Flamenco Explained is: a book, video tutorials, a philosophy.
Kai Narezo takes the intimidation out of learning to play flamenco guitar - for fun and alongside the art with dancers and singers. Join in on the juerga with Kai and other guitarists, dancers and singers in our online community both for free and subscribed video tutorials and method book lessons.
Flamenco Explained - The Guitarist's Survival Guide, is the first book that breaks down the inner workings of flamenco and helps the guitarist truly understand this amazing art form. Flamenco Explained presents the underlying architecture of flamenco in a new way that is accessible to all musicians and prepares the aspiring guitarist to accompany flamenco dance and cante and communicate with other flamenco musicians. Flamenco Explained has already been used as the foundation for Berklee College of Music's first ever flamenco guitar class.
Hi Kai,
very like your book and videos, really helpful.
i had a question about rasgueo when i practise the solea intro 3 on page 3.
how can i mute the fifth string when i do a F chord rasgueo. i usually put my thunb on the sixth string, should i move to the fifth or there is a another to mute the fifth?
thanks
Dino
Hello. I am no expert but maybe I could give my 2 cents. Basically, I think you can either:
A) Practice not hitting the 5th string with your thumb resting/hovering on the 6th string, or
B) rest your thumb on the 5th string so that you don't hit it during your rasgueo.
I've seen people do it both ways and both ways work. Personally, I just like to leave my thumb on the 6th string so that I don't have to worry about moving it to the 5th -- it is not that difficult to avoid hitting the 5th string, and even if you do by mistake, it's not that big a deal imo. It is probably good practice to get used to resting your thumb on the 6th string and avoid hitting the 5th. Of course, you can rest your thumb on the 5th string so that you only hit strings 1-4, especially if you are doing a lot of continuous rasgueo and don't want any of the harmony/resonance from the 5th string.
Consider this video of (a very young) Paco playing "Impetu" by Mario Escudero:
From 2:28 to 2:33, Paco rests his thumb on the 6th string while he does a bunch of i-i rasgueos on the trebles
From 2:33 to 2:37, he rests his thumb on the 5th string
Then from 2:37 to 2:41, he puts his finger back on the 6th string