Here is what we want you to know about our final sprint to the finish line of February 28th!
Class Passes:
We will honor all current class passes that have already been purchased up until the day we close. For those class passes purchased before December 1, 2011 that expire after February 28th, 2012, upon receipt of your request, we will refund the unused, pro-rated portion no later than March 31, 2012. Class passes will still be available, but the expiration dates on them will be modified to fit within our scheduled closing date. Daily Drop-in rates will be available through the entire period for those of you that would prefer that option. Our class schedule will remain the same until our close with the exception of a break for Christmas into the New Year.

A Final Performance:
We would like to conclude this leg of our Flamenco journey in song and dance! To do this we would like to have a final show / jam session featuring all of you. The number of folks remaining in mid-February will dictate the venue for this. More details to follow as we get closer.

In closing, we want to thank you for being involved with Solo Flamenco. We have been honored to join you in your Flamenco journey.

The Solo Flamenco Family

If, as a 17-year-old with a new license I dream of becoming a Formula One champion, should I practice by entering the Grand Prix over and over again until I win? Should I spend 10 years practicing by doing laps of the Coles carpark (obeying the 5kmp/h speed limit of course) before my Formula One debut? Should I learn to drive, enter local racing derbies, gain some racing experience, try to lure a sponsor, etc? all of these are practice in one form or another, so why is it that with only one of these plans of attack there is even the possibility of success (and I’ll give you a hint-it doesn’t involve Coles carparks)? The answer is, the cliché is wrong: practice doesn’t make perfect, PERFECT practice makes perfect!

Before we look at what perfect practice is, lets look at why the ‘Coles carpark’ strategy and the ‘almost-certain-death-by-Formula-One’ strategy are unlikely to take me to glory. Firstly, if I spend all my practice time driving around the same carpark at 5kmp/h, I’m never going to get the skills I need to do anything except become a trolley boy. Secondly, If I practice by entering the Grand Prix over and over again, I’ll be in so far over my head the whole time that I’ll be too busy trying to stay alive to learn anything useful except that nappies for adults may not be such a ridiculous idea after all.

I especially chose these two scenarios because they are examples of the two most common problems I see in the practice techniques of my students (and myself-in my more honest moments). One is that practicing inside your comfort zone the whole time will get you nowhere, the other is that practicing outside your comfort zone the whole time will get you-well, nowhere.

It may sound like I’ve left you nowhere to practice at all, but there is a magical and mystical place on the edge of the Comfort-Zone-Shire called Middle-PerfectPractice-Earth, and it’s only there that a musician can find the true path to the success. Roughly translated from Nerdish to English, it means that to practice perfectly, you have to play at the absolute limit of what you can do without making any mistakes. If you’re making mistakes every time you practice, you’re practicing the mistakes as much as the good stuff, so how are they going to miraculously disappear from your playing (I hate to burst your bubble, but wizards aren’t real)?

On the other hand, if you never push yourself to your limits, how are you going to ever improve at all? it’s a very small world this Middle-PerfectPractice-Earth, but it holds the key. To get there you have to practice as fast, loud, clean or expressively as you can without making any mistakes. Don’t relax though-if it’s easy, you’re going nowhere. Once this becomes comfortable, your comfort zone on your instrument has expanded out a little bit. This is good. This means it’s time to go a little faster, louder, etc. Perfect practice is about standing on the edge of your comfort zone and pushing it outward, not about sitting complacently in the middle of it, or diving in far outside it and hoping it somehow follows you. But of course in the end, all this advice means nothing if you don’t practice in the first place, so practice, practice PRACTICE (perfectly)!!

No sensible person would try to define where traditional ends and modern begins. Sabicas played traditional music but he also played some pretty unusual stuff that could hardly be defined as flamenco. However, I think it would be fair to say that before Paco de Lucia introduced his sextet to the world, complete with flutes, bongos and fretless electric bass, the average person on the street had a rough idea of what flamenco was about. Not any more.

Although I enjoy listening to the more modern interpretations of traditional forms by genuine flamenco artists such as Paco de Lucia and Gerardo Nunez, at the end of the day I still prefer the older stuff. This provides a reference that is, for the most part, unashamedly standard in it’s presentation.

As a guitarist with only a simple wooden box in my hand, it becomes increasingly more difficult to relate to some of the lavish productions released on CD these days. Having said that, I am irresistibly drawn to listen to this modern style of flamenco anyway. Compared to the mind boggling technical abilities of these modern guitar players I am just a struggling amateur. Humbling as it is to listen to this stuff, I draw great inspiration from it all. But it’s sometimes easy to forget that without the work of the past masters to act as guide, modern flamenco would never have evolved into what it is today. So much for the ongoping evolution of traditional flamenco.

New flamenco

What about the other stuff that is erroneously referred to as ‘New Flamenco.’ What is promoted by main stream music companies as flamenco is an entirely different animal. These days the word flamenco is loosely attached to any sort of Latin pop by artists like the Gipsy Kings, Armik and such. While I give full credit to these successful artists and acknowledge their talent, I have an issue with the manner in which these artists are promoted. The exotic form of fusion lounge music played by Ottmat Liebert and similar artists is also openly promoted as flamenco in music stores. I don’t know about you, but this laid back supermarket music makes me think of coconut trees and footprints in the sand. I have no idea what the flamenco connection is supposed to be.

And yet real flamenco CDs, if you can find them at all, are relegated to the World music section or some other obscure category. There is nothing bad or evil or wrong with the so called ‘New Flamenco’ of today. It is all good music and worth listening to, but it is certainly NOT real flamenco by any stretch of the imagination, and never will be.

Here’s a question

How come I keep hearing this so called ‘New Flamenco’ piped through tinny speakers in elevators and shopping malls? Fair enough. It’s good background music and it’s soothing. But I cannot remember the last time I heard real flamenco artists like Sabicas or Paco de Lucia in an elevator.

The bottom line is that the word flamenco sounds exotic and sells CDs for promoters and recording companies who have brainwashed the general public with their misinformed hype. But this is not about them. The point is that the traditional flamenco roots from which these modern artists draw their inspiration will always be there. You can try to change public perception about flamenco and you can even attempt to re-define the word, but you can’t change history. -S. Bonoveta