|
When many people think of the guitar, they think of the dramatic folk music of southern Spain known as flamenco. This passionate music is closest to the heart and soul of the Spanish guitar, and every guitarist will be tempted to learn at least one flamenco piece. Flamenco is the music of the gypsies of Andalusia, with origins that draw on the musical tradition of the Moors and Sephardic Jews as well as that of the gypsies themselves. In the early part of the nineteenth century, this music found popularity with a wider audience through its presentation in the cafe cantante, a place for enthusiasts to gather and hear what was previously the music of the campfire.
Like the blues in America, flamenco acquired a following among privileged groups of people far removed from the suffering and deprivation that gave birth to many of the songs. These songs that cry from the heart are the essence of flamenco, and the guitar, now as then, is the favored instrument of accompaniment.
The Flamenco Forms
There are more than 30 different groups of flamenco songs, relating to different regions and occupations, from the martinete of Triana per-formed to the sound of a blacksmith’s hammer striking an anvil to the tarantas and mineras of the mining communities of the southeast. The songs are broadly divided into two categories: cante jondo, the serious forms, and cante chico, the more lighthearted type.
For the student, the most popular forms to study are the alegrias, played in A to accompany the dance and in E as a solo; the soleares, inspiration for many great falsetas; and the seguiryas with its fascinating rhythm which alternates measures of 3/4 and 6/8.
Popular also are the various local forms of the fandango, known in Malaga as Malaguenas or in Granada as Granainas, and from the Atlantic coast the ever popular and lively fandangos de Huelva. Also well known is the dramatic dance known as the farruca, a feature of Jose Greco’s worldwide tours.
Development of the Solo Art
As an outgrowth of early flamenco, in which the guitar was confined strictly to an accompaniment role, a solo guitar art developed, pio-neered by the legendary Ramon Montoya. In accompanying the songs, the guitarist usually plays plain chords during the verses. However, at the end of the verse, giving the singer time to draw breath, the guitarist plays a variation which shows his skill and adds to the mood. These interludes were known as falsetas, and the solo repertoire grew from the piecing together of a number of falsetas with lengthier and more fanciful elaborations.
In this century, flamenco has grown and flourished with innovations of style and harmony and guitarists of phenomenal technique. The wizardry of Paco de Lucia, Habichuela, and Tomatito has to be heard to be believed. Paco Pena has, in addition to his own innovations, reproduced the classic performances of Nino Ricardo and Ramon Montoya.
Technique
Usually flamenco is not written down, being passed by listening and memorization from player to player. However, it is possible to learn some of the basics of flamenco technique provided that this is backed up with much listening to good players and singers. Flamenco technique is broadly divided into two categories—rasgueado (literally, scraped) and picado (picked). The rasgueado is used to establish rhythms with percussive strokes and strums of the right hand. This is particularly important when accompanying dancers, where the guitar needs to be audible above the sound of song and stamping feet.
The picado (plucked) technique is similar to normal fingerstyle playing, and is used for the falsetas. In flamenco, there is emphasis on the clean playing of scales and arpeggios, and in fact a high level of right-hand skill is expected. The tremolo (see Chapter 21) is also used, though purists tend to discourage excessive use of this technique.
Flamenco players frequently use a capo, in fact it is rare to see the guitar used without one. The most commonly used postion is at the second fret, but higher postions are sometimes used. The raised pitch adds brightness to the sound, which helps audibility when singers and dancers are involved.
Read more...!
In Chapter “Elements of Travis Picking,” you learned one basic folk/country strum that is used in many playing styles. This chapter expands on that style to include some other common accompaniment techniques that will enable you to play thou-sands of folk and country songs.
Country music inherits an important quality, through its origin in the story songs with which Southern mountain people and their forebears in England, Scotland, and Ireland entertained them-selves in the days before television. The most important element is the song. The role of musical instruments is to accompany, not to show off. You can be as fancy a guitar player in country as in any other kind of music, but what you really need to sell a country song is a good voice, good lyrics, and guitar accompaniment that doesn’t get in the way.
We’ll begin with some simple accompaniment patterns, then progress to accompanying country songs, playing in 3/4 time, and finally crafting a traditional country solo.
A great deal of folk and country guitar playing is based on a simple accompaniment pattern. It combines picking and strumming by plucking a single bass (low) note first, followed by a downward brush stroke across the three (or so) highest strings. Usually you add variety by alternating between at least two different low notes. This is a start-ing point from which many more complicated variations can grow. But no matter how much fancy stuff you learn, you’ll still keep coming back to this pattern. Because of the alternating high-low sound of this pattern, people often call it the boom-chick strum.
Keeping It Steady
Let’s try this beat on a C chord. Keep your fingers down in the entire shape for a C chord. For low notes, we’ll be alternating between the fifth and fourth strings.
• If you play with bare fingers, pluck the bass note with your thumb and make the brush stroke with your index finger. (Some people like adding one or two other fingers as well.) The idea behind using your fingers is to get a strong, bright tone from your fingernail as it sweeps across the string.
• If you use a flatpick, play both the individual bass note and the three note of the brush with downward strokes of a pick.
• If you use fingerpicks, you’ll probably find them uncomfortable for making downward strokes. Use your thumbpick to play downward strokes on both the bass note and the brush.
Every chord has its own alternating bass notes. On some, more than one set of alternating notes is possible. Here are diagrams of the basic chord shapes along with the alternating bass string combinations most commonly used.
Not all guitarists choose the same bass notes as their standard pattern. Almost everyone picks as the first bass note the root note of the chord. The root is the note the chord is named after—an A note for an A (or A-minor or A7) chord, for example. The root note is the first of the two bass notes in all the examples above. It’s good to develop the habit of using the root note first. Once you get the habit down, you can start to experiment with other choices that might sound better to you at any given place in a song.
Basic Chord Shapes
The numbers indicate possible bass notes to alternate.
Let’s practice some alternating bass notes on several chords.
Picking a Country Song
Now we can move on to a favorite folk, country, and bluegrass song to accompany with this pattern. Although all the notes in the accompaniment part are written out to guide you, the most important thing is to keep the beat going. Don’t worry if sometimes you don’t exactly brush exactly the three strings that are indicated, just as long it sounds like a good, ringing strum. Aim at getting more accurate with more experience.
Playing a Solo: “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”
The words and vocal melody to “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” are given below, in addition to the guitar accompaniment. If you want, you and a friend can learn to play both parts on the guitar, and switch off playing lead and accompaniment.
When you encounter a song in 3/4 time, you’ll need to adapt the pattern to work in units of three. Bass brush has two components. To get the feeling of three beats, just add one more brush.
Make it your business to learn to accompany about a zillion songs with these patterns. Ideally, you should become perfectly comfort- able with it before moving on to anything else. But just to give you a little taste of how this pattern can be developed, let’s use it to play the melody of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” We’ll do this by playing the melody notes instead of the ordinary bass notes.
As you follow the music you’ll see that sometimes you need to move or add a finger to play a melody note that is not one of the notes of the chord, but keep the chord shape in place as much as you can and always get back to it. You’ll notice that you really have to move some fingers around on the F chord. From the chord chart earlier in the chapter, choose one of the F chord shapes that doesn’t use the complete bar, so you can get to the open strings when you need them.
Also notice how every now and then a bass note is used in the spot where there would normally be a brush. This is something you sometimes have to do in order to get the melody out clearly. Some melodies are so busy that, in order to get them out, you’d hardly find time to brush at all. Songs like this are not well suited to this style of playing.
Read more...!
Once you can play and count two parts, it becomes possible to introduce a popular style of guitar accompaniment often known as Travis picking. The name is used as a tribute to Merle Travis, who popularized the style in the forties and fifties, but the roots go back to the twenties, when enterprising guitarists such as Blind Blake and Lonnie Johnson were seeking to reproduce the bounce of popular piano rags. The piano style involved a regular bass pattern against which the melody moved with dotted and off-beat notes to create a synco- pated rhythm. The guitarists imitated this by using the thumb to imitate the piano’s left hand while playing the contrasting melody with the fingers, and some achieved a considerable degree of sophistication with this technique. A famous rag by Lonnie Johnson was entitled “To Do This You Gotta Know How,” and few would contest his claim.
Fingerpicking is most frequently associated with the steel-string acoustic guitar, with thumb picks helping to emphasize the bass line. However, it can be played very successfully on the Spanish guitar. Many fine singer-guitarists have favored this style includ-ing Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, James Taylor, and many, many others.
The technique differs from standard fingerstyle in that the thumb is sometimes used on the third string when playing a repeated bass line. At the core of the style is the bouncy off-beat style known as syncopation.
Syncopation
We expect strong beats to fall on certain beats of the bar, such as the first or third beats. We are used to them falling at least squarely on one of the beats. When they don’t, a slight rhythmic hiccup develops, like this:
In this case, the notes with the accent marks (>) are stressed on the second half of the first and fourth beats, while the thumb bass plays squarely on the downbeat. This results in a syncopated rhythm.
To understand upbeats and downbeats, simply tap a four-beat rhythm with your fingers on a table. When the fingers go down to make the tap, that is the downbeat. When the fingers come up, the highest point reached marks the upbeat, the point halfway be-tween the main beats. If a conductor was beating the time, his baton would travel up for the upbeat.
Here is a tune to play that includes syncopation. Notice that the “and” beats (which have accent marks) cause the syncopated effect, so give them extra stress.
This type of syncopation is at the heart of the Travis picking style, where it is used to give bounce and rhythmic interest to the guitar accompaniment. Here are some examples to try using the C, F, and G7 chords:
When you play this example, let the notes ring until the chord changes. It would be more accurate to write it like this:
However, this seems a little harder to read, and the effect is exactly the same as long as the notes are held.
Now let’s add more movement:
The next example adds another pair of eighth notes to each measure.
In this example, we start the movement right on the first beat for a change.
Here is a good-sounding practice example with more chord changes.
Finally, here is a complete song to try in Travis style. Notice the following points when you play it:
- The bass note of the chord can be alternated for variety. For example, in the first measure, instead of playing the low C twice, the low G is used.
- Similarly, in the second measure, the D is used as bass on the first beat instead of using the G twice.
- Different patterns can be mixed. For instance, the first and second measures use slightly different patterns.
- The real secret is to keep experimenting. Try varying both the notes of the chord and the rhythm patterns.
"Careless Love"
Additional lyrics:
When I wore my apron low,
When I wore my apron low,
When I wore my apron low,
You promised me you’d never go.
Now I wear my apron high,
Now I wear my apron high,
Now I wear my apron high,
You pass my door and go right by.
I love my mom and daddy too,
I love my mom and daddy too,
I love my mom and daddy too,
But I’d leave them both and go with you.
This traditional American folk song is just perfect for Travis-style accompaniment. Remem-ber, there’s no “right” way to accompany this song. Try experimenting with different bass notes and patterns until you come up with something that appeals to you.
Read more...!
|
|
|
|
