Flamenco Guitar for Beginners

This is where your flamenco guitar journey begins:

Flamenco Guitar Fundamentals is a comprehensive foundations course by atrafanaSchool. It covers the all the absolute essentials of flamenco guitar technique via lectures, demonstrations and drills. Each lecture is slowly and carefully narrated by Orhan in plain English. Captions are also added to each video to make sure you understand everything. There are 8 sections containing 38 video lessons, plus tabs where relevant.

Whether you are an absolute beginner or someone looking to improve their technique, or fix errors, you can simply fire up this course and follow it from beginning to end. Flamenco Guitar Fundamentals also includes the entire 101 series and its tabs under the “supplementary” section.

And this is where you go next:

Orhan's current video lessons are daily updated on his Patreon page.
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If you cannot afford lesson packages right now, then check out the following free lessons.

Flamenco Guitar 101 is now part of Flamenco Guitar Fundamentals course under Supplementary Materials

SKIP TO Learning Flamenco Palos - 102 VIDEO LESSON SERIES

SKIP TO Flamenco Guitar Warm-up Sequences

Learning Flamenco Palos - 102 VIDEO LESSON SERIES - FREE

The following videos teach you how to play solea, buleria, tangos, solea por buleria, fandango, and alegria via the main flamenco guitar techniques

Every flamenco guitar piece has a generic identifier attached to it such as solea, buleria, seguiriya etc. These are palos. Flamenco music is categorized under several of these forms that have their unique rhythmical and harmonic laws. Different palos have originated from different regions in Andalucia.

You can purchase the tef and pdf files of the 102 videos if you wish to print them or use the interactive features of the tefview application.
Click on the image below to access the purchase page:

How to play SOLEA

Solea has all the characteristic ingredients that make a guitar piece flamenco.

Primarily it is based on the 12-beat compas, which is the most commonly used meter in flamenco.

Within one bar (measure) there are 12 beats (quarter notes) and each musical sentence starts and ends within these 12 beats. The "cierre" starts on the 10th beat and marks the end of the sentence and takes up 2 beats.

Then there are the accents that mold the flow of music into something that relates to a larger context of musical performance i.e. singing, dancing.

The accents are on the beats 3, 6, 8, 10, and 12

You don't have to do much about these accents as a player really. Watch the videos paying attention to the compas counter. You will see that the accents are embedded in the music either as golpes or sounds/chords that stick out. And sometimes they are simply ignored as the music unfolds.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 01 Solea Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 02 Solea Picado
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 03 Solea Alzapua
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 04 Solea Tremolo
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 05 Solea Rasgueado

How to play BULERIA

Buleria is the flashiest of all palos. Again it uses the 12-beat structure like solea but interestingly the compas takes 12 as the starting point. The accents fall on 12, 3, 7, 8, 10. Alternately, it can be 12, 3, 6, 8, 10. But I prefer the one that uses the 7, 8 accents because when I do the tap tap golpe on those two beats, I am reassured that I have not strayed away from the compas. Or if I have gotten lost then I wait for those two adjacent taps to get back on the compas flow.

Solea can tolerate some rhythmical flexibility but buleria can absolutely not. You need to stay in perfect compas for your performance to be perceived and appreciated as buleria.

The strumming has particular significance for buleria as it sets the tempo and the mood of the falsetas that follow it.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 06 Buleria Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 07 Buleria Picado
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 08 Buleria Pulgar
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 09 Buleria Alzapua
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 10 Buleria Rasgueado

How to play TANGOS

Tangos is quite a simple palo that is easy to learn and play. The first general characteristic of tangos is it's galloping rhythm, similar to fandango. Therefore it uses the iai type of finger rasgueado for it's main compas strumming. Though I highly doubt tangos is related to the Argetine tango, the two forms share the same 4-beat structure. Tangos also goes through 1-2-3-4 but much faster.

The base compas pattern of tangos is 1-2-3-4 and it is cycled twice: 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4

As for the accents, I have seen various combinations. Some say the accent is on 1. Some say on 4. And then there is the 1234-1234.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 11 Tangos Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 12 Tangos Picado
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 13 Tangos Pulgar
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 14 Tangos Alzapua
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 15 Tangos Rasgueado

How to play SOLEA POR BULERIA

Also referred to as Buleria por Solea, Solea por Buleria is essentially a fast solea played in the buleria tonality.

It is one of the more popular palos in the modern flamenco scene. And for good reason. SpB brings together the best aspects of solea and buleria. It takes the 12-beat solea compas alongside the characteristic llamadas, remates, cierres and presents it in the key of A - aka por medio tonality. Again, it is basically a solea, however the accents fall on 3, 7, 8, 10, 12 exactly like buleria. As for the tempo I'd say from 120 bpm to 190 bpm would be a good range for this palo. Anything slower will fall into the domain of solea and if you exceed 190 then you will practically start playing buleria.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 16 Solea por Buleria Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 17 Solea por Buleria Pulgar
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 18 Solea por Buleria Alzapua
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 19 Solea por Buleria Tremolo
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 20 Solea por Buleria Rasgueado

How to play FANDANGO

Fandango is based on a "galloping" rhythm almost as if you are playing guitar on horseback. That is why the i-a-i strumming pattern is used extensively. I personally find fandango quite complex and it took me quite a while to figure out how to incorporate melodies into it's compas grid.

Especially after playing solea and buleria for a while, fandango feels very foreign at first mainly due to it's gallopy nature.

You need to practise the strumming sequences really well before proceeding with the falsetas. The compas I use is based on a 6-beat structure with the accents on 4 and 5. It have also seen a 12-beat fandango compas structure with an accent on every 3rd beat: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12. Either works the same way.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 21 Fandango Free Stroke
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 22 Fandango Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 23 Fandango Alzapua
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 24 Fandango Picado
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 25 Fandango Rasgueado

How to play ALEGRIA

Alegria is similar to buleria in terms of compas but it’s played a bit more slowly and it has a rather joyful (hence the term alegria) tonality. Alegria can be played in either por arriba or por medio.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 26 Alegria Tremolo
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 27 Alegria Pulgar
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 28 Alegria Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 29 Alegria Picado
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 30 Alegria Rasgueado

Flamenco Guitar Warm-up Sequences - Free

FLAMENCO GUITAR 101