Product Description

Gerhard Graf-Martinez is a passionate flamenco guitarist and teacher. The wealth of his knowledge is captured in this two-volume work, which also reflects valuable experience gained from his activities as a tutor at national and international seminars and workshops. The CD included with volume 1 contains all the pieces and musical examples for Volumes 1 and 2. Besides being a pure pleasure to listen to "Flamenco puro," it also conveys the authentic sound and the pulsating "compas" of this music. This is the only way to learn to play the music properly yourself. The DVD will take you to the passionate world of Flamenco, and you will quickly immerse yourself in this Spanish musical phenomenon.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #113917 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9783795757687
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Customer Reviews

Good, but not for the beginner
OVERVIEW

Gerhard Graf-Martínez, according to the Preface, has played guitar for forty years, and been a professional Flamenco player and teacher for over twenty, having organised classes with Andrés Batista in 1983 and 1984. Shortly after giving this information, the author writes: "I will be pleased to answer any questions related to this guitar method and Flamenco in general", giving address, phone, fax, website and e-mail ! This is certainly a generous, not to say astonishing, offer.

His Flamenco Guitar Method is an ambitious undertaking, comprising two DVDs and their corresponding books, plus a CD.

This Method is not for beginners to the guitar, although it might serve for beginners to Flamenco: "Notation and tablature are not explained in this book because I assume that everyone knows these facts, as well as the basic techniques of the classical guitar". I would advise at least a year of playing, and preferably two, before attempting it. Also, of course, to play any kind of music well you must listen to it -- lots of it -- until you know it intimately.

The books I received are entirely in English; German versions are also available. The DVDs allow either German or English to be selected. In either case the underlying video is the same, but if English is chosen the captions are in English -- as is the audio, except when the author is shown speaking. When the latter happens, his German explanations are muted, while he provides voice-overs in English that is fluent, clear and grammatical. The effect is quite satisfactory, rather like the BBC showing one of Yasser Arafat's speeches. There is none of the nightmarish sensation you get from the dubbing in old Bruce Lee movies.

The English of the books is also idiomatic (with a very few exceptions, noted later). Mercifully, the English as She Is Spoke days of books like "Historia y técnica de la guitarra flamenca" seem to be behind us.

CONTENT

Volume 1 is concerned primarily with building technique. It exhibits a finer-grained attention to detail than I have yet seen, starting with photographs of, and a discussion of, the different playing-positions of Manolo Sanlúcar, Sabicas and Paco de Lucía, plus the traditional position and the casual one with legs crossed.

The first glitches come with the explanation of signs. We may easily forgive the use of "mano izquierda" and "derecha" for left and right hands, similarly "bemol" and "sostenido" for flat and sharp. And the use of the German H for the note B, while an error in English, is understandable. But the symbols given for the strings of the guitar appear to be gibberish. Three of them seem to be from the Zapf Dingbats font, which certainly contains circled numbers that can be used for guitar string indications -- I use them myself. But only one of the symbols is a circled number, a 3, and that is assigned to the top E string; the other two symbols are an arrow and a club (card suit) symbol, assigned to the 4th & 3rd strings respectively.

Normalcy resumes with explanations of rasgueado, followed by rasgueado exercises. All the exercises in the book are simple but accurate flamenco rhythms. 3-finger, 4-finger and continuous rasgueado are covered.

From here we pass to thumb exercises, and then thumb plus rasgueado, progressing to ayudado (thumb plus finger), taps, and the right-hand rhythm for rumba, followed by more advanced types of rasgueado.

Lesson 5 switches to the topic of the flamenco guitar itself, its makers and its players. I particularly liked the chart on p. 82 showing how the styles of the famous guitarists of the last century have developed from each other. While I (and I doubt the author either) would not claim it expressed any fixed eternal truth, it gave (for example) Paco de Lucía's immediate ancestors as Esteban Sanlúcar, Sabicas, Escudero, and Ricardo via Ramón de Algeciras, which I thought was pretty accurate.

Next come discussions of nails, palmas, compás and the flamenco clock (which is a metaphor for understanding flamenco rhythms). The tutorial material of Volume 1 concludes with a page on the Phrygian mode, here referred to (correctly) as the modo dórico. Finally there is a pretty extensive glossary, a list of flamenco establishments, and an index.

PRESENTATION

The benchmark in instructional flamenco videos has hitherto been set by Encuentro Productions. The present production certainly matches this, and goes further to include features I have not yet seen elsewhere.

The demonstrations in the video, like the photographs in the book, are extremely clear. But further, by using the cursor buttons on your remote, you can vary the camera angle, from facing the artist to one of about 45°, which gives the best view of the right hand.

When musical examples are played, the bottom third of the screen shows the relevant tablature, with a moving cursor showing the notes currently being played (if you have Finale, you already know how this feature looks). But not only this, you can switch at will from a full-speed version to a slow version; the transition is absolutely seamless.

The picture quality is high, and the whole production is extremely professional.

As regards the book, I should also say that it also contains many good photographs of flamenco artists; in particular, absolutely beautiful black-and-white full-page ones by Elke Stolzenberg.

This book is also available in a version without the DVD (at the time of writing, Amazon enticingly invites you to buy both together). See also my review of Volume 2.

Good, but not adequate on its own
PRESENTATION

The comments on presentation I made in my review of Volume 1 of this Method apply equally well to Volume 2, so I shall not repeat them.

CONTENT

The preliminary explanation of signs is missing from Volume 2. I presume that anyone buying Volume 2 is expected to have obtained the other first -- which is borne out by the fact that the examples for both volumes are contained on the CD that comes with Volume 1.

Techniques addressed include arpeggios, tremolo, picado and alzapúa. As before, the coverage is detailed and thorough; in particular, Lucía's technique of playing picado from the middle joint of the finger (rather than the large joint) is described: "If it is played differently -- it's just not Flamenco". Ah, well.

The music is supplied throughout in both staff notation, and tablature with time values. I did find a few fairly self-evident misprints, e.g. the arrow directions in the Alzapúa III exercise (p.59) are wrong, although correct in the previous one. Triplet is once confused with triad (p.57).

The sole place I found the text confusing was in the description of bulerías rhythm (p.39). To quote:

"Many players count

1·2·3·4·5·6·7·8·9·10·11·12

[Accents on beats 3-6-8-10-12: no easy way to represent this in straight ASCII (PM)]

which you will also find in most guitar methods. Someone invented this way of counting a long time ago, and many others just copied it without questioning it. It is not really wrong, but it isn't the best way either, because on the one hand, most coplas and falsetas don't start on the 1 [...] It is much easier to start on the accented 12 and to notate the whole the whole thing with alternating time signatures."

This gives the impression that the stated way of counting was invented by some long-forgotten flamenco loony; but of course, it is, and as far as anyone knows has always been, the standard and logical way of counting soleares. The explanation given obscures the vital connection between the two rhythms.

In point of fact, it is bulerías that were invented by a loony -- specifically, by the 19th-century singer El Loco Mateo (according to legend), as a way of finishing his soleares.

It may indeed be "much easier to start on the accented 12". But the example in the book labels beat 12 as beat 1, which I have never heard a flamenco do. I've found it useful to tell people that they should regard the numbers as the names of the beats, so that beat 12 is still beat 12 even if it is first. (The author does indeed switch back to conventional numbering later).

It's true, too, that "most coplas and falsetas don't start on the 1", but some do: and some start on beat nine-and-a-half!

In short, while it may be best on balance to notate starting on beat 12, the rationale given is suspect, and it has disadvantages as well as advantages.

The book continues with full-fledged versions of soleá, alegrías, bulerías, tarantas and tangos. They have the advantage of being attractive and very flamenco-sounding, but still within reach of students with only moderate technique. Next there is a catalogue of styles, including some pretty obscure ones, with a few brief musical examples. Finally, there is a short history of Flamenco, from antiquity to the present day, and a bibliography. The history is well-written and not just a regurgitation of other accounts; although I was a trifle startled to learn (p.122) that:

"The Thirty Years' War, the Spanish wars of succession, the War of Independence started by Napoleon, the Civil war under FRANCO and the transition to democracy in 1976 were of no cultural importance, compared with the former history of the country."

SUMMARY

As previously mentioned, the English throughout both books is generally very good, the use of German-style quotation marks being trivial. However, there may well be those interested in Flamenco -- especially classical guitarists -- who as yet speak no Spanish, and so I feel obliged to quibble over the use of Spanish terms where accepted English ones exist: in particular, the consistent use of Spanish note-names, and terms like modo dórico for Phrygian mode.

This said, the author's explanations, both visual and textual, are very clear. However, I have several reservations about what is not explained. What they boil down to is that this is, by itself, nowhere near an adequate flamenco guitar method. The omissions are understandable: the size and price would be quadrupled if all the relevant material were to be described in the same detail.

If the title were "Modern Flamenco Guitar Technique", then these two books and DVDs would fulfill their function very admirably, and on that basis I recommend them.

The best value in Flamenco Guitar lessons --- EVER
Gerhard Graf-Martínez has produced an excellent lesson on Flamenco guitar. I have taken weekly lessons for five years in this discipline and find Volume I adequately challenging.

Graf-Martínez presents technique in great detail and the DVD provides video examples which clear any confusion. The slow-tempo versions of pieces and exercises are slow-enough that I find I can play-along with him after a few minutes learning each. I find I can then play the correct-tempo versions after a few days.

I am looking forward to Volume II.