Manolo Sanlúcar, flamenco guitarist. Málaga en flamenco

“The more time goes by, the further the new generations drift away from tradition, and that's dangerous”

Málaga en Flamenco. November 2005
Translation: Joseph Kopec

Manolo Sanlúcar's teaching has been a star at Málaga en Flamenco 2005, where he taught a Higher Guitar Course to over fifteen accomplished guitarists. One of the greatest Spanish artists in recent times, he speaks about the matter of didactics and many other questions in an interview granted to Málaga en Flamenco.

Manolo Sanlúcar (Photo: Javier Hurtado)

How do you weigh up your experience at the head of the Higher Guitar Course you've taught at Málaga en Flamenco?

It's a very positive result. I loved it because I found people with a good level and desire. I was surprised so many of them have that level because to compare for you, in Córdoba, among over fifty people registered for the course, I couldn't find fifteen with the level of those I've found here. These kinds of courses are very valuable to them because since there isn't a flamenco music conservatory where they can receive this guitar instruction, I help them a lot. Most of them learn by ear, listening to records or because somebody in the family plays. Flamenco is a very broad culture and is scarcely analyzed scholastically. That's why feelings are talked about so much; because the musical knowledge isn't there. Moreover, curiously, being a musical culture which has survived by being passed on orally, it's one of the most rigorous ones around.

What did your students value the most in those classes, considering many of them are already professional guitarists?

They were really grateful for everything and they paid a lot of attention. I drain myself in teaching what I know. I consider myself to be a very lucky person and with a great capacity to work. When I got started, I had the help of La Niña de los Peines. I turned fourteen years old playing the guitar for Pepe Marchena on stage and a lot of years have gone by now. I've built up everything I've learned in my head, well-structured. What I mean is that up until now, everything that's been learned in flamenco has been because in the family where you grew up, people played or sang, as for example is the case of Paco de Lucía, who was raised in a family which is practically a conservatory. Then there are others who have no choice but to hang around those who know, as in my case might be artists such as Vicente Amigo, who spent seven years with me, or Niño de Pura. And it's a great satisfaction for me to have these encounters with young people who play the guitar. Since 1970 I've been doing a couple of courses for specialists anywhere in the world, which permanently connect me to everything that's being done out there.

	"When you're working well, a Paco de Lucía comes along, and as much as it's been said, I'll take advantage to say that he's one of the guitarists who's put in the most hours in this matter"

What do you like to see most in a guitarist, artistically speaking?

The right position is to be an artist and to be a professional. To lead a life of observation and work. I think it was Manuel Segovia who said that ten percent of creativity is inspiration and ninety percent is expiration. When you're working well, a Paco de Lucía comes along, and as much as it's been said, I'll take advantage to say that he's one of the guitarists who's put in the most hours in this matter.

With the revolution flamenco's undergone over the past few years, how do you see the new generations? Is it harder for them to contribute something new, without getting away from flamenco?

The more time goes by, the further the new generations drift away from tradition. That's dangerous; we've entered a world dominated by what's commercial, and a lot of them don't have a foundation, the knowledge to differentiate between musical cultures. Hybrids have already come out which have no structural knowledge of their own musical culture. Nowadays there are aberrations happening such as the one at Córdoba's Flamenco Conservatory, where in the offer of mandatory studies one of the courses, I believe, was Jazz Harmony, and that has been included in the educational program because two or three artists happen to have done fusions. The school representing us can't impose that course, because young people will think it belongs to our culture. For them to know it should be a personal question, which they make their own decision on. A young person shouldn't construe that knowing jazz harmony is part of our culture. We don't need it, and at the same time, we need them all. This is a lack of reasoning and a lack of trained teachers, speaking in general terms. Young people get lost and then it's really difficult to recover them when they're forty years old. It's true that there is a group of young guitarists with technique, but there's still a lot of insufficiency in training.

What do you think of a festival also worrying about not forgetting the didactic side of flamenco?

It's really good; courses like this one at Málaga en Flamenco should reoccur and be set up in all the provinces in Andalusia and every year offer a specialized course of this nature or also with not-so-demanding contents. I'm not asking for cathedrals or very pretty conservatories; the classics can keep that, they've already kept it all. I'm asking for an appropriate room where a guitar instructor can teach everyone who wants to learn and people don't have to go around traveling from Madrid to Córdoba or to Málaga to take a few specific classes.

Manolo Sanlúcar (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

In the presentation of this course, you vindicated institutional support for flamenco comparable to that devoted to other types of music and for it to enter conservatories once and for all. In your opinion, what is still hindering these conquests?

We flamenco artists have a flaw; we think we're being helped when concerts are organized for us. And we have to consider that the best way the State can help us is by opening conservatories. That concept has to be changed.

Are you going to get more involved in teaching now and give up a bit of your artistic side?

Other artists aren't interested in this. You need talent to be an artist, but you need devotion to be a teacher. I feel like an artist as much as the next guy, but I tremendously value teaching. A foundation is needed to therefore be able to better develop artistic feeling.

Does one satisfy you more than the other?

Neither more nor less, one or the other. Everything I do, I do with passion. I like doing both, but I need to bring out records because that's what keeps an artist out and about.

And are you working on some new album now?

Yeah; I'm halfway through composing a new album which will be a tribute to Sevillian painter Baldomero Romero Ressendi. In my case, it's nothing new because I like joining different artistic expressions and I'd already had prior experiences adding music to poets such as Miguel Hernández and Lorca.

magazine@flamenco-world.com