I just discovered something really cool about the Flamenco sound

[Soupbone]

I was messing around with modes and how they sound when played against certain chords. Also things like 11th chords where you have a chord played against a totally different bass note and it led to this discovery.

I notice a lot of flamenco guitarists will be playing against a major tonality but they are getting a definate dark, minor sound and I couldnt figure it out. Sometimes, yes they are playing against minor chords, but many times the tonal center is major but the song sounds minor!

Take the key of E. Play an E major chord and then noodle around in C Ionian(major), D Dorian(minor), etc etc while you still have the E major sound in your head. (Ideally, it works best if you have someone else playing an E major chord while you noodle, but you can get the jest of it.) The E major tonality stops sounding major and starts to sound like something from an episode of Zoro when you are soloing in C major! Thats how they get that sound.

You can start the pattern on whatever note you want (so long as its part of C maj) and play as fast or slow as you want but it sounds best if you resolve to an e note.

Fascinating

[klasaine]

You're playing in E phrygian ... the "spanish" mode.

[wompum]

Try this A tad bit of chet atkins Malagenuia
Fast
--0-1-3-1-0-----------0--0-1-3-1-0------------0---------0-----
----------1---0-1-3-1-0-----------1--0-1-3-1--0------0--0----
----------2------------1-----------2-----------1--1---1-------
---------------------------------------------------2----------
----------0------------------------0--------------------------
-----------------------0-----------------------0---0---0--0---


--------0-------------------------------------------------
--0-----0------------------------------------------------
--1--1--1-------------------------------------------------
-----2--2-----------------------------------------------
--------2-----------------------------------------------
--0--0--0-----------------------------------------------

[eclipse]

Speaking of Flamenco. I ran across this Flamenco metronome. Pretty cool if you want to learn Flamenco. Watch the video.

http://www.graf-martinez.com/flamenco-metronome.html

[wcap]

Speaking of flamenco, and maybe latin styles in general...

Can anyone give me some tips on the various percussive tapping/slapping type techniques often used in Spanish and South American playing styles?

I have tried to figure out the rhythmic patterns of the right hand involved in interspersing these percussive patterns in with notes, and I've been fairly bewildered. When you watch others play it all happens so fast that it can be hard to figure out exactly what they are doing.

Can anyone post a little bit of tablature or something showing what is going on for a few of these rhythmic percussive patterns?

[seekir]

Interesting, I suppose you could add a "majored" iii chord (I believe Em is the iii in C) in any major key and get this Spanish tonality?