Understanding Flamenco Style - Part 2/2

Tita: Today we have the chance to interview a professional Flamenco guitar player from Montreal, Dominic Zula (ph). Dominic tell me, how many years have you been playing the guitar? Dominic: I’ve been playing Flamenco guitar for 10 years but I’ve played sorts of different styles before that like with the last 20 years, I guess, even more. Tita: Why did you choose the Flamenco guitar? Dominic: Because it’s very physical. It’s a very intense music and it’s the best way I found myself to express myself. Tita: Is there a difference between the Flamenco guitar and the classic guitar? Dominic: Flamenco guitar is very more intense, a bit more violent, aggressive has a lots of—it is much more, there’s a lot of dynamic strong, soft, lots of rhythm guitar, lots of free playing. So it’s very different, yes. Tita: Do you need to know how to read music? Dominic: No, you don’t. For any kind of music, you don’t need to read music. But Flamenco is an oral tradition so I learn by the traditional way is by copying the person in front, show it something to you and you try to copy it. Tita: Do you have a special exercise that you have to do everyday? Dominic: I have to-- [Demonstration] Flamenco thumb, it goes—you rest on the string below so it’s a very typical from the Flamenco guitar to do this kind of sound compared to this. [Demonstration] So I practice that, these are legatos from the left hand. Before breakfast I do that. Tita: How many different styles of rhythm exist? Dominic: The Flamenco is they like to say there are 80 different styles but actually there’s five or six and all the other ones are derived from this five or six basic rhythms. Tita: Do you have a special treatment for your nails? Dominic: So I put a crazy glue to harden the nails and also some cleanex that gives it a thicker texture so my nails do not break because I play very hard with the dancing like this all the time. So my natural nails would not actually survive this kind of treatment. Tita: What qualities do you need to become a Flamenco guitar player? Dominic: First of all, you need to be a bit obsessive or very passionate about it. That’s the first thing. And after that, if you need rhythm, lots of rhythm, it should open. You need to be able to learn really fast and memorize very fast because also the dancing, we learn the dance as we go on, we don’t write, we don’t choreograph on paper whatever we just invent and we memorize all the time so you need good memory. Tita: We know that we saw the dancer before but the musicians also know how to dance so— Dominic: No, no, no. Tita: You can do a what? Dominic: No dancing. Tita: Oh please. Dominic: No, no dancing. Tita: So he was Tita for watchmojo.com.