Tangos & Tabla

Flamenco Guitar and Tabla. Sarang on Tabla and me on the Guitar. This is from our practice sessions for an event at office. The Guitar is not that audible, but the Tabla is very gud. I was playing a Tangos which I heard in Juan Martin's Flamenco Lessons album.



Tangos is a rhythmic form in Flamenco(Spanish music). Tangos is a simpler rhythm, but there are many more forms of Flamenco rhythms which are much complex, some based on 12 beats like Bulerias, Solea etc. I am sure they sound great with a Tabla. Will try out more with Sarang.

Some updates

Woah...just realized it has been too long since I stopped posting....My wedding, setting up new home in Bangalore, work as usual.....Lot of things put me busy...Once u stop for sometime, it is really hard to come back on track!...anyway finally I came out of that and decided to post..There were some things that happened on the music front after I am back to India. I didn't practice much as I wanted to...Have to put more hours into practice from now on. Some of the things which happened over the last few months:-

IODC Idol - The offshore Development Centre Idol. ha ha..On the lines of Indian Idol huh? :) Audience polls, Judges opinions...It had music, dance, mimicry, acting everything...there were prelims and then the finals...Played 'Aap ki Dua' with karthick for the prelims. Then came up with a medley for the finals. A medley of Mahaganapathim (Carnatic), Mundinam parthene (Tamil movie song), When you say nothing at all, a small Flamenco solo leading to Chura Liya (Hindi movie song) and ended with the song from Rock On - Na na na na na...Managed runners up in that! Nice fun. Like in Engg, we came up with this at the nick of the time. 1 day before the finals.
Me & Karthick here in red..before the finals...haven't got a pic of us playing :(



DISCO - a decade of partnership with our client...Managed to get some 5 mins slot there. Played 'But it rained' along with Sarang. Then we tried a fusion between Flamenco and Tabla! I played a Tangos piece and Sarang gave amazing Tabla to that.
This too was composed on Sunday, when the event was on Monday! But this time, I goofed up a bit in the solo. I couldnt hear the tabla properly and missed some beat and Sarang somehow managed, but any trained ear can make out that I goofed up there :D! Anyway the Convention Center was awesome and our CEO and the director from client company were there too.

@Convention Center


Band - Regular meetings on weekends. Jamming the compositions with Srinath, adding a few...In fact very slow progress, but fun for sure. So finally 2010 is the year we r playing live with Srinath and Sarang. Hope to post more updates on this in the coming days..

Jamming at my apt...



Excited for 2010 :)

New Flamenco Guitar

Finally!! After a bit of delay and inaction on the music front, I now bought a Flamenco Guitar. Yamaha CG171SF. I've been checking the reviews in the net and for the budget of $350, this Guitar has been getting good reviews. But when I checked it live today, I felt this is the one...It has an excellent tone and I tried some other Guitars upto $700 range...but this surely is a well made Guitar.

Bought this from Guitar Center in Santa Clara. Guitar Center is an awesome collection of Guitars. A Guitar enthusiast would feel like a kid in a toy store! The sheer numbers are over-whelming. It does have a corporate feeling though. It is a very big store and you might miss the personalized treatment which u might get in a local store...but the guy who helped me was pretty decent.
I will be playing again and hopefully record some good ones soon...Right now I'm pretty excited about my new Guitar!


I did try some electric Guitars tooo...This below one is a Gibson Les Paul worth $2000..That requires a bit of saving from now :)

Flamenco Guitar

This was one of the videos which really got me interested in learning Flamenco. Flamenco is a music genre that originated in Andalusia, Spain. It is in 3 forms: Cante - the song, Baile - the dance, and Toque - the Guitar. It is believed that Gypsies brought the Flamenco style from India! There is a strong resemblance with our ragas, and also with the hand movements in Indian dance.

Source: Flamenco-World

Coming to the Toque , the guitar playing - Flamenco Guitar is one of the most challenging Guitar techniques. Played entirely with fingers, like Classical, it has many advanced techniques like the Rasgueado, Alzapua, Golpe etc. The video above shows Grisha Goryachev playing the composition Con Garbo y Salero by Sabicas from the album Flamenco on Fire.

Flamenco to most of us in this part of the world, is may be a Desperado OST, Bailamos, Latino songs etc ... But Flamenco is not that. They might be using some similar playing techniques but that has got nothing to do with the Rhythmic structures in Flamenco or the art of Flamenco as such.
Check out the following link from a very informative Flamenco site - very nice one :-) What Flamenco is not?

Flamenco is gaining some popularity here. But anyway I didn't find any Flamenco Teachers here in Bangalore. So, I started Classical Guitar lessons as it will surely help in the similar finger-picking style of playing. Anybody who wants to learn Flamenco, but does not find any teacher can surely try learning Classical Guitar to start with. Who knows I might end up learning from...may be someone in Spain later in life?? :-) Well I don't think this happening anytime soon. For now I got this book El Arte Flamenco de la Guitarra by Juan Martin from a friend in US.