ACADEMY OF FLAMENCO GUITAR
Director: "Flamenco Chuck" Keyser
P.O. Box 1292, Santa Barbara, CA 93102
(805) 563-0922
E-mail: BuleriaChk@aol.com
"Flamenco
Chuck" Keyser (ca. 1976)
"He was born with the gift of laughter, and a sense that the world was mad" (Scaramouche)
Return To:
- Flamenco Information Page
- Compas Analysis Audio Examples
- Compas Analysis
- Soleares, Bulerias Audio Examples
- Alegrias, Siguiriyas Audio Examples
IMPORTANT NOTICE
The Academy Material has been upgraded to CD-Rom. Toque Flamenco has been re-written and upgraded. The Falseta Collections are now included on the CD-Rom. All audio/video files are hyperlinked with text so you can play them as you read the document. The documents can also be printed out on a laser jet, or by taking them to your local printer, who should be able to print them from the CD-Rom's (*.pdf files) (e.g. Kinko's)
The Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded for free from: http://www.adobe.com. The Microsoft Media player can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com. I don't know about MacIntosh, but I believe there are also readers/players available - check your local dealer or http://www.apple.com .
The material will be offered separately in the following format:
CD-Rom (4 CD's) $79.95
Format: Adobe Acrobat Files (*.pdf) and Mpeg audio (*.mpa).
Includes:
- Toque Flamenco (The Flamenco Guitar) (*.pdf) (Updated)
- Music Theory for Flamenco (*.pdf)
- The Compas Analysis (.*pdf)
- Introduction to Flamenco (*.pdf, *.mpa)
- The Flamenco Guitar (Lessons 1 - 6) (*.pdf, *.mpa)
- Falseta Collections (Buleria, Solea, Alegrias, Siguiriyas) (*.pdf, *.mpa)
- Flamenco Videos (same material as Videotapes below)
Includes Shipping and Handling (US, Canada, Mexico)
Overseas add $30. (subject to change; E-mail me for verification)
If you have already purchased Academy material and are interested in upgrading, contact me by E-Mail: BuleriaChk@aol.com
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Flamenco By Mail
- About Our Director
- About The Academy
- Introduction to Flamenco
- The Flamenco Guitar
- Toque Flamenco; The Flamenco Guitar
- Falseta Collections
- Guarantee
- Reviews
- Price List
- "Flamenco Chuck"'s Home Page (Come Visit)
- Flamenco Information Page (General Flamenco Information)
- Compas Analysis (A Basic Flamenco Rhythm Analysis)
- A Flamenco Journey (Arts Grant Trip Report)
Note: The Academy videotapes are now available in PAL and SECAM formats as well as NTSC. Please specify format when ordering.
The art of Flamenco has always attracted enthusiastic followers outside Spain, and its highly personal, deeply emotional qualities appeal to countless guitarists. Unfortunately, the great majority of those who have tried to turn their enthusiasm into practice havefound the art wrapped in secrecy and misinformation.
It is the aim of the Academy of Flamenco Guitar to cut through the secrecy and misinformation and make authentic Flamenco available to anyone who feels the pull of the toque gitano.
INTRODUCTORY COMPAS ANALYSIS
Introduction to Flamenco: Rhythmic Foundation and Accompaniment is an analysis of methods of counting compas (the cyclic rhythms that define the flamenco forms) and the traditional palmas accompaniment. It is intended for beginning guitarists, dancers, and all aficionados who want to understand the rhythmic foundation of compas.
Also included is "A Flamenco Journey", Susana's grant trip report, which is a fun-to-read description of flamenco as a folk art in Moron de la Frontera in 1976.
Send check or money order for $22.50 to Chuck Keyser at P.O. Box 1292, Santa Barbara, CA 93102. Add $5 for overseas; money back guarantee, of course.
Music instruction by correspondence offers several advantages. It solves the often insurmountable problem of finding a truly competent instructor of Flamenco; one who has lived the art in Spain, accompanying singers and dancers, and to whom El Arte Flamenco remains supreme. Those who can find such a guitarist willing to part with his knowledge may find they cannot afford him, or that they cannot adapt themselves to the regimen of weekly lessons.
Our home study method, Toque Flamenco: The Flamenco Guitar, gives the student the opportunity to work at his own speed and convenience, and provides at a considerable savings information that would take a period of years of weekly lessons to absorb.
"Flamenco Chuck" Keyser is a leading authority on the art of Flamenco in North America. He has performed in Spain (as "Carlos") with Ballet Iberia, and in concert and nightclubs throughout North America. He studied intensively in Spain: guitar with the legendary masters of traditional Flamenco in Moron de la Frontera, the late Diego del Gastor and Augustin Rios, and dance accompaniment in the studio of Mercedes Leon in Madrid. He is also a serious student of the cante.
He has contributed articles on Flamenco Guitar to Guitar Player magazine, and has taught highly successful classes in Flamenco Guitar for the Extension programs of University of California at Los Angeles and Santa Barbara (UCLA, UCSB), University of British Columbia (UBC) and Concordia University in Montreal, in addition to his private teaching practice.
The Academy, under his direction, approaches Flamenco from the viewpoint of the purist as a foundation for the art. Flamenco is an art of improvisation; a fluid and personal folk music, not a series of set pieces. Until the Academy's inception, the only technical material in print consisted of methods which provided the student with set music and solo pieces in the major toques. This is not, in our estimation, the best approach to authentic Flamenco. All Flamenco for the guitar is based on rhythm - the accompaniment of the cante and dance - and this is the approach the Academy takes. It is not our wish to turn out students who all play the same Soleares, but to teach you to play your own Soleares.
For musical notation we use tablature on a five-line staff, the most easily understood and logical guitar notation; musical examples are demonstrated on cassettes and/or videotape. We answer promptly, personally, and to the best of our ability every question from our students, whether it concerns Academy material, Flamenco philosophy, or the price of paella in Jerez de la Frontera.
Our basic method, Introduction to Flamenco, was derived from teaching experience in extension classes; its emphasis is on the elementary chord progressions and techniques used to express compas, the most basic, yet the most misunderstood element of Flamenco. All true Flamenco, from the brilliant intricacies of Sabicas, Serranito, and Paco de Lucia to the searing "ducas negras" of a gypsy tocaor in a village juerga, is based upon complete command of compas. Introduction to Flamenco with its accompanying cassette takes you through the basic chording compases for Bulerias, Soleares, Alegrias, Fandangos de Huelva, Verdiales, Sevillanas, Farruca, Tientos, Tangos, Rumba, Zambra, Peteneras, Guajiras, and Garrotin.
This work consists of six lessons of a projected fifteen lesson series with the accompanying cassetes; the work was essentially completed with Toque Flamenco: The Flamenco Guitar and our falseta collections, described later in this brochure. Music theory and harmony are applied in a unique and powerful fashion to the Flamenco guitar, leading the student at an early stage to an understanding of improvisation, how to create his own material, and how to develop the ear to take material off records and tapes. Flamenco techniques are examined, from basic rasgueados to the arpeggios and tremelos of the concert guitarists. All material is performed on the accompanying cassettes.
The Flamenco Guitar, Lessons 1 thru 5, is devoted to the music theory necessary for an understanding of Flamenco, to basic techniques, and to the toques of Soleares and Alegrias. Lesson 6 concentrates on the complex toque of Bulerias.
The Flamenco Guitar was originally intended to be a correspondence course; it includes written exercises and ear training. Although the Academy no longer functions formally as a correspondence course per se (answer sheets are included with the bound work), I will be happy to answer questions about Flamenco as time and energy permit.
TOQUE FLAMENCO; THE FLAMENCO GUITAR
Although the course The Flamenco Guitar was enthusiastically received, I was unable to complete it in the manner originally intended due to circumstances beyond my control. I had decided to replace it with a more complete and up to date work, together with some advanced techniques I had discovered more recently; Toque Flamenco is the result. However, I've included both Introduction and The Flamenco Guitar (and their accompanying cassettes) with Toque Flamenco, since I feel the different perspectives are valuable, even if there is redundancy (since each was originally intended to stand alone).
Included with Toque Flamenco are three accompanying videotapes (about five and a half hours).
As a supplement to the above work, I have produced a collection of guitar falsetas for the toques of Bulerias, Soleares, Siguiriyas, and Alegrias. These are expressed in tablature (cifra) notation, and recorded on audio cassettes. They include some of the best material within the tradition, ranging from funky old style falsetas to the complex creations of the concert Flamenco guitar. There are approximately twenty falsetas for each of the above toques.
Included with the above is a collection of fifty Bulerias falsetas on videotape; this includes most of the Bulerias falsetas in the audio collection. Since much of the tablature for these falsetas is included in the audio collection above, I haven't yet produced tablature for the remaining falsetas. Nevertheless, I am confident that with the theory and ear training of the methods you'll be able to figure them out, especially since you can see them performed as well as hear them.
To hear the material in the collections (using RealAudio), click on the following:
Soleares and Bulerias Collections
Alegrias and Siguiriyas Collections
We are vitally concerned with your progress toward authentic Flamenco, and your pleasure in pursuing the art. To this end we offer a very simple guarantee: if you purchase any of our offerings and find that it isn't what you want, return it within 30 days and we'll refund your money immediately, no strings attached.
The Flamenco Guitar is staggeringly complete .... an inexpensive way to learn Flamenco... Mr. Keyser.. is positively gifted at dissecting and systematizing the elements which add up to good flamenco guitar... he has made good use of the ability to draw upon the best music from all the great creators...Accurate and illuminating on all matters....A remarkable achievement.
Brook Zern
Guitar Review #37
...Much more than flamenco technique is presented in this excellent and thorough course...superb (i.e. clear) explication of other highly relevant musical topics such as harmony, rhythm, notation, and accentuation. Even ear training is included... The price is reasonable, when one considers that a comparable number of lessons would cost at least twice that much...
Jeremy Duncan
Guitar Player Magazine
...can report that the approach seems far more complete and competent than anything available to date.
D. E. Pohren, Society of
Spanish Studies
Initial review, newsletter, 1972
(author of Art of Flamenco)
..Monumental...A bargain ...
Brook Zern
Guitar Review (Spring 1993)