spanish guitars and serenades
It’s 3:39 pm, Monday afternoon. I haven’t had much sleep since Friday night. One of our clients is holding a huge multinational conference, so I’ve been running up and down. Since I’m in a zombie like state, I can’t work much, so I’m chilling, listening to Spanish classical guitar music (not the Braxton song). I love the way these guys make their guitars talk, sing and serenade.
Learning the guitar has taught me a lot about discipline, about routine, about practice. The mastery you hear from Carlos Santa or Jimmi Hendrix is not from waking up one day and doing wicked guitar licks. It’s about fingers that hurt when you start out, but you ignore the pain and learn to live with it. You seek out the pain, and let it teach you, until you become numb to it, until you rise above it. It’s about practice, about being clumsy with your first picks, your first strums, you first chord changes, and sticking to it until your fingers get a life of their own. It’s about dedication, about setting your goals, deciding what you want and what style you’ll choose.
I’ve chosen classical guitar, because, obviously, it’s more romantic, and more exploratory. And it requires rigorous discipline and practice. It’s also therapeutic. Listening to the slow or fast licks and picks of a master classical guitarist can be quite an experience. Especially spanish guitar or flamenco guitar.
There is a profound beauty and sadness in the voice of the guitar sometimes, like it’s spinning a tale of sorrow and joy simultaneously, hope and despair, love and war. It does strange things to the mind.
And if you like instrumental music as much as I do, you’d be in heaven.
My two new favourite artistes are Trio Caliente and Eric Kamen. You can listen to their music on the play list below:
Trio Caliente
Trio Caliente, as the name suggests, is composed of three people, a female vocalist and two guitarists (they also play other instruments. Their music is a blend of flamenco guitar, gypsy-rumba and latin pop. They explore other styles as well. The jazzy vocals on some tracks are in Spanish, English and Portugese.
My favourite track is Mediterranean Beauty. It’s like the serenade of a lady by her lover, mixed with the silly playfulness of their courtship.
Eric Kamen
Eric Kamen has a very interesting fusion of pop, spanish guitar, flamenco guitar, hip hop and RnB. .
I especially love the vibrancy and heavy rythm beats of “Going Down”. If it wasn’t for the flamenco guitar thrown in there, you’d think it was a hot new hip hop beat.
“Barcelona Boo” on the other hand has a certain nostalgia to it. Like sad lonely walks through the backstreets of Rome remembering the love you used to share.
“Mykonos at Midnight” is a beautiful happy song, the kind evokes thoughts of a two new lovers dancing their first date away in the market of Marrakesh. You can almost see the sway of their bodies, eyes never leaving each other, and a crowd clapping and cheering them on. Beautiful stuff, you just might end up loving it.
Of course, I’ll also learn chords and strumming, eventually, but my goal is to study classical guitar until I can serenade a damsel bulungi. Or just play for fun, you know, quiet beach somewhere with a setting sun and a grass thatched beach house and watching the tide come in.
And of course, singing of days gone by.
—
Offtopic:
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
- Leopold StokowskiThose who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.
- Angela Monet
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Comments
I wanna thank y’all for that opportunity to win this set of socks. I wanna thank God, my family my fans, my team, Jay Jay in PR, Shaniqua my hair dresser, LaVaughn my nail manicurist and Quentin my butt wiper.
Now y’all can pray for me.
Miss Cheri’s last blog post..Decisions decisions decisions
“until I can serenade a damsel bulungi”
“Or just play for fun, you know, quiet beach somewhere with a setting sun and a grass thatched beach house and watching the tide come in”
this sounds like the mark of a true player…
one who doesn’t have to get chics, but is having a hard time swatting them off of him Dawg…
can’t say i am with you, but the plan sounds good, with or without the damsels… (hehehe)
Play on er…
player
Mr. B2B…’s last blog post..Black_Woman’s_Essence
I guess now is the right time to sing… “I wish I was in your arms, like that spanish guitar, u would play me thru the nite blah blah.”
Miss Cheri’s last blog post..Being Lime Green
I see the guitarist to be(el mariachi) is already serenading the ladies(miss cheri in point) with just writing about the flamenco…in the words of Mr B2B; Play on ah…player!
@Miss Cheri, impressive speech. You might have wanted to leave Quentin out, I’m sure his job is hard enough without the promotion.
@Mr BDawg, *evil grin*, I’m just havin a ball.
@Miss Fyne again, it is the perfect time indeed.
@Dee, that can be arranged
@Esquire, El Mariachi indeed, like I told b2b, I’s just having a ball.
@Emrys, the brevity of your comment is supremely inspiring
@Teti, glad you liked it!
Hey i think you are a romatica….quiet beach, sunset, grass thatched beach house and watching the tide come in…i thought this stuff was only hollywood based….i guess things change.
I love the playlist too.
Not Bad. -The play list.
Cheri yo so lucky that I had stuff to do in the morna that kept me off the net. O/w those socks wa mine
Emi’s’s last blog post..For the new week.
I want to learn how to play too. It’s a pity my sound card has a problem. I can’t play the music on my computer.
Ms Cheri…you sound like one of those primadonna people with your speech for the socks. I loved it…hillarious.
Honestly I have not read, in fact the music surprised me…seamless.
I love guitars.
Nevender’s last blog post..Superstar
Rogue king, u’re not funny.
I’m at work, just opened your blog and guitar music comes streaming in. At deafening volume.
If I get fired, ineno.
Emi, u snooze u lose.
Miss Cheri’s last blog post..Being Lime Green
@Ugandan girl, lol, a ot of hollywood is based on real life. Welcome to my little corner of blog space.
@Emi’s, ‘course it ain’t bad, dude
@The Apprentice, word.
@Mudamuli, get the music, listen to it at home or something. You’ll love it. And learning basically needs a guitar, then find a good teacher, or teach yourself.
@Mr Lavender, dude. Read the post. Guitar lover huh? Nice, welcome ot the club.
@Miss Cheri, ‘course I’m funny. Plus, you commented like three times on the same post and never heard the music?? in lagoppa. If you get fired, we can see about a Node Six placement. Except I’ll have too many guy bloggers popping over during their lunch break.
Lol…I didn’t hear the music because it was muted. Till I unmuted (for totally diff reasons) and it blared out.
Inn kei checking kong current post…aweko email address… Cho waraga borra amiro ka chako biz na anto amiro advice ki bori, nenchalo in ingeyo jemi ma tim ki usiness.
Miss Cheri’s last blog post..Nude conscience
I’ve finally got my sound sorted out and I listened to Trio Caliente and Eric Kamen. Beautiful, I must say.
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAnd it requires rigorous discipline and practice. It’s also therapeutic. Listening to the slow or fast licks and picks of a master classical guitarist can be quite an experience. Especially spanish guitar or flamenco guitar. … Read the rest of this great post here Posted in Uncategorized on November 10th, 2008 | [...]
STOCKINGS!!!!
Miss Cheri’s last blog post..Decisions decisions decisions