Exploring Flamenco Guitar Falsetas: How to Find and Learn Them
Given that we have well over a hundred falsetas for many Palos on the Flamenco Explained site (and counting, of course), it probably makes sense for us to explain a bit about the Flamenco Exaplined falseta videos themselves, and how to find both the videos and the falsetas you want in the first place.
Three Key Video Types to Master Flamenco Guitar Falsetas
The first thing you may notice is that we have three videos for each falseta – Performance, Tutorial, and Slow/Loop. The Performance video is just that – a performance of the falseta at a real-life tempo. These are there for you to see which falsetas interest you and to hear what you’ll want them to sound like at speed.
The Tutorial video is where you learn the falseta. We break everything down so that you can learn the notes, understand the compás of it all, and maybe give some context about when to play the falseta or what options you have for making changes. For Beginner/Intermediate falsetas we’ll take things pretty slow, and for more advanced ones we’ll spend less time on the notes themselves and a bit more on the technical or compás quirks of the given falseta.
Using Notation and Tabs to Learn Flamenco Guitar Falsetas
Along with the Tutorial you may want to look at the Notation/TABs, though those of you who know me a bit know I discourage using TABs any more than absolutely necessary to learn the notes in the first place. You can find all of the Notation/TABs over on our TABs Page. Just search the name of the falseta or video you’re looking for and you’ll find it all here.
Slow and Loop Videos for Practicing Flamenco Guitar Falsetas
Finally we have the Slow/Loop video for each falseta. In these videos we play the falseta nice and slow, well below what you would consider performance speed. The idea here is that when you’ve learned the falseta, and before you get it up to performance speed, it can be really helpful to play along at an easy tempo to make sure that your notes and time are right and to see what you might need to work on. We loop this slow performance so you can get your reps in, so to speak, before trying to speed things up.
Finding the Right Flamenco Guitar Falseta for Your Practice
As for finding the right falseta, perhaps the easiest way is to go to our Falseta by Palo page and see what grabs you for the Palo you’re working on. For falsetas that mainly work one given technique, you can also check out our Falsetas by Technique page. Since many, if not most, falsetas are a combination of various techniques, you’ll find a more limited selection of falsetas here, but it’s still a good place to look if you want material that pushes you on a given technique.
Building Your Personal Flamenco Guitar Style Through Falsetas
If you’re not sure why you would want to learn random falsetas, then we recommend you stick to our Palo Courses for a bit. All of our Palo Courses include a few falsetas as part of the course, and those are more or less self-explanatory. As you get through a few courses you’ll start to see how choosing what falsetas you like to play is part of creating your personality as a player, and a big part of the fun of playing flamenco guitar.
