Hue, Saturation and Lightness. April 22, 2006 9:49pm

I'm listening to Paco de Lucia's Siroco--one of my most favorite flamenco recordings and one of my first flamenco CD's that I bought while I was a classical guitar performance major at Cal State Fullerton.

I can still remember those many wonderful days and late nights when I'd spend hours in the practice rooms on the third floor of the music department building and look out the window when I needed to take a break. When it was rainy and cold, I'd take comfort in being warm and dry and calm--the practice rooms were sound proof.

Color Balance. April 22, 2006 9:49pm

It was a good feeling because I'd think to myself, "Someday when I'm a professional musician, I'm going to spend my days like this, practicing the guitar and the hours would slip by as I searched for beautiful sounds and perfected them!" And now that's what I do.

The funny thing is that I never thought that I'd be doing flamenco (instead of classical guitar). Between classes, I'd sit on the concrete benches just outside the music department and practice performing. There were always lots of fellow students passing by on the way to and from classes. Ocassionally someone would sit next to me and listen and I'd use this opportunity to overcome my stage fright by playing for someone as they watched and listened to me intently.

The biggest challenges for me were the pretty girls of course cuz I'd make the mistake (as a performer) of thinking "Play something to impress her!" and what would happen is that all my mental energy would be spent towards the impressing part and not enough on the musical and technical side and I'd ending up making unnecessary mistakes. The important thing though was that I kept going on when I did mess up. That's the thing you gotta do as a performer: don't ever ever stop or go back to the beginning. Recover from your mistakes and keep going until you've played whole piece.

One pretty girl I'll never forget is the one that turned me on to flamenco. One day after I had played a movement from "Suite Compostelana" by Federico Mompou that I was working on for my senior recital, she said "That was beautiful." and asked me about the piece.

I asked, "Do you play guitar?" and normally people would either say no or they'd say yes but not as good as me etc.

"Yeah I play flamenco." Whoa, I didn't see that coming. This should be interesting.

I handed her my guitar and she proceeded to play a few compases of Farruca. I didn't know anything about flamenco at the time, but when I saw this beautiful girl playing, I'm not sure if it was her or the music or both, but I was blown away.

Anyway, she had to rush off to class, so she handed me my guitar and promised she' d stop by the next time I was practicing outside and teach me some flamenco. She lingered in my thoughts the rest of the day. I wanted more!

She kept her promise and eventually I asked for her number and we went out a couple of times. She introduced me to her flamenco guitar teacher, Ted McKown and told me about the dance studio where she played for classes: Blanca Luz Academy. This is where I got my first taste of playing for dancers and started performing my first shows.

OK, it's 11:33pm now and I'm feeling sleepy again so I think I'll stay in tonight to get a good night's rest for an important rehearsal tomorrow morning at Alliance. But I'll continue this story another time. Oh yeah, her name was Elizabeth Montes. She changed my life and I'll never forget her. Thank you Liz, wherever you are!