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Does your teaching side crop up when you're composing a record?

I've been in teaching for so many years that I never stop thinking about it. I relate any little thing to some idea for classes. I can't help it; it's something beyond me. But oh well, the question of teaching has also delayed the album for me. There are people who say you haven't recorded for such a long time... And it's only been six years, but meanwhile you chalk up books and DVDs. You can't do everything; I'm not a machine.

What do you try to get across to your pupils?

	Óscar Herrero (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

I try to get across in a short time what I've learned over many years. Until now, we've had to fend for ourselves to learn. All this time devoted to teaching has enabled me to decipher a lot of subjects in order to be able to teach them: why this strumming is done, why this rhythm is like this... And, well, what I want is to give students everything I've been able to decipher and make things easier for them so that they can learn more quickly.

Who did you learn from?

I started off with my father. I listened to flamenco at home since I was born. Then I came to Madrid with Juan González ‘Triguito’, a Sevillian tablao guitarist. I also learned from Sataki, a Japanese who in that period when there wasn't any sheet music, passed on to me Paco de Lucía's work in those years. He used Japanese technology of that time: a tape recorder he used to slow down the speed with. I'd ask him for a song, he'd write it down for me and he'd teach it to me. Those are the ones who most influenced my early training. Then there's Enrique de Melchor and Serranito, as everyone already knows, who've been my university, so to speak.

You dedicate a song to each of them on the album...

There's nothing special in it. As I went along, I decided to dedicate a song to each of them. ‘Rumbolé’ is dedicated to Enrique de Melchor; and the tanguillos ‘Carnaval’, to Serranito. I just wanted to thank them a little for what they did for me.

There's also a dedication to bailaor Javier Barón, isn't there?

I dedicate some alegrías to Javier inspired by some I played for him years ago. We coincided in a series of concerts with Serranito. And that led me to do alegrías inspired by his baile, besides the fact that he's a good friend and an artist I really admire.

What's new in your music since ‘Torrente’?

I think they're completely new songs. And I imagine, I don't know, that the years don't go by in vain, and you go along capturing your experiences in diverse ways; in my case, with the guitar. I imagine that there is a lot of joy, sadness and many things that have happened. What do I contribute or stop contributing? I don't know. Guitar is a long-distance race, like life. It's a hard race, like all of them. You have to be somewhat lucky, but above all, work and do things well.

Óscar Herrero (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Is that your main recommendation to your pupils?

Advice? Work, learn well, listen a lot, see a lot of people, be honest with yourself and know how to gauge what you can do and what you can't do.

As a maestro, how do you size up the latest batch of flamenco guitarists now coming out?

Really good and really bad. It's more and more complicated; there's more pressure. On the one hand, the guitar's really good; there's been a huge change. That means that it takes you more hours to be up there and even though there are more means and it's easier to learn, more is demanded of you; there are more people who play. An average guitarist nowadays used to be extraordinary before, but now he's hardly anybody. Things are complicated. And life itself; there's so much competition in everything... More and more injuries are springing up that there never used to be. There are more and more guitarists with problems of tendonitis, of other complex injuries... And I think it's due to the pressure, due to the rivalry of seeing who does the scales faster or who does the most chords.

And don't you think that after a period of technical rivalry, one returns to a period of musical rivalry?

This is all a cycle. Suddenly, virtuosity is "in" and when everybody's a virtuoso, you've got to resort to something else. I think that's the most complicated thing. You can say a lot with two notes and little with two thousand. If you're able to do everything, the genius then appears.

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