Apr 07 2009
I get off the guitar things that I don’t know…
During one of those crisis that every guitarist suffers, I decided that will be amazing to play flamenco guitar. In that time, I believed I could learn flamenco as I had learned the classical one and I found the perfect teacher, Mr. Serra. He was a true gipsy guitarist in his sixties., who speaks in a correct Catalan language, as few gipsy usually do today in Barcelona. He received me on gown dress, elegant in his way. He was really an artist, and a good teacher, but there was a problem: soon I realized that I don’t have “duende”.
But what “duende” is?. That’s a good question. It is something that in fact, only gypsy musicians possess. It is something magic that is not possible to teach nor learn. Gypsy learn music not in a school but at home or in the streets. So, they are not so much academics, and perhaps they take not a lot care on their nails. As flamenco guitars have the strings very low, strings repeatedly hits the mast. But they have “duende”, and they produced a wonderful, distinctive sound. Sometimes magic. Everybody can easilly perceive it only by listen them.
You can appreciate this “magic” in that video about great maestro Melchor de Marchena, one of the best flamenco guitarist of any time. Pay attention to a phrase in the interview…
- A qué tipo te cantaor prefiere usted acompañar? -Do you prefeer, to acompain, any kind of “cantaor”?
-Eh que todos cantan muy bien Eh, all of them sing very well.
-A mi me gusta mucho Manolo Caracol I like a lot Manolo Caracol.
-Cuando Manolo canta, saco cosas de la guitarra que no las sé When Manolo sings, I get off from the guitar things that I don’t know.
- También hay otro cantaor que me gusta mucho, que es Mairena, que canta muy bien.There is another cantaor wich I like a lot, Mairena, who sings also very well
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