Guitar Experiment  

Hey! Yes, more than the roots of Flamenco it could be roots of the poeple who became the gypsies. You can still see that nowadays. I lived several years in Rajasthan. There you can find the different desert peoples like Langas, Manganiyars, etc. It is quite amazing how close they look to European gysies. Their attitude is somehow similar also. However, when it comes to the music they stay quite far from being similar to Flamenco. Perhaps the main similarity would be them approaching rhythm as a cycle. Not linealy like Europeans. But again, this rhythm cycles is quite an Eastern thing. You will find that starting with Eastern European people and their Horos. Then Arabs, Turkish, Persians (this one sto a certain extent since their rhythmic tradition goes around poetry metric), Afghans, etc. Personally I would not say that Arabs where responsible for much of Flamenco music. Or not as much as people say. But they are part of the influences. As well as Persians, Kurdish, etc. I believe it is more about ways of thinking and approaching a string instrument. After all we are all human beings and in how many different ways would a person try to strike music out of a given string instrument? It is difficult to put in words. I would say that Flamenco musicians have more of the collective musical subconcious from Arabs and Persians than any other music style born in the Western world. This is exluding Eastern Europe. And yes! I do know abou t "Dedillo" (meaning 'finger' in Spanish). I do have a mentee who is a professional antique music artist. He plays Vihuela, Thiorba, etc. He showed me several techniques which proved pretty much where things in teh guitar come from. It is so interesting and fun to discover. It is just like going backwards meeting family and ancestors. I like to call it "Time Travel". hehehehe... Thanks a lot for taking the time to comment. I sincerely appreciate it. If you are interested in these type of subjects you have plenty more in my website: www.fernandoperezguitar.com

Thanks Harold! Glad to hear so. As a matter of fact I thought my speech was not too lucid. I had just waken up and recorded the video with the idea in my head but afterwards I felt I didn't explained it too well.