In my post of 30 Mar 11 - 07:46 p.m. above, take another look at the fourth "THIS" link. That's flamenco guitarist Vincente Gomez. He's playing a Farruca dance form complete with enough "falsettas" to turn it from a straight dance accompaniment to a fairly spectacular guitar solo.

Gomez lived in Los Angeles and supplied guitar sound tracks for several movies back around the 1940s. "Blood and Sand," with Tyrone Power as a matador and Linda Darnell as his sweetheart, was one of them, and "The Fighter," a Jack London story about a young Mexican boxer was another. Entire soundtrack was Gomez on the guitar. Very evocative in both movies.

Gomez also taught guitar in the Los Angeles area and put out a couple of folios of guitar music, mostly flamenco. I bought (and still have) the sheet music for that Farruca back in the mid-1950s. It's pages are black with notes!

I LEARNED the damned thing! Took me awhile! But I don't know if I could play it any more. I was young and full of vitamins back then.

I puzzled out several pieces in Gomez's folio and every now and then I would toss one of these, or a classic guitar piece, into a coffeehouse set. I was no Segovia and I was no Gomez, but I could play them reasonably well. And after showing off a bit, I thoroughly enjoyed hearing some people in the audience muttering, "Good Lord, he can really play that thing!"

The above brag is not to brag, it's just to illustrate that I've been there, done that, and still have the T-shirt stuffed in a drawer someplace. The point is (points are) the following:

1. Learning a folk song or ballad out of a song book is pretty simple, assuming that you can read music. Much simpler than reading other kinds of music (single melody line, maybe chord symbols). But with something like a folk song or ballad, unless you've been at it for a while, it does help to hear someone who knows what they're doing sing it, someone raised in the tradition, or who is thoroughly familiar with it. Not to imitate, but to give a sort of "anchor point."

2. Learning a classic guitar piece is just about the same as learning a classic piece on, say, the piano. But with the added complication that you can find the same note several different places on the fingerboard, and where you would play it depends on several factors. All the details can be put into the sheet music, from the notes to dynamics (mezzo forte, molto allegro, etc.), although you have to be able to interpret just how molto the allegro should be. There too, it helps a student to pull out a record and listen to the piece played by some virtuoso like Christopher Parkening or Eduardo Fernandez.

3. Trying to learn essentially improvisational music such as flamenco or jazz—or various species of folk music—from sheet music can be hell on wheels. With something like jazz, the sheet music is only the starting point. The musicians take it from there, AND it may never be played twice the same way.

And there are stylistic idiosyncrasies in certain genres, such as unconventional rhythmic structures. Let me illustrate. During a music theory lesson with Mildred Hunt Harris some decades back, we were playing around a bit with a calypso song. I got the rhythm on the guitar okay, but she was trying to figure it out on the piano, and she just couldn't get the hang of it. Now, Mrs. Harris knew about all there was to know about music theory (among other things, she was a composer) and she was a fine pianist as well. But after struggling with it a bit and still not getting the shifting beat quite right, she said, "Well, I guess my daughter is right. When I try to play this sort of thing, I just can't seem to make it 'swing!'" So for once, I was able to explain something to her.

Make no mistake. Being able to read music is a wondrous asset and a definite advantage to a musician of any genre. It opens whole warehouses full of music to you. Recommended unreservedly. But the DOTS are NOT THE MUSIC! Not any more than the blueprints are the building or the card in your recipe box is the succulent, perfectly prepared chateaubriand.

And one can get through a life of making positively brilliant music quite nicely, thank you, without ever having to deal with the fact that (and yes, it IS a fact—for what it's worth) that on a fixed pitch instrument, B# and C are the same musical tone.

However, it's effect on the stock market is negligible.

Thus endeth the sermon for today.

Don Firth