Zamani Flamenco at World Rhythm Fest: We Came. We Saw. We Played a Rumba.

Okay, fine, our performance wasn't quite as Caesarean as an anchovy salad (or an incisive childbirth), but it did, all in all, go pretty well. This show makes twice now that I've performed in the Center House and, while I can't exactly claim to feel "at home" in its great pop-corn scented interior, I am happy to report that I've finally learned how to find the bathrooms with a minimum of oh-no-I'm-going-on-in-two-minutes-and-have-to-pee panic.

In fact, panic was relatively low on the list of afflictions this time around. I think of all the shows I've done with Zamani Flamenco so far, this one was the most fun. The corresponding causative variable here, methinks, is that this is also the show for which we held the most (and most intense) rehearsals.

There were still of course some "fluffs" (this is the technical term, by the way, for all you neophytes out there), but none from which we didn't recover. I actually at one point completely misplaced a musical phrase (in my woefully disorganized cerebellum, as it were), yet somehow managed to stay both in key and in compás and picked up the thread on the other side of the tangle. I suspect this is one case where compás --which is sometimes the bane of my non-Iberian existence--actually saved the day: since both the dancer I was accompanying and I knew the song's structure and how the compás fits in it, she knew exactly where I was (and could thus follow me) when I finally got all my musical ducks in a row.

Much to your probable specular dismay, however, these catch and release moments of digito-neuro befuddlement are, alas, not to be shared: while I was battling with recalcitrant synapses on stage, my long-suffering wife and sometimes videographer, Anna, was engaged in a fierce struggle with videocamera kamikazes in the audience.

It's a good thing Anna polished her nunchuck skills before the show.

But that's a story for a different day. How about some videos? Here is our opening number, a Sevillanas:

I had done Sevillanas with large groups, with cante, and with just Zanbaka, but this was the first time I had played for a trio. It was fun. If you've been browsing the Ravenna Flamenco tab collection, you might also recognize some of those falsetas.

Our second number was a tangos. For this one we built the song structure around the three dancers in sequence, with a group finale at the end. Since we weren't working with a singer for this show, we had to decide how to fill the songs out musically. I could have played falsetas all the way through, but this would have been both really labor intensive for yours truly and seriously distracting at moments in the song that are supposed to be more focused on the dancer. What we finally opted for was to play the accompaniment as if there had been cante and then drop in falsetas for punctuation:

We next did a jaleo, an alegrías, and a bulería. Two of these fall into the "videographically ill-fated" category; the third I may post eventually (i.e. when I get around to it). Our final number was an impromptu-esqu rumba. Rhythm Fest is an event which encourages audience participation, so we thought it fitting to follow suit. The results were encouraging:

And I do love some of those moves. At least a couple of our rumba dancers had been in a dance workshop with Zanbaka earlier in the day. She does work magic, that crazy Z.

And there you have all I have to say (for the moment) about Rhythm Fest!

Now go play!

~A

Zamani Flamenco to Appear in Startling Proximity to Corn-Dogs

It just occurred to me the other day that it's been some time since I've written a post about my little ensemble Zamani Flamenco. In fact, as the last post includes the infamous carpeted stage fiasco, it further occurs to me that many of you might imagine that Zanbaka and I have since thrown in the proverbial towel and chosen to focus on less self-abusive pursuits. Driving school buses, for instance. Or late night impotency pharmaceuticals telemarketing.

But this is not the case. In fact, we have a show coming up in less than a fortnight--April 27th at 1:45, to be exact--at the Seattle Center's "World Rhythm Fest." And the "we" has grown: Zanbaka and I have added two more dancers--Daniela Serrano and Julianna Jones--to our little clowder for this appearance. All of which means that I've been busily grinding away at a new set arrangements and accompaniments.

Which, of course, is just how I like it. We're doing a roughly half hour set which will include some tangos, alegrías, bulerías, and, or course, some good ol' sevillanas (which is apparently my all consuming obsession these days). It has been good to work through some of these palos with multiple dancers (sometimes in sequence, sometimes all three at once). What I've discovered probably won't surprise you: I need to play slower.

But you might be surprised that this playing slower business is difficult. Not difficult in a "getting out the notes" kind of way, but difficult in a "getting out the music" way. A falseta that I was playing for Tangos at a brisk clip, for instance, virtually played itself--and accenting the compás came easy. When I slow this same falseta to a more rolling, "groovy" sort of tempo (credit to the dancers for that nomenclature), the notes come easy enough, but the compás has to be worked at.

The factor at play here, I think, is what my guitar teacher Marcos Carmona calls "bounce." I've had a hard time getting my head around this idea and now, as I try to explain it in writing, I can see why: it's hard to explain. I suspect that bounce has a lot to do with not only the volume and velocity of the accented compás notes, but also with the space that is left around those notes. Instead of playing an accented note right on the beat, that note might be a fraction of a second before or after the beat. And I'm talking nanoseconds here--not the kind of time you could notate in 64ths, but really just a hair one way or the other.

[This is, of course, a lot different than contratiempo accents, or accenting the 7 of the bulerías instead of the 6. These too are ways of accenting compás by not playing it "straight," but aren't quite what I'm trying to get at here. I might keep working on this one.]

"But Andy!" you say: "What's up with the title? You promised us cordogs!" Indeed I did. In fact, the title is an oblique reference to the fact that the World Rhythm Fest stage is in the "Center House" at the Seattle Center--which also happens to be the "food court." This will be the second time in recent months that Zanbaka and I have performed there (the first time being Winterfest) and I have a secret dread that if I show up too many more times they're going to start making me wear one of those paper hats or a hairnet or something.

Well, as they say, those who play must also eat.

Speaking of which: You! Go play!

~A

Sevillanas in Slow Motion

As I believe I've mentioned below (I'm pretty sure of it, in fact), accompanying beginning flamenco dance classes calls for superhuman feats of slowness. I'm not talking knock-your-metronome-down-a-peg-or-two slow; I'm talking Über slow. Volkswagen-bus-on-a-slight-uphill-grade-slow. The kind of slow that causes wormholes in the space-time fabric.

It would seem, however, that in the available sevillanas recorded media universe, such feats of slowness are hard to come by. So: at the request of a pair of dancers from the sevillanas class I accompany on Monday nights (at the American Dance Institute in Greenwood, taught by Rubina Carmona), I have recorded the slowest sevillana I am capable of playing (short of crossing over into waltz-time funeral dirge territory). Here it is:

Granted, this theoretically could be played slower. Without recourse to quaaludes, however, I can't do it. In any case, hopefully this will satisfy the need for slow felt by the Monday nighters. Anyone, incidentally, who would like just the audio (for his or her own questionable purposes) can download the MP3 here.

Also incidentally, anyone who would like to learn this piece (ostensibly in order to learn to play it at a brisker pace) can find the sheet music/tab and performance notes (and a video of a faster version--hooray!) here.

And there you have it.

Now go play!

~A

Ravenna Flamenco Redesign

As I promised I would do in March (and it is really only now just barely April, so I'm not feeling too bad about the time line here), I've finally given Ravenna Flamenco a bit of a makeover. The "outside" of the site, I know, looks like what you're used to, but on the inside (in the code, as it were), you'll find better navigation, more complete tab and music explanations, better search functions, and just generally more efficient web-worthiness. You can of course see all of this just by browsing the site. For those of you into explanations, however, (or who just can't stop reading an article when it goes on too long--poor soul!) here's a little rundown of the recent changes.

To begin with, the site sidebars have been revamped to be more up to date all the time. No matter where you are in the site (except this blog page, ironically) you'll be able to go directly to the most recent tabs, articles and blog posts via the left sidebar. The right sidebar now (instead of merely promising global search functions) actually has global search functions. It also had occurred to me that there weren't any really visible email or contact links anywhere on the site--this, too, has been fixed.

You'll also notice that the main "articles" page is now indexed with a brief description of the articles. For now this list is in alphabetical order, but as the article collection grows, my diabolical plan is to subdivide this list into topic categories and the like.

Ravenna Flamenco's biggest change, though--and the one I'm happiest with--is the change to the "tabs" page. Here again, the main page is an index of the tabs available (already divided into categories by palo). There is a brief description of the tab in question--and above it a series of icons:



These will take you to either the tab directly (in blissfully universal PDF), or, if you click on the song title or video icon, you will be sent to a page with access to the tab, a video of the tab in question (played by yours truly), and a detailed description of why this particular tab is useful from a flamenco guitarists perspective:

The descriptions (or performance notes, if you like) focus on what I take the be the salient elements of the tab in question. Maybe there's an odd timing issue or a particularly tricky syncopation relative to the compás. Sometimes I'll address a distinctively flamenco chord form, or an unusual fingering that creates unexpected melodic possibilities. Whatever the case, the purpose of posting tabs here is to go beyond the great mass of marginal and ill-annotated tabs on the internet. My thinking is that the ratio of quantity to quality out there is at the moment heavily skewed in the direction of the former--this is my attempt to even things out a bit (and provide an alternative for those of you who want to do more than just "scratch the surface" of flamenco).

As I've mentioned before, however (and I really can't say this enough): I'm not trying to come off as an expert on flamenco. In terms of this project, I think of myself more as a fellow explorer. This is one reason why I'm so adamant about the "comments" sections. If you think my notes on a particular tab are crackpot--or if you have something to add--please do speak up. One of the reasons I've given each of these pages a dedicated "comments" function is so that all of you can build on the performance notes and commentary I've started. So by all means: comment away!

[Speaking of comments, a number of site visitors (all dancers, oddly enough) have told me that they like the compás metronomes. As a result, I'll be posting another one shortly. If you've never created or been involved with a project like Ravenna Flamenco before, you may not be privy to this, but let me tell you: my motivation for putting all this up on the web is the hope that someone somewhere will find it useful. If you like something, say so and I'll build on it. Otherwise, it looks (from my point of view, anyway) like nobody's using this stuff!]

Another new addition (this one by special request!) is a "donations" button. Fear not--it has always been (and still is) my intention to keep all of this material freely available. But what am I to do? when you tell me you want something, I'm compelled to accommodate!

So that's about it for now. For anyone who's still curious (and has actually read this far), some of the next changes in the works include building out the "video" section of the site and generally fleshing out the articles, tabs, and metronome collections. As always, if you like something or have a suggestion, please do let me know.

Now go play!

~A