here's a quick little buleria. there's tons of mistakes but it's the best i can do since the surgery. at least im playing again! constructive criticism please!

Your Buleria sounds good to me, especially where you are recovering from hand surgery.

You wrote "i went to another hospital when i got the stitches removed. they said the tendon was cut and that i needed surgery. by this point, two weeks had passed and the tendon already had begun retracting. so when my doctor re-attached it, she could only go up to the second joint. so now it's assumed that i wont be able to use my tip joint ever again." back in February. Did your finger tip recover or are you still unable to bend it?

Castillo

thank you castillo!

im still unable to bend it. fortunately, it's only my right hand pinky. i mostly use a,m,i,i rasgueados now. i trained my pinky to curl a certain way so that i can still dig the tip into the palm and make what seems like a normal fist to build tension for rasgueados. but it is still very weak.

Well done! You have a traditional sound with some modern coloring, but NO jazz or classical sound at all like we hear in so much modern flamenco, especially Bulerias. Your guitar sounds excellent and very nice recording. Your rasqueado is clean and even, something I cannot do as my A and M fingers work close together and neither give a clean sound for a 4 finger sami or the amii or 3 finger ami. It would be interesting to hear it without the metronome. It sounds all flamenco and correct for Bulerias. Keep them coming.

thanks sam!

i hate it when they play some pentatonic blues scales even if it's for a short while. and as for the classical sound, i like bulerias to be played with guts! it doesn't need to sound pretty. the second falsetta was used by nino ricardo and manuel de huelva.

Great flamenco feeling.
Keep these pieces coming.
Oh by the way which microphone are you using?
Saludos


Tomas

thank you, Tomas!

i am using a radioshack brand microphone. the filter is broken off. and i think it was meant for karaoke purposes.

but in a quiet room, it works well enough. i use adobe audition to record and then use the magical noise reduction and reverb.

TO MANOS LENTAS -

You mentioned difficulty with xami and with amii and with ami. I had similar problems due to injury to my right hand fingers, and other physical problems. I solved it all by figuring out other ways to play various rasgueados, and just kept right on performing. I can offer a few suggestions that you might want to try as substitutes for the usual patterns. As it all turned out, I found that I felt my new way was actually better than the old. I now teach these to my students right away instead of the traditional patterns. with the exception of the xami blended roll, which there really is no other way of playing, and which fortunately i can still play. If you, or anyone else is interested in trying some of these patterns, please let me know.