Flamenco

The amount of material on Flamenco that I’ve collected over decades of watching it, listening to it and writing about it is quite considerable, and the task of organising it nontrivial. So I’ve put it all together in a book (so far running to two volumes), as described on the Home page.

The present page will be devoted to supplemental material that I couldn’t, for whatever reason, fit into the book.

Contents of the book

Volume 1—Flamenco Styles

1—Getting Started
2—The Art of Rasgueado
3—Recommended Recordings
4—Basic Materials
5—Basic Forms
6—Compás and the Soleares Family
7—Compás of Seguiriyas & Tientos
8—The Fandango Family
9—Fandango Variants
10—The Latin-American Influence
11—The Folk Influence
12—More Folk Influence
13—Everything Else
14—No, but I saw the movie…
15—Rito y Geografía del Toque
16—The Art of Transcribing

Appendix A—Key to Musical Notation
Appendix B—Recommended Books
Appendix C—Recommended Sheet Music
Appendix D—Recommended Recordings
Appendix E— Recommended Videos
Appendix F—Glossary of Spanish Words
Appendix G—Rough Guide to Spanish Pronunciation

Index to Flamenco Artists

Volume 2—The Masters and their Music

Vicente Gómez (1911-2001)
Sabicas (1912-1990)
Mario Escudero (1928-2004)
Juan Serrano (1934-)
Paco Peña (1942–)
Serranito (1942-)
Merengue de Córdoba (1944–)
Pepe Habichuela (1944–)
Ian Davies (1954-2003)
Paco Serrano (1964-)
Vicente Amigo (1964-)

Appendix A—Key to Musical Notation

Index to Flamenco Artists

Interviews

Stephen Hill (luthier) (2000)

Transcriptions

Diego del Gastor

Baldi Olier

is a Romanian Gypsy now living in Israel, who as a child was fascinated by Flamenco. I transcribed this unusual and beautiful Danza Mora from his now-deleted album La Guitarra Flamenca. The YouTube version is slightly different: a few notes have been changed, and it seems to be played with a capo on the first fret (rather than open).

Rodrigo

The late, mononymic Rodrigo was perhaps not well known, but he had some nice ideas. One such is the opening of his Soleares, from his album Gypsy Passions.

Sabicas

Piropo a Galicia doesn’t really belong on the Flamenco tab, since it’s a medley (one of several) of pipe tunes from Sabicas’s youth; but I include it here because here is clearly where Sabas belongs. It bears more than a passing resemblance to Aires de Norte on Sabicas Vol. 2.

BBC Radio recordingssunk without trace

Here are two more from Colin Beasley, to complement his contributions to the Classical Guitar and Early tabs. You can find Contents Listings of these here.

Paco Peña

Discographies

Included in the hope that they will be of some help to those on the lookout for rarities.

• Sabicas