It's 1:45am on Friday as I type these words. I arrived home a little more than an hour ago after seeing Woody Allen's latest movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona starring Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall. Fun film with lots of gorgeous shots of Barcelona but the soundtrack, which featured quite a few classical guitar pieces, transported me back to my days as a classical guitar major at Cal State Fullerton.
In case you didn't know that about me before, yes, I did study classical guitar in college with a focus on performance. Eventually I got my Bachelor of Music degree—not that you really need such a thing to work as a musician.
The classical portion of the soundtrack to Vicky Cristina Barcelona included:
Granada and Asturias from Suite Española by Isaac Albéniz,
El Noi de la Mare by Miguel Llobet,
all of which I learned way back then.
Nowadays as a flamenco guitarist, I spend a lot of time practicing just to keep up my technique. So much so that over the years I've forgotten most of my classical repertoire—not that I couldn't pick it up again with some effort. But as I enjoyed this 90-minute movie set in Spain, the piece Granada was used as a recurring theme every time one of the female characters reminisced her one unforgettably romantic night in Oviedo.
Hearing that melody over and over again reminded me of the many nights I'd spend in the practice rooms on the top floor of the music department working on my classical guitar technique and repertoire. Sometimes I'd stay until 1:00am or later—but I wasn't the only one. There were at least a few other dedicated music majors honing their craft at all hours of the night. (For those of you who envy us musicians who only work at night doing what we love, just remember that these lonely hours spent practicing, while our fellow college student friends were out partying, counted as "Paying our dues.")
In any case, when I was done practicing for the night I had to make the lonely walk across campus to the vast student parking lot. From the distance I could see my trusty Honda Accord, got in, started the cold engine and drove home to Norwalk tired but usually satisfied that I made some kind of musical progress.
During the day, between classes, I'd find an empty bench in the quad, usually close to the music department building and practice. Well yeah, I did work on my technique a bit, but spent the majority of my time "performing" for passersby.
Occasionally, some random college student would sit on the bench next to me and listen. This was kind of my way of learning to get over performance anxiety. Of course we had juries every semester (performing for a panel of music professors for a grade). And we had ensemble performances on a regular basis throughout the semester, but it was the solo performances in front of crowds where I needed work.
This is probably one of the benches where I sat and practiced as a classical guitar performance major years ago at California State University, Fullerton. (photo by pedroOaceves)
I had a couple of regular listeners some of whom became my friends and yeah I did meet a few pretty girls too. :-) One girl in particular turned out to be a flamenco guitarist. Her name was Elizabeth Montes—I didn't keep up with her after graduating from college, so I don't know what she is up to now. She's the one who gave me my first few informal lessons in flamenco and referred me to the Blanca Luz Dance Academy in Buena Park where she regularly played for flamenco dance classes.
The Blanca Luz Dance Academy in Buena Park where I got my first start in accompanying dancers. (photo by julesschroom)
I was fascinated by flamenco at first but I wasn't completely "converted" just yet. Elizabeth stopped by lots of times when I was practicing outside on the benches and occasionally she would play some flamenco for me. As much as I enjoyed Elizabeth's company, at the same time I wanted to do all those fancy rasgueados (strumming) that she was doing but I needed some serious lessons so she referred me to her teacher, Ted McKown, a protégé of Sabicas who resided in nearby Santa Ana, a short drive from my college campus.
Between Elizabeth and Ted, I learned enough basic compás patterns to play for beginner dance classes at Blanca Luz Dance Academy. Usually the teacher was Giselle, Blanca Luz's daughter who was always thrilled to have live music to provide for her students.
During my last year of college, I continued to play for dance classes on a weekly basis and became more and more confident in accompanying dancers even to the point of doing my first few paying gigs with a couple of student dancers, some of whom have continued to perform flamenco to this day such as Arleen Hurtado and Richard Chavez.
Being a classical guitarist certainly helped my technical development as a flamenco but it was the accompaniment of dancers that was the real challenge. To do it well, you had to have the technique down well enough that you could focus all your attention on the dancer(s) and catch all the nuances of rhythm and movements and moods and play the appropriate music to complement them.
And while I could read books, listen to recordings, watch videos and take lessons, the place where I really learned the most was in the dance studio especially when I sat alongside more experienced guitarists. I also learned from my peers some of whom were more advanced in certain palos--and vice versa.
There really is no other way to learn than to just get out there do it, make mistakes and learn from them. For example, it's one thing to explain to another guitarist what a dancer's llamada looks and sounds like. And it's quite another thing to become familiar with it through hands-on experience and recognize it instantly.
Anywayz, getting back to my time as a classical guitar major, here's an interesting fact: I used a Raimundo flamenco guitar for my main instrument. In all my performances as a classical guitar major I used that very instrument—little did I know that years later, I would become a flamenco guitarist.
What's more, is that for one of my recitals I played Isaac Albéniz's Sevilla inspired by the rhythm of Sevillanas. Little did I know that I'd be playing Sevillanas all the time as I do to this day.
Although I spend most of my time listening to flamenco, I still love classical guitar music to this day. It's just that after the seeing the movie I saw last night, I was reminded of all kinds of good memories of college that made me want to dig up my classical guitar CD's and reminisce.
Sometimes I wonder if I hadn't practiced outside and met Elizabeth, would I have become a flamenco guitarist? Perhaps...perhaps not. Who knows? Elizabeth, or "Liz" as she preferred I call her, wherever you are, thank you!
Incidentally, this coming Sunday August 31st, I'm hosting a flamenco juerga at Bodega scheduled to start around 7:00pm (of course most people will arrive fashionably late around 9:00pm).
