Overview
This is part 4 of a complete series of studies by Mr. Granados designed to help guitarists to learn the secrets of solo playing and accompaniment of singing. This volume deals with falsetas for solo arrangements of farruca, serrana (siguiriyas in E), and guajira; and accompaniment of siguiriyas, soleás, tientos, fandango natural, granaína, and malagueña.

Materials and layout
The staple-bound soft-cover book is well designed and seems sturdy enough, and comes with a very well-made CD containing about 40 minutes of music. Lengthy solo falsetas for three styles are heard, and the accompaniment section deals with six styles, each divided into versions of voice and guitar, just guitar, and just voice. Spoken comments in English and Spanish identify each track on the CD. The text in the book offers an analysis in the two languages of the styles in the accompaniment section, explained through music theory. I found it to be a bit dry and technical, but very thorough nonetheless. One half of the book shows the music in standard notation and the other half in tablature, each half occupying 42 pages of the book. Because of this separation, the tablature has been fully noted with all manner of time values and symbols, as has the standard notation, the latter also indicating what strings are being played in certain ambiguous situations. At the halfway point, the remaining transcriptions and cover appear upside-down, so if you flip it around and start from the back, you'll be starting the other section from the beginning. This is puzzling at first (I thought it was a printing mistake), but a bit of reflection revealed that this format offers a clearer separation between tab and standard (page numbers are identical for each section), and can make handling the book a bit easier. This is just one example of the great amount of forethought that has gone into this publication.

Approach
Mr. Granados' playing is clear and strong, even at the high speeds he often reaches. He makes use of nearly all techniques, and to my ears, his style of playing was at one time influenced by Ricardo and Manolo Sanlúcar. The accompaniment section features the singing of the young Seville native Pepín de Torre. His influences range from Manuel Torre to Camarón, and his singing is excellent.

Contents
After a typical symbols chart, the first thing we come across are three solo pieces with falsetas graded for levels 3, 4, and 5. It's not immediately clear what scale was used for the levels (whether or not 5 is the maximum), but the material seems appropriate for low-intermediate to high-intermediate players. The transcriptions are not of entire pieces, but long falsetas that can be joined together or with others. The styles are farruca, with a total of seven falsetas; serrana (siguiriyas in E), with three falsetas; and guajira, with three falsetas. The accompaniment section starts with a rundown of the chording and scales often used in flamenco, then offers details of each of the six styles covered here. Siguiriya, soleá, and tientos are grouped together, with fandangos (naturales), granaína, and malagueña in a separate section of similar design that deals with the free-time styles.

Summary
There is some beautiful music contained here, played by two great artists and explained by an exacting and scientific mind. The materials are good quality and the general layout and appearance are pleasing. The performances are modern renditions of classical styles. This does not refer to jazzy chords or strange variations on the singing, but rather an evolved state of specific styles that reflects nearly a hundred years of development. Every note heard from the guitar and voice are there for a reason, summarizing the essence of these styles. This also makes for a kind of brevity that also represents a certain limitation: Learning the introduction and chording for one or two cantes within a style by no means provides the guitarist with sound knowledge of accompanying that style. The playing style is based on only one approach, and many other cantes exist within most of the styles included here (chording and structure will differ). This may be considered a limitation, but it is certainly not a defect. Mr. Granados has carefully selected the material included in this volume, and the result is a well-balanced, highly useful, and clearly represented collection of classic styles of flamenco music.

Norman Paul Kliman