CCSinM

Impressed

First off, I am not a music major so I can't really discern the significance/sophistication of what many of these flamenco musicians are doing with their talents. Insofar as the singing is concerned, I am fascinated by Brooke's comments on their approach- looking back upon what I saw, they definitely used their facial contortions/nasal passage to create a resonance which many Western singers lack. Likewise, the choreography of the dancers really amazed me- even taking into consideration the practice which goes into these dances (which we witnessed in "Carmen"), the fluidity with which the dancers moved and their interpertation of the music's rhythm was pretty stunning. Again, not a very sophisticated comment, but those were my initial impressions. Having dabbled at the guitar myself, I was most interested by the flamenco guitarists. Their creation of the sometimes complicated flamenco rhythm was impressive enough, but I was really excited by the close-ups of each guitarist's fingers. The finger-picking was incredible, I know that from my own experience I have struggled tremendously in that area. Likewise, the rapidity with which they moved around the fretboard was as fast as I've seen in a while. That said, could anyone tell me the name of the last guitarist that we saw? I missed it when it was mentioned in class and would like to check out some more of his stuff. I can't say that I'm a huge fan of flamenco music yet- I sometimes found the vocals hard to handle. But as far as the instruments are concerned, I have to admire the skill of their craft and certainly left class impressed with the innovations of this particular genre.