For Those About to Flamenco, We Salute You

Since I've been in Granada, I have been lucky enough to see 2 free flamenco guitar concerts at a small local venue. To say the least, this style of music is very soothing and nice to listen to, and to watch people play is truly amazing. The manner in which they actually strum as well as pluck the strings is insane, and when they get into these really intense sections of songs, its like their fingers are not even real, they are moving so fast. Alfredo Mesa is a local guitarist who is an absolute machine and who I was lucky enough to get to watch at one of the free shows. Go to this link and check him out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T13JL5ngnfQ&feature=PlayList&p=88183CA358AF68DF&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=29

now,being someone who has always enjoyed playing music and watching music be performed, I decided I wanted to dive deeper into this massive interest I have discovered in flamenco guitar. I was sitting in class and saw a girl with a sheet of classes that you can take at the University of Granada, like yoga and what not, and it turns out there was a beginner flamenco guitar class. I have since bought a cheap Spanish guitar, signed up and realized that the style of music is just as hard to play as it looks, if not harder. But the instructor is a fairly well known local artist as well and has already shown us some pretty cool things to start practicing. The nice thing is that much of the teaching is by showing things on the guitar and not by long verbal descriptions because the guy talks insanely fast and I'm one of only 3 english speaking people in the class. The language of music is much more forgiving than the language of Spanish! More to come...