Flamenco Rumba

[Jascoduende]

I thought some forum members might enjoy this. Here's my interpretation of a Rumba from René Heredia's Flamenco in the Americas album.

 

[phillybhatesme]

I’m gonna come back and listen to this when I wake up. I love flamenco playing.

 

[Music&Chaos]

I’m gonna come back and listen to this when I wake up. I love flamenco playing.

Check out Jesse Cook:

 

[phillybhatesme]

Finally watched the video in the OP. Great playing. Loved the part around 2:15 and 3:15. Loved the Em lick that came around a second time.

I have a question (actually I have several). The piece is called Rumba? The ensemble I'm in performed something called Rumba by a different composer and my question is something like: I see terms like Adagio, Rumba, Etude, Prelude used a lot as "titles" in classical pieces. I'm confused about this. Are these "movements?" If not, what's a movement? What's a suite? And what does Rumba mean in this context?

For what it's worth, here's a video of the Rumba we performed:



This was performed recently opening for a real awesome Flamenco played who's name is Grisha Goryachev. More importantly than the Rumba video above, here's some of his playing:

 

[phillybhatesme]

I saw that you had a video of Malaguena as well, so I watched that. And I think I have some more questions...this time about that piece specifically...I've seen Malaguena referred to as "modal" in the sense that you can play it a number of different ways; people performing Malaguena will give you their interpretation of it. So long as you bring that melody about here and there, feel free to fill in the space with your own playing. Would you agree with that?

I think I've posted this video before, but here's another interpretation of Malaguena:



And I ask that you may even humor me in the following: if we agree that Malaguena is modal, then perhaps my interpretation on an electric guitar won't be so offensive:

 

[Jascoduende]

Finally watched the video in the OP. Great playing. Loved the part around 2:15 and 3:15. Loved the Em lick that came around a second time.

I have a question (actually I have several). The piece is called Rumba? The ensemble I'm in performed something called Rumba by a different composer and my question is something like: I see terms like Adagio, Rumba, Etude, Prelude used a lot as "titles" in classical pieces. I'm confused about this. Are these "movements?" If not, what's a movement? What's a suite? And what does Rumba mean in this context?

For what it's worth, here's a video of the Rumba we performed:

I saw that you had a video of Malaguena as well, so I watched that. And I think I have some more questions...this time about that piece specifically...I've seen Malaguena referred to as "modal" in the sense that you can play it a number of different ways; people performing Malaguena will give you their interpretation of it. So long as you bring that melody about here and there, feel free to fill in the space with your own playing. Would you agree with that?

I think I've posted this video before, but here's another interpretation of Malaguena:

And I ask that you may even humor me in the following: if we agree that Malaguena is modal, then perhaps my interpretation on an electric guitar won't be so offensive:

Within the flamenco world there are song forms – Rumba, Farruca, Tarantas, Solearas, Alegrias, Bolerias, Tangos, Tientos, Sevillanas, Malaguena, etc… Each form has a specific timing/groove and chord structure it follows but the specific 'licks' can be different.

A lot of traditional flamenco has an improvised aspect to it also. So if two real flamenco players get together they can jam on a song form without necessarily know the exact same song. A comparison would be in the blues world, if I said lets play a slow blues in A, or a shuffle with a quick change in Bb, or a jump blues with jazz changes in F then other blues players could play along with me even if they didn’t know the exact song I was playing.

That being said, I’m a flamenco ‘faker’ and 95% of the things I play are pre-memorized. It’s like I see in the blues world sometimes someone comes in to a blues jam and knows for example a Stevie Ray song with solos memorized note for note and sounds like he can play the blues, but he’s not really a blues player per se. That’s me with flamenco.

Comment on the videos you posted:

Cool ensemble piece. It must be tough to get so many guitarists to play in time with each other.

I’ve never heard of Grisha before, but he’s the real deal. Great playing. The song form he is playing is a Bolerias. 12/8 time with the accents on 3, 6, 8, 10, 12. I've been working on a Bolerias as well. When I get it to the point it doesn't totally suck I'll record it and post it.

Lucas Imbiriba is a monster. Love that guy’s stuff. Out of this world playing and a great performer too.

I dug your Malaguena interpretation. Nice playing. There are 2 song forms in flamenco called Malaguena that are completely different from each other. The form that you, Lucas, and I are playing is one of them. It is often has free-time sections in it. If I had a critique of yours as far as far as following the song form, I’d say that while your melody playing is in 3 / 4 time, your rhythm playing is in 4 /4 time. (Although you’re being sneaky about it sometimes 3 + 3 + 2 = 8 ) If you kept all the in-time parts in 3 /4 it would come across as more ‘authentic’.

Although I play classical too, I’m less familiar with the classical song forms you mentioned. (I usually just make arrangements of classical pieces by ear rather than reading them – I’m not a trained classical guitarist per se.) An etude is a ‘study’ – a piece meant for educational purposes. A prelude is typically an arpeggiated style. Not sure about Adagio or Suite.

Hope that helps some.