Martín Guijarro, August 2005

For some years now, flamenco-lovers have been enjoying audio-visual flamenco dance, guitar and even cajón classes. The only thing missing was cante flamenco. And now the time has come. Whilst there are many who say that flamenco vocals can't be learnt or taught, Merenguito challenges them with a first installment of the step-by-step teach yourself collection ‘Cante flamenco paso a paso’. According to the vocalist from Madrid, its aim is to “explain in depth the structures of the main flamenco cantes, their rhythms, the compás for each, scores and scales.” It's not only directed at apprentice cantaores, but also at guitarists who want to improve their skills at accompanying vocalists and at any flamenco fan who wishes to improve his or her knowledge of rhythmical structures and distinguish between styles.

And all this in an outstandingly practical format, as students have the option to work with the volumes on both vocals and guitar to do their exercises. In addition, you can get the teacher, accompanied here by two 'palmeros' (Francisco Manuel Prieto and José Manuel Martínez) and a guitarist (Roberto Hernández), to repeat the lesson as many times as you need. And the fact is that imitation and repetition, in this case, hold the key to learning.

The first volume revolves around four styles from four points in Southern Spain: the caña de Jerez, alegrías de Cádiz, tonás de Sevilla and tangos extremeños. For each of these 'palos' the teacher offers a brief introduction regarding the origins and geographical details, and then a more detailed explanation of the tonality, rhythmical structure and style of clapping palmas.

After that, there's a demonstration of the palmas for that palo, and the lesson is rounded off with a dissection of the parts of each cante: salida (the entrance), cuerpos (the main body), coletillas (the endings)... Once this has all been explained - the soundtrack is also dubbed into English, French, German and Japanese - the vocalist and his group perform the entire cante, in each case with the compás accompanying it. The DVD menu offers the choice of angle function for this scene for students who want to focus on one of the three elements: cante, toque or palmas.

To accompany the DVD - from the same series as ‘Guitarra flamenca paso a paso’ and ‘Learn to play cajón flamenco’- there's a small booklet with a biography of the cantaor, the lyrics of the cantes, the compás for each, and some additional information on every style studied, written in Spanish, English, French, German and Japanese.

More information:

Óscar Herrero. Guitarra flamenca paso a paso

Guillermo McGill. Learn to play cajón flamenco