at what place and time would it have a different origin and who would have been the creator?

-Bob

Thanks for the warm welcome.

I've been spending time reading Información Histórica, and it's very informative so far.

I have one request though. What would you say is essential listening for someone new to flamenco? If there is a thread that covers this that would be great too.

Hello!

wow that is a difficult question. For the foundation as a general rule I would recommend that you listen to older recordings. It is so easy to get recordings by artists such as Paco, Tomatito etc..but ultimately you need to get the foundation and after all this is an old school flamenco forum right? I would say pick up recordings by older singers being accompanied by good guitarists. There is an excellent series from France called "Great figures of flamenco" or "Grands Figures Du Flamenco." These are historic recordings of flamenco legends (singers and 3 guitarists). It is a 20 volume set and the company is called Chant Du Monde. This is where I started myself. Once you listen to a few of these recordings, you need to learn about the compas, the rhythm of each of the major palos like Soleares, Siguiriyas, Bulerias, Fandangos and Tangos and so on. This should give you both a feel for authentic flamenco before you dive into more modern stuff, and also a good idea of what makes flamenco flamenco which is the rhythms of the forms (palos) and also the aire the feeling.