Im a huge believer that every musician should be able to improvise and its impossible to improvise properly unless you know theory. Most guitarists (in any genre) learn to improvise either by just learning songs and then copying other peoples style or else by being given scale shapes and then just told by their teacher to improvise in that shape. Which is why most guitarists either sound like a copycat of someone or who is just noodling inside a box scale shape. I know Flamenco is mostly based on E Phrygian with a G# and D# added to it. This scale is only approximating arabic scales which is not tempered but built on exact intervals. I think its important to know that arabic music theory is based on Pythagorean music theory where scale tones are exact 5ths of each other. There is a really good youtube video called "How Pythagoras Broke Music" that is worth watching for anyone not familiar with how the western diatonic scale has been tempered and so not exact intervals like arabic scales are. So I am requesting a full course that covers all the possible flamenco scales and how to construct chords in those scales. I just subscribed to this online school and I know you cover a certain amount of theory by explaining options available to improvising. But I think its important to cover complete theory all in one place which will give the student an overall high level understanding of theory and improvisation instead of learn a little at a time and possibly not making important connections to how it all relates to each other. Since Kai went to Berkeley school of music I would say is very well qualified to make this course even more so than many famous flamenco artists.

Hey Bradley - I agree with a lot of what you say here. but I'll challenge the idea that you have to know theory to improvise. Countless flamenco players and even jazz players have shown that theory isn't always necessary, but I totally agree that for us mortals it probably helps. I've been considering a theory course for a while now, though I believe that what most players really need is a good handle on basic jazz theory. There's not a whole lot on flamenco theory, and what there is is all an attempt to explain what's going using "standard" music theory (and, I'd argue, for good reason). So let me ask you - since you're obviously the kind of player I'd be doing the course for - what specifically would you want to get out of such a course? And when you say "improvise" do you mean that as in soloing over chord changes, or in the way that flamenco players basically improvise arrangements on the fly?
Cheers,
Kai

Im really glad you bring this up because the words 'improvise' and 'music theory' can mean a lot of different things, especially for jazz heads, so I will try to explain what those differences are and which one I mean. For people learning jazz, most people are just told to learn jazz standards. That can be a good or bad thing depending on how you approach it. Some people go out and buy "The Real Book" or some kind of chord charts which are usually always wrong and leave open a lot to interpretation. "The Real Book" was made by people at Berkeley school of music to standardize the lead sheets for jazz standards (and yet is still inaccurate) and so people base their entire jazz careers on it, which is sad really. So then there are people who are told you can only learn jazz by listening to the actual recordings of jazz standards. This only works if you have really good relative pitch and can transcribe music just by hearing it. And you dont have to know theory to know how to do this, this is a skill you can develop independent of theory. So I do think its possible to become a professional level jazz player by doing this enough because eventually youre going to learn the theory just by seeing how chord progressions go over scales and chord voicings are constructed. The problem with this is that there are a lot of musicians who think theyre improvising but really are not. Like if you ask them to use a different chord progression or change to another key, they cant. This is very common with guitar players who basically just learn a lot of licks by their favorite guitarists and eventually develop a style of their own to where they come up with their own licks and then write their own songs. But they really dont know the theory behind what theyre doing and they end up sounding like the people they copy. To jazz 'purists' that is not only ok, but desired as youre supposed to just learn by copying. I personally found this very frustrating when I was trying to learn jazz because all the books just tell you about chord progressions and chord voicings youre supposed to use but not the big picture as to what jazz is trying to accomplish. It wasnt till I found this youtube channel called "Walk that Bass" where I finally found a description of the music theory being used in jazz and what its trying to accomplish. OK, so now would that even be possible with flamenco? Because as Ive mentioned, flamenco music is a sort of folk music where they converted music in arabic scales and fit it into the tempered diatonic scale. For example blues music was also originally a type of folk music, but the rules to blues music is very simple, its just a I-IV-V progression of 7th chords over 12 bars. So it might be that it is impossible to set up a strict set of rules for what flamenco is and that it will always be a style of music that can only be imitated and embellished. So having said all that, I think its still possible for you to make a theory course for the simple reason that you mentioned that you were able to see how flamenco worked in relation to diatonic theory after you attended Berkeley school of music. So thats all Im asking of you, Im not expecting you to define flamenco with music theory because it may be undefinable. I just want to know what kind of scales and chord progressions you discovered you were using in flamenco after you learned western diatonic theory.

Hey - lots to unpack here, but there's also a relatively simple answer to your question, and it only really requires a basic understanding of theory to grasp it. Let's take the key of E Phrygian (Por Arriba) in flamenco. Despite the Major quality of the I chord (and that natural 3rd will come to play soon), it all basically operates if we think of the modes of E Phrygian (or C Major). The E Major gets a Phrygian scale (the main not-normal bit, which gives flamenco its sound), the F is Lydian, the G is Mixo and the A minor is Aeolian. All modes of C Major or E Phrygian. That G# also gives you the addition of an A Harmonic minor scale that works a lot of the time. Beyond that you have secondary dominants that operate as they would in any other tonal music, and then a lot of "outside" stuff that's borrowed from other styles, with a heavy dose of symmetric diminished and whole-tone scales.
This is not to say that I'm not still thinking about the best way to do a theory course. But I believe that the greatest benefit for most guitarists will come from an understanding of basic stuff like chord spelling, the relationship between chord/arpeggio/scale and all of that good stuff.
A theory course will definitely happen at some point when I wrap my head around the best way to present it. In the meantime, the info above explains the vast majority of the phrygian stuff in flamenco (for the Palos in Major and minor keys, tonal harmony "rules" apply). Assuming what I wrote makes sense, let me know what you'd like to know beyond this. You're making me really think about this course again, which I appreciate!

Perhaps I could add my 2 cents, for what they're worth.
"its impossible to improvise properly unless you know theory" -- Here is a video of Paco de Lucia, who didn't "really" know any music theory nor the names of scales or chords, talking about his experience learning to improvise:

Yes, Paco practiced 10 hours a day since he was like 5; yes, he did internalize the notes and intervals of 12-TET; yes, he did eventually learn (at least on an intuitive level) to think about the set of harmonies he would be going to next while improvising. That said, I think it's still safe to say that he was effectively unacquainted with the fundamental customs and intricacies of conventional western music theory and harmony. And to this point, with regards flamenco, I believe it is not at all necessary to learn western music theory to be able to play, compose, or improvise flamenco (although it can be quite helpful). I think for western ears, this thought may inspire fear and may sound even blasphemous -- I was of such a mind once. But now, I find it utterly liberating to "throw the rules out the window". As you develop an ear for what "sounds flamenco", for what "feels flamenco", you can begin to let your intuition and taste guide you. Phrygian (Hijaz), Ionian and Aeolian scales, the various basic chords and chord variations associated with each scale degree, the basic rhythmic structure of a compas, various traditional and timeless melodies (in particular any variation or colourful spin on iv-III-II-I as well as many letras and falsetas), the basic right-hand techniques, or any other musical thing that you pick up from learning music (flamenco or jazz or otherwise) -- we should be crude and brash alchemists with these as the primitive elements of our musical experiments. Let us forget for a moment about the stringent pompousness that the classical tradition has impressed onto the larger world and instead be obnoxiously unashamed with the improvisations and compositions that become of us from our sense and love of flamenco.

All this, of course, with the guiding principle: our music should scream flamenco as brilliantly and as painfully as it possibly can (and also stay in compas)

As for trying to ascertain the origins of flamenco, you mention the 1500s as a starting point. It should be pointed out that in europe they had only just developed polyphonic music a short time before that. Because europe was out of touch with the musical knowledge that the arabs has access to, the entire dark ages and middle ages in europe were stuck in monophonic music, or "monophonic ecclesiastical plain chant" as you put it. Also the 1500s was the time when equal temperament was being developed for the diatonic scale which meant instruments like lutes were starting to get a standardized fret pattern. As for the cultural origins of flamenco, I think more can be learned from flamenco singers than flamenco guitar because singers are not limited by the tempered diatonic scale like the guitar is. I dont know anything at all about what kind of musical pitches that flamenco singers are using, but I can only say it sounds similar to both arabic and indian singers just from a stylistic standpoint to my ears. But european guitars were the only instruments the people had access to so they had to form the music to fit the instrument unlike singers who I believe more accurately carry the original form of the music by not having any scale limitations. What you mention about the 24-TET arabic scale being tempered is wrong, the 24-TET system for arabic music is just an approximation of the arabic scale made by splitting the notes the western diatonic 12 note scale in half and is not meant to be taken as exact pitches. In persian music each note of the octave is broken up into 8 commas (note divisions). This is reflected in instruments like the qanun, the arabic qanun only has 2 pitch levers for each string whereas the persion qanun has 8 levers (if I recall correctly). Its important to point out that the arabic scale is built on exact pitch ratios: 1:1 (unison), 2:1 (octave), 5:3 (major sixth), 3:2 (perfect fifth), 4:3 (perfect fourth), 5:4 (major third), 6:5 (minor third), so there is an exact pitch for each note in arabic scales that can be measured scientifically, its not an infinite amount of pitches.

Wow, very interesting -- I did not know that about polyphonic music and the diatonic scale.
I totally agree with you about the singing. Although I started to become interested in Flamenco because of the guitar, now I can't really listen to it anymore without the canté or palmas, and the guitar has become secondary for me (but of course I still love it).
You are correct about the 24tet system. It is merely a notational convention used to translate the music into european notation and does not encompass the finer details that are performed live.
I think I was misleading with my comment on "infinite tones". To be sure, there a not infinitely many tones in arabic music. My point was ultimately that there are, theoretically, infinitely many tones in general if the basic definition of a tone is reduced to an association with some fundamental frequency.
As to your last point, I'm not entirely convinced that all "arabic scales" are built on exact ratios because I don't think that the intervals of the ajnas in the maqamat are mathematically fixed to any ideal form and they may even be performed slightly differently between musicians and regions.
In any case, a course on flamenco music theory would be great and I would totally watch it (despite my potentially naive thoughts about music theory in general).