FAQ / HELP CENTER
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Frequent Questions
How Do I Use This Site?
Flamenco Explained is a subscription-based learning platform designed to help you make real progress on flamenco guitar. Inside your membership, you’ll find The Camino — a guided learning path that works whether you’re brand new or returning after years away. Prefer to explore on your own? You can step off the Camino at any time and freely explore courses, falsetas, palos, and topics at your own pace.
Where Do I Begin?
Once you register, you’ll be guided through a short set of onboarding questions. These place you exactly where you need to be on The Camino — whether you’re brand new to guitar, an experienced guitarist who’s new to flamenco, or an experienced flamenco guitarist looking to deepen your understanding.
The Camino is designed to support all of these starting points. And if you’d rather not follow a guided path, you’re always free to step off The Camino and explore the library on your own.
What Will I Learn?
Flamenco Explained is designed to help you truly understand flamenco guitar — not just copy movements. With over 900 videos (and growing), you’ll find structured courses that dive deep into palos, compás, technique, accompaniment, falsetas, and musical concepts that make flamenco actually make sense.
Whether you start with Intro to Flamenco or land elsewhere on The Camino, you’ll build a solid foundation, develop real technique, and learn how the pieces fit together musically. From there, you can go as deep as you like.
How Much Does It Cost?
Flamenco Explained is a subscription-based learning platform.
A monthly subscription is $19.99 USD, and a yearly subscription is $199.99 USD.
The yearly plan includes one private lesson with Kai (a $100 value).
You can sign up for either plan here.
What If I Don't Have A Credit Card?
To subscribe to Flamenco Explained, you’ll need a supported digital payment method.
We accept cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Stripe Link. If you use PayPal, you can still subscribe by using a PayPal-linked card through Apple Pay or Google Pay.
In other words:
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If your PayPal account has a debit or credit card, you can add that card to Apple Pay or Google Pay and use it to subscribe.
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On Android, PayPal can also be used as a payment method within Google Pay / Google Play, depending on your region and account setup.
We don’t currently support direct PayPal checkout on the website, but most PayPal users can still subscribe using one of the options above.
If you’re unsure whether your setup will work, feel free to contact us — it’s just the two of us, and we’re happy to help you figure it out.
What Kind of Guitar Do I Need?
If you’re committed to flamenco or don’t have a guitar yet, then you’ll want to get a flamenco guitar or any nylon-string guitar to get started. If you own another guitar and aren’t yet sure if flamenco is your thing, then we recommend you take a few lessons with whatever guitar you have, or borrow a nylon-string guitar if you can. Once you know this is for you you’ll want to get a nylon-string guitar in order to properly learn flamenco technique. You can also watch this video to learn more.
What Kind of Courses are Available?
Flamenco Explained includes 20+ structured courses covering the core areas of flamenco guitar. You’ll find courses focused on:
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Palos (styles) and their compás
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Technique (including a focused technique bootcamp)
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Accompaniment for baile (dance) and cante (singing)
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Foundational concepts that help everything click
Courses are supported by hundreds of individual lessons, falsetas, and reference videos, all organized so you can follow The Camino or explore freely.
How Long Does It Take?
There isn’t a single finish line — even professional flamenco guitarists are always learning. What does change is how quickly things start to make sense.
With clear instruction and consistent practice, most students begin to understand compás, structure, and core techniques much sooner than they expect. How far you go depends on your goals and the time you can realistically devote to practice — whether that’s a few focused sessions a week or a deeper daily commitment.
Flamenco Explained is built to support the long journey: helping you make steady progress, avoid common dead ends, and understand why you’re playing what you’re playing — not just imitate it.
Do I Have To Go To Spain?
Once upon a time, learning flamenco without going to Spain was almost impossible. And if you love flamenco, we absolutely encourage you to visit — there’s nothing like experiencing it in its birthplace.
But learning doesn’t have to start there. With clear instruction and a thoughtful learning path, you can build a real foundation from anywhere in the world. Flamenco Explained was created to make flamenco understandable, not mysterious — so your practice has context and direction.
And if you do find yourself in Spain someday, come say hello. We occasionally host in-person workshops, and we always love meeting students face to face. Even if it’s just for a tapa and a chat, you’re part of this community.
Do I Have To Speak Spanish?
No — music is its own language. You can absolutely learn flamenco guitar without speaking Spanish, and many of our students do.
That said, understanding Spanish does deepen your connection to flamenco, especially when it comes to the poetry of cante (singing) and the cultural context behind the music. If you already speak Spanish, great — Kai is fluent, and you’ll occasionally hear it referenced naturally along the way.
But it’s never a requirement. Flamenco Explained is taught in English, with the goal of making the music clear, accessible, and understandable — no matter where you’re starting from.
Do You Offer Tabs?
Yes — but intentionally and selectively.
We provide notation and TABs for much of the musical material on the site, and you’ll find them attached directly to their respective lessons inside the subscription platform.
That said, we do not provide TABs for lessons that focus purely on compás (rhythm). This is a deliberate choice. Compás is something you learn by listening, feeling, and internalizing — not by reading numbers on a page.
If you’re curious about why we take this approach, Kai explains it in detail here: Why Flamenco TABs Can Be Misleading
Do I Need To Read Music?
Am I Too Old To Learn Flamenco Guitar?
No. Age is not a barrier to learning flamenco guitar.
We teach many students who discover flamenco later in life — often after years of playing other styles, or after putting the guitar down and coming back to it. What matters isn’t your age, but your curiosity, patience, and willingness to practice thoughtfully.
Flamenco Explained is built to help things make sense, which is exactly what adult learners tend to value most. If you’re ready to learn, you’re not too old.
If you’ve ever thought, “I wish I’d started earlier,” you’re in good company. The best time to start is when you’re ready — and that can be now.
What If I Am Left Handed?
Being left-handed doesn’t limit your ability to learn flamenco guitar at all. The music, techniques, and concepts are exactly the same.
In our teaching, we often use the traditional terms “left hand” (fretting) and “right hand” (picking/strumming). If you play left-handed, you’ll simply reverse that language — when we say “right hand,” think of your picking hand, and vice versa.
Many left-handed players study flamenco this way without any issues, and the adjustment becomes second nature very quickly.
What if I Play Classical Guitar Already?
That’s a great place to start. Classical guitar gives you a strong technical and musical foundation, and much of it carries straight over into flamenco.
You’ll learn some new techniques and ideas — like rasgueado, alzapúa, and compás — but most classical players find the transition both intuitive and exciting.
What Do I Have Access To?
We keep things simple. Flamenco Explained has one subscription, and it includes everything.
As a subscriber, you have full access to every course, lesson, and video on the site.
How Do The Apps Work?
The Flamenco Explained apps mirror the full web experience and stay in sync with your account. Your progress and My List are shared between the app and the website, so you can switch between devices seamlessly.
Flamenco Explained is a subscription-based learning platform, and access requires an active subscription. You’ll be asked for payment details when you sign up — whether you start on the app or on the website.
The apps themselves are free to download, and we don’t sell individual lessons or upgrades inside the app. Once you’re subscribed, everything is included.
I’m new to flamenco guitar. Is Flamenco Explained right for me?
Many people who come to Flamenco Explained already play guitar, or have experience in other styles of music. Flamenco uses a different rhythmic language and structure that often isn’t clearly explained elsewhere, which can make it feel confusing at first — even for experienced musicians.
Flamenco Explained is designed for people who are new to flamenco, whether you’re a complete beginner or an experienced guitarist looking to understand how flamenco works. Lessons focus on rhythm, technique, and structure, explained step by step and without assumptions.
If you’d like a clearer overview of how learning flamenco guitar works — and who the platform is designed for — you can start here: Learn Flamenco Guitar Online
Vocabulary
What is a Palo?
A Palo is a style of flamenco. Each Palo has a mood, a tempo range and a key it’s traditionally played in. One of the best things about flamenco is learning the various Palos so you can express different aspects of yourself.
What is a falseta?
What is Compás?
Compás is the most important, and for many the most confusing, past of flamenco. Basically it’s the rhythm. And the reason that compás is difficult for may is that it’s unfamiliar. You have to spend some time with these new rhythms to feel them the way you probably feel 4/4 time. Don’t worry – explaining how compás works is what we do.
Alzapua
Alzapua is one of the coolest flamenco guitar techniques there is. You sort of use the thumb like a pick in that you use both sides of your thumb nail to create a fast, percussive sound unique to flamenco guitar.
Arpeggio
Arpeggio technique on the guitar is when you use the right-hand fingers to play the notes of a chord individually, in sequence, rather than all at once as in strumming. Arpeggio is central to right hand flamenco guitar technique.