Flamenco Guitar Basic Techniques (Technicas Basicas) (English and Spanish Edition)

Juan Serrano is truly a genius. His exercises are not easy, but they are doable, and having the CD to listen to is very helpful. For instance, his detailed explanation of the resquedo (sp.?) technique, and how to start with one finger and gradually add the rest, made me finally understand it - I've been confused about this for a long time. I've been practicing his exercises, and I've almost mastered it.

Such a great book. It has really great exercises for Flamenco technique and some nice basic falsetas to learn and improvise from. Don’t expect to buy this and play Flamenco, it will take you at least a year to smoothly play a lot of the techniques in this book.

Great book. Thanks

Although it says so nowhere, this is not aimed at the absolute beginner; the student is assumed to be able to tune the instrument, play the basic chords and scales, etc. After an introduction, some potted music theory, and exercises for rasgueado, scales, tremolo and thumb, the book contains Sevillanas, Farrucas, Soleares, Alegrías (2), Fandangos de Huelva, Rumbas (2), Bulerías and Malagueñas. Each piece is in staff notation and cifra (tablature) with time-values, prefaced by remarks about its provenance, structure and compás (rhythmic constraints). The text is in good English, and Spanish. (Since I grumbled about this duplication elsewhere, I suppose I ought to grumble here, but I can't feel the price is excessive.) The book is well written, clearly printed and exhaustively fingered, a very painstaking work indeed. I did find three trivial typos in the staff notation, easily cross-checked against the cifra: page 65, system 2, bar 2; page 119, system 7, bar 4; page 140, system 5, bar 4. This, then, is a very good book. In particular, it is one I would recommend to any classical guitarist with a year or more's experience, who knows nothing about flamenco forms but would like to find out. The reason is simple: there is little student material that conveys the true flamenco "aire"; and the pieces in this book (apart from a rather Mickey Mouse "flamenco" version of "Romance de Amor") achieve that, while remaining as simple as they can be and still retain that quality. They are suitable for near-beginners; but if you *can* play them crisply and rhythmically at even moderate speed (particularly the Bulería), you will amaze your friends with no trouble at all. There is now a new edition that includes a CD, which I haven't heard and so can't comment on.

The description (and the front cover) states: "Written in notation and tablature". It is not written in tablature, only in music notation. Useless unless you read music.

Wow! I’ve greatly improved my skills courtesy of this book. I was Originally looking for a book on flamingos but since this came instead I decided To utilize it. Never played in this style before, and it’s super helpful that you can download the audio clips so you can tell how bad you are in the beginning! Also the book is bilingual like myself however I have Yet to achieve a conversation with it..