Flamenco Explained, The Guitarist's Survival Guide, is the first book that breaks down the inner workings of flamenco and helps the guitarist truly understand this this amazing art form. Flamenco Explained presents the underlying architecture of flamenco in a new way that is accessible to all musicians and prepares the aspiring guitarist to accompany flamenco dance and Cante and communicate with other flamenco musicians. Flamenco Explained has already been used as the foundation for Berklee College of Music's first ever flamenco guitar class.

How did flamenco—a song and dance form associated with both a despised ethnic minority in Spain and a region frequently derided by Spaniards—become so inexorably tied to the country’s culture? Sandie Holguín focuses on the history of the form and how reactions to the performances transformed from disgust to reverance over the course of two centuries. Holguín brings forth an important interplay between regional nationalists and image makers actively involved in building a tourist industry. Soon they realized flamenco performances could be turned into a folkloric attraction that could stimulate the economy. Tourists and Spaniards alike began to cultivate flamenco as a representation of the country's national identity. This study reveals not only how Spain designed and promoted its own symbol but also how this cultural form took on a life of its own.

This book and accompanying video provide a thorough introduction to flamenco guitar. What are the essential elements and techniques of flamenco guitar playing? How does one capture the real essence of authentic flamenco guitar? These are questions that Juan Martin, celebrated virtuoso flamenco guitarist and teacher, addresses in this first book of a projected three-volume series. The method is designed for the complete beginner and requires no prior knowledge of the guitar or flamenco music. It also provides invaluable insight and material for more advanced players who want to capture the essential sounds, rhythms and emotional power of true flamenco. The series begins with in-depth demonstrations of how the basic building blocks of flamenco guitar technique are used in actual flamenco music. The material then progresses to a detailed exploration of the individual rhythmic forms - the palos. In this book, the fundamental palos of Solea and Alegrias are presented to emphasize the basic rhythms and provide examples of falsetas - the melodic passages. Martin then shows how to apply these when collaborating with a dancer and singer. The music is transcribed in standard notation and tablature (cifra), and the online video contain over 3.5 combined hours of explanation and demonstrations. Provides a detailed introduction to basic techniques, using examples of authentic flamenco to show these techniques in action. Then progresses to demonstrations of the Solea and Alegrias, including music for the soloist and the guitar accompanying the dancing and singing. Includes access to online video.

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Flamenco Music and National Identity in Spain explores the efforts of the current government in southern Spain to establish flamenco music as a significant patrimonial symbol and marker of cultural identity. Further, it aims to demonstrate that these Andalusian efforts form part of the ambitious project of rethinking the nation-state of Spain, and of reconsidering the nature of national identity. A salient theme in this book is that the development of notions of style and identity are mediated by social institutions. Specifically, the book documents the development of flamenco's musical style by tracing the genre's development, between 1880 and 1980, and demonstrating the manner in which the now conventional characterization of the flamenco style was mediated by krausist, modernist, and journalist institutions. Just as importantly, it identifies two recent institutional forces, that of audio recording and cinema, that promote a concept of musical style that sharply contrasts with the conventional notion. By emphasizing the importance of forward-looking notions of style and identity, Flamenco Music and National Identity in Spain makes a strong case for advancing the Spanish experiment in nation-building, but also for re-thinking nationalism and cultural identity on a global scale.

How is the politics of Blackness figured in the flamenco dancing body? What does flamenco dance tell us about the construction of race in the Atlantic world? Sonidos Negros traces how, in the span between 1492 and 1933, the vanquished Moor became Black, and how this figure, enacted in terms of a minstrelized Gitano, paradoxically came to represent Spain itself. The imagined Gypsy about which flamenco imagery turns dances on a knife's edge delineating Christian and non-Christian, White and Black worlds. This figure's subversive teetering undermines Spain's symbolic linkage of religion with race, a prime weapon of conquest. Flamenco's Sonidos Negros live in this precarious balance, amid the purposeful confusion and ruckus cloaking embodied resistance, the lament for what has been lost, and the values and aspirations of those rendered imperceptible by enslavement and colonization.