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As I say, I know nothing about flamenco as a musician.
But the guitar is not the focus point for me whenever I’ve seen it live... but the sound of the instrument is very specific to most people’s understanding of that music. I just don’t feel I can do it justice as a player even as pastiche.
There are other guitar things I am more plugged into.
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04-13-2020 09:21 AM
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I feel particular culture behind it which is hard to obtain from outside...
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That''s fine, we all have different routes to nirvana but
so much of the language of that music is built around the guitar technique
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Originally Posted by Jonah
(im thinking of Irish music which is eclectic, adopting instruments like the guitar, banjo and bazouki and dance forms like the polka as well as jazz harmony and rhythmic concepts, without ever losing its identity.)
So music is flux. i cannot be bothered with the authenticity police, although think it’s cool people go and live in Brazil and study Samba for years, or whatever. I’ve never down anything like that, too conservative in my life decisions...
what I feel is more important is to have a basis from which to strike out from into the wider world. In the old days this would have been a given depending on where you grew up. Now - we often choose.
Jazz is what I have gravitated to and I am quite keen in developing as complete an understanding of it as a historical art form as I can. I understand this does not interest a lot of people and that’s fine. I also have some Classical background too...
and from a foundation you can cross over with other musicians and be an eclectic without having an absence of substance (hopefully) picking up ideas from other cultures and traditions as you go.
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Originally Posted by Hugo Gainly
perhaps ‘texture’ might have been a better word.
what I mean is - if I come in with my style of playing (plectrum jazz guitar) it won’t feel like flamenco to the lay listener and needless to say it won’t to the knowledgable listener either.
(This is not so true of styles which do not feature the guitar at all, where I can reference or adapt into my own approach, or where the style isn’t too different or well known to make it work.)
Perhaps one could meaningfully incorporate some deeper aspects of flamenco into jazz (with plectrum jazz guitar.) That might be more interesting.
For some people this approach might be offensive or disrespectful, but rather in the way a Blue Note Bossa is not remotely the same as the Brazilian feel, I feel mutation through the lens of different culture is as valid as getting it right, it allows music to develop and evolve.
Jazz has always done this. But it does exist in other styles as well.
You can only be true to yourself. This might mean going down a decades long quest to explore another tradition, or it might not.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
In a word: it is nothing about rules or police.. it is more about feeling that that thing is original and this thing is imitation that pretends to be original....
it is not analytical - you just feel it...
And also it is not about ecclectis... playing flamenco and play some flamenco-influenced music are different things.. .and again no statements needed there - you just hear it...
I can never play real blues or bluegrass but I can study the style and use the elements in my music... but I would not call it eclectic.
Eclectism is the aesthetics that deliberately uses different styles in my opinion, it even stresses the contrasts between them (it is very post modernistic approach).
For example Julian Lage is much influenced by different styles of American music but he is not eclectic at all.
To be honest when you play I do not feel it is ecclectic... I like how you dive into styles with dedication and true interest and invetigate it but when you play I do not feel that you imitate the style or pretend to be 'Django' or whatever... even when you say that you try to do some things accurately according to the at style.
It is something on the level of perception... people can elaborate orginal conception and sound fake imitators, others can use old idioms openly and sound absolutely orginal
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Originally Posted by Hugo Gainly
Anyway, I play jazz, I play electric blues, a hodgepodge of different acoustic blues styles, and songs that are just songs. I have passion for all, but I'd say the only one of those I actually play legitimately well with my own style/voice is electric blues. I'm not terrible at jazz, can function on a bandstand, and love playing (with a passion). Hopefully life will be long enough to allow me to get further with it. I think there's enough similarity of technique and harmony between the two that they complement each other. I don't think I have to give up one to really get good at the other.
When I say acoustic blues, I'm thinking of the real masters of the more complex styles, like Blind Blake, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson, Reverend Gary Davis, Brownie McGhee, etc, not guys doing basic shuffles and pentatonic licks in E. I can play a song or two from each passably (to some ears), but I think to get to the point of playing that way (and singing, you can't just play the blues) genuinely, fluently well requires shutting out other stuff for an extended period (maybe years). I decided a long time ago that I would have to be satisfied with being a diletante, because I didn't want to do only that. I guess I'd sum up my view by saying that it's possible to have a passion for eclecticism, and for crafting one's own music out of bits and pieces of many musics.
To the authenticity question, I think for the kinds of music I play, authenticity means presenting an honest version of yourself through the music. I think trying to mimic someone from a different background or ethnicity risks falling into caricature and stereotype. Especially with blues, the whole schtick of Fedoras and Raybans and mangling "John the Conqueroo" is embarrassing. Other music probably requires one to excuse the stylizations true to a tradition, e.g., with Gypsy Jazz, Opera, Flamenco, etc. there's are agreed upon right ways to do it, and you have to do that or risk excommunication.
John
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Originally Posted by Jonah
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Originally Posted by Jonah
John
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Originally Posted by christianm77
As much as I love flamenco, I agree that its difficulty is such that rather than attempt becoming competent in it, I was satisfied listening to a lot of it and incorporating its influence in my playing, which is not at all flamenco. It shows up most obviously when I play fingerstyle acoustic, which I do more percussively than most American acoustic guitarists. It also shows up when I play heavy rock, in the sense that I took the time to learn Phrygian alt dom, and Hungarian scales as well, and then apply them to the hard rock/metal I was playing at the time.
I also grew up for four years in Iran (back in the 70s), and the musical exposure there was phenomenal -- indigenous Persian music as well as its Arabic and Indian forebears were all around, and though I haven't learnt as much from that (didn't play guitar until we returned to America), it too is influential to me without being definitive. So I get what you're saying, to put it shortly.
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Originally Posted by John A.
I do not apply to vocabulary definition (maybe it's wrong from my side but hard to change!) - it is more from my personal experience.... maybe you are right...
for me 'eclectic' has always been a bit negative term... there is another interesting term 'polystilistic' that I first heard in relation to Alfred Schnittkke's music who really deliberately used different styles as a part of artistic language...
'Ecclectic' is probably more general term... maybe you are right.
Julian Lage.. I wrote somewhere that even the guitars he uses have cultural reference for the project... he definitely communicates with history and styles.. but at the same time he is so integral that I cannot call it 'ecclectic'.. maybe it is becasue all the styles involved hav emore or less the same background? And I here it as the reflections of the same essence?
He does not mix Indian music with Baroque... he is within Americana
For example some McLaughlin's projects sound ecclectic to me..
It is often hard to draw the line really: Mahler for example.... today for many people he sounds very integral classical lTE romantic but I hear a lot of 'polstylism' in his music...
Again it is important to distinguish the genre... genres were used as references thought all the hysory.. and often unconciously:
- like fanfare in Beethoven's 5th
- or elements of Polonaise (in 1st part) and Sarabande (in 4th part) in Tchaykovsky's 6th symphony...
They can be re-inforced with other elements - like instrumentation (Mozartian clarinet in Tchaikovsky's polonaise' episiode, or french horn in Sarabande)
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Here is quite famous polystylistic example
Cadenza - Rondo with Postlude from Schnittkke's Concerto grosso #1
Listne to it consequently - it is short...
What is interesting it may sound 'corny' if one takes it directly without hearing stylistic refereces
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what I mean is - if I come in with my style of playing (plectrum jazz guitar) it won’t feel like flamenco to the lay listener and needless to say it won’t to the knowledgable listener either.
When I say acoustic blues, I'm thinking of the real masters of the more complex styles, like Blind Blake, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson, Reverend Gary Davis, Brownie McGhee, etc
What is interesting it may sound 'corny' if one takes it directly without hearing stylistic refereces
I haven't answered to my own satisfaction, having thought about it, whether I love a genre for its social characteristics, and to what extent that colours my appreciation of the music itself. Oddly this doesn't include parlour guitar sessions with added lace and powdered wigs - poverty and suffering seem to figure big in my thinking and I worry that I am unconsciously patronising the history. In regards to appropriate or alien techniques within a genre I think as long as you are communicating the soul of the music and not just the techniques you will be received well.
I agree about the Baile but I love the common culture and not the vain whirling about, dynamic though it is. I hope the site monitors will allow these videos.
and some singing with guitar accompaniment
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Originally Posted by Hugo Gainly
It's very much like this in Gypsy jazz. I try to avoid the politics by not calling myself a GJ player, but a (sometimes) acoustic jazz guitarist. Again musicians from the actual Manouche culture I have been fortunate to play with seem to care less about 'authenticity' than I would expect. They play with the authentic style, technique and feel of course, and people from outside the culture want to emulate that.
I suspect that in music in general, is there is a job of work to be done, and if that job is done well and right, that's the main thing. In swing music, it's the rhythm guitar. I suspect from what you're saying it's analogous for flamenco? Accompanying the dancers and singers. Being able to participate in the community of practice.Last edited by christianm77; 04-14-2020 at 07:11 AM.
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I suspect that in music in general, is there is a job of work to be done, and if that job is done well and right, that's the main thing. In swing music, it's the rhythm guitar. I suspect from what you're saying it's analogous for flamenco? Accompanying the dancers and singers. Being able to participate in the community of practice.
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Originally Posted by Jonah
John
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Originally Posted by John A.
I think I consider 'eclectic' as negative (I always did - even when I was a teenager) becasue I associate first of all with some kind of 'collage' (or pastiche) - the technique and mentality that has always been against my nature...
'Collage' presumes that we can understand and clearly see that it is made from different fragments, right? It is a part of conception. And I do not like it, I do not like that its secondary and fragmentary essence.
So to me 'ecclectic art', it is a work of art where styles are mixed by they ar eclearly disignated and often opposed and contrasted
and also 'eclectism' is often connected with the period of decline of great style... as I wrote above for me it is mostly about the feeling of 'orginal' and 'imitation'...
'ecclectic' often seems helpless to me in incapability to elaborate its own language..
I thnk influence and absorbation of different styles do not necessarily mean ecclectic.
That is why I probably try to avoid calling Lage or Frisell 'eclectic' - They seem to integral to me to be excclectic)) Their own personalities are so strong in their art that they dominate and integrate those different refernces in styles in one,
As close as Julian get to bluegrass, he does not play bluegrass... he still essentially plays like he does in his jazz works, I mean aesthetically.
It is clearly seen in comparison with Chris Eldridge.
I am not purist at all ... on the contrary I have lots of problems in early music area of my interests exactly becasue of ignoring puristic principles.
Another thing - feel of 'history' -- some work of art has strong historic references, historic time... some do not... but again it does not mean 'ecclectic' to me,
I would say that Frisell and Lage refer to styles it more 'historically' - they refer to the styles consiously - it is a conception to some degree, and Metheny just incorporates these things in more direct way.. (though things like America Garage have some program behind it of course but it is not really historic, it is contemporary
But I understant that it may look and seem different from different perspectives...
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Originally Posted by Jonah
John
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Originally Posted by John A.
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Originally Posted by Jonah
If "syncretic" means "swiping everything I can get my fingers around.
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Originally Posted by Jonah
John
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Originally Posted by John A.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
John
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I met more than a few guitarists on GJ scene who proudly told me they don't play or interested in anything other than Django and GJ. I hear some challenge in the voice when they proclaim it, like anyone who does otherwise is a bit inferior. Good guys, very dedicated players, aspiring to be good in one particular style, but I can't be like that.
Equal passion for me in hard rock, ska, surf, pop, or anything im into on any particular day. I believe, yes, you can be great in any of these style as a player, but maybe better at one than the other a little bit. Life will decide.
But no, not flamenco, not for me lol. Only cliches, so I can awe the lay listeners for a sec, nothing deep. I'm ok with that though, no ambitions there.
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I should say that lots of people do not know real flamenco... Paco is great person and musician and he could play flamenco of course but most of what popularly known is some kind of mix of flamenco and pop/jazz/latin idioms.
Even the posture that is associated with flamenco (leg on leg) is not common and was introduced by Paco, and he was heavily criticized for it by 'old school masters'...
I admire Paco, his personality is his style... he is a great musician. But beyond him I do not like ne0-flamenco.
Old-school flamenco has some 'passion of earth'
Same thing about tango - Piazzola's neo tango style with its jazzy sweet harmonies and classical ambitions is very popular...
But authentic tango is much more raw and - to be honest - much more impressive for me...
The same about blues by the way...
To me any folk style is great with its straighforwardness - with its authencity inm the highest sense...
No-one can play Freight Train as Elizabeth Cotton...
again we seem to come to teh point of original and imitation... natural expression and pretensions...
Conceptions are ok but it requires complex and elaborated language like in classical or in modern jazz... otherwise it turns into pretensions
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