Anyone love Flamenco?

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Hey, I love Flamenco.
I have played Classical Guitar for many years and have started learning Flamenco guitar.
Am planning to go and live in Spain for a bit in a few years and learn as much Flamenco as I can =)
Anyone else love Flamenco?
Would be cool to share favourite performers and basically just talk to other people who are passionate about it! =)

I love Flamenco. Mainly because of its Islamic and Jewish origins.

Definitely the moorish influences contribute to it sounding awesome! =)

The moors have played a very important part in the making of Latin American culture. I think you may like Arab Andalusian Music or Sephardic Jewish music.

I listened briefly when I was starting guitar for ideas. Not my cup of tea, but it is completely respectable and the guitarists have crazy skills. My question is this though: is most of it just showing off, or is there a balance of simple with the complex in the compositions?

Well basically there are definitely simple and complex elements.
There are certain sort of rules which are followed so that all the performers can get in synch with each other and know what each other is doing.
Although a lot of it is spectacular the motivation of a true Flamenco is not to show off, there are some bits where they may have a solo but this is about expressing themselves and their emotions rather than showing everyone how amazing they are.
Obviously it gets a bit different with some people who play Flamenco as a way to show off.
But I believe it is a very humble art form, everyone respects everyone else has an important part to play to create the whole picture and ego seems to be left out in favour of expressing emotions.

Also, depending on what you are used to listening to, it can come across as harsh and out of tune at times.
This is due to Flamenco having more notes than most western music as in we have tones and semitones and in Flamenco there are smaller divisions in between. This is due to the influence of Jewish and Islamic musics (and possibly Indian?) that were mentioned by our friend above.

Thank you for the wisdom Flamencita, usually the only things that sound harsh to me are autotune, feedback (particularly guitar squeals from it) and disharmonic chords (I jokingly call them dischords!)

I often feel the same about guitar solos in rock and metal, some are actually emotional while others are just to show off (Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai particularly.) My criteria is usually if half of the song is a guitar solo then they are showing off...but flamenco solos I've heard always sound so pretty and emotional. Be ncie fi I could make acoustic solos sound that nice in metal playing.

Dont forget the Gypsy roots of Flamenco as well.


Still associated with Gypsies.

I deejayed a wedding of american gypsies who had to have some flamenco rock in the mix.



I like both unadorned authentic flamenco, and I like modern Flamenco rock bands like the Gypsy Kings, Alex Fox, and Alabina. Not a purist- I like my flamenco straight sometimes, and sometimes on the rocks.

Of course i know about the Romani routes. The Romanis originated from India which give Flamenco Indian influences