See my other falseta collections
The new soleá falseta collection is now available! The material consists of part of my flamenco guitar repertoire after living in Spain for over 30 years. There are over 80 falsetas, all in the "por arriba" key of E Phrygian, consisting of around 30 of my own and 50 or so arrangements of falsetas of Spain's best flamenco guitarists. They all reflect my musical tastes and guitar preferences, and the material is rounded out with 15 cierres (closing phrases over beats 7-10) that I often play. Just a few of the falsetas from my previous collection appear here, and I've changed them to my liking.
Whereas the purpose of my preceding collections was to objectively record the art of historical flamenco guitarists, this new collection is meant to be a personal reflection of my repertoire of soleá falsetas.
The scores feature pentagrams and hexagrams (tabs). Prepared with MuseScore, they look much better than the scores of my previously published falseta collections. Click here to see an example. The scores appear in a single PDF file with texts, and the falsetas and cierres are recorded in individual MP3 files.
I recorded the audio files with a capo at the second fret because I've found it to be the preference of many guitarists with smaller hands, including accomplished professionals. It should be noted, however, that you should always practice without a capo in order to develop your hands.
The technical details of the falsetas are described in six pages of explanatory notes that will guide guitarists and facilitate their learning process. In this sense, the scores include abundant fingerings for both hands as well as indications of the barre technique (index finger frets some or all strings). Two of the falsetas include alternate versions in the score and the audio files.
The falsetas cover all the speeds of the soleá tempo, from 76 to 108 beats per minute, approximately. In musicological terminology, this tempo is known as andante. Soleá, as a performance lasting several minutes, usually starts at a slower pace and accelerates toward the end. Generally speaking, sixteenths and other time values require a slower context, whereas triplets work very well at faster paces. In this way, the falsetas of this collection can be used in several different rhythmic contexts of singing, dancing and solo guitar for soleá, extending to bulería por soleá and up to the runway to take off por bulería.
The falsetas I've arranged are of the following artists:
Ramón Montoya (b. 1879), three falsetas; Niño Ricardo (b. 1904), nine falsetas; Melchor de Marchena (b. 1907), eight falsetas; Diego de El Gastor (b. 1908), one falseta; Jose María Pardo (b. 1929), one falseta; David Serva (b. 1941), one falseta; Manolo Sanlúcar (b. 1943), six falsetas; Pepe Habichuela (b. 1944), two falsetas; Manuel Parrilla (b. 1945), one falseta; Paco de Lucía (b. 1947), ten falsetas; Enrique de Melchor (b. 1950), one falseta; Moraíto (b. 1956), two falsetas; Antonio Moya (b. 1965), one falseta; and Vicente Amigo (b. 1967), two falsetas.
Sample audio files. After playing the file, click your browser's "back" button to return to this page.
Falseta 2. My falseta.
Falseta 3. My falseta in the Morón style.
Falseta 5. My falseta.
Falseta 7. My two-compás falseta, with "call and response."
Falseta 8. My falseta. Starts like Sabicas; ends with a twist.
Falseta 12. My falseta.
Falseta 15. My falseta. The arpeggios at the end are barred.
Falseta 17. My falseta. I composed this one toward the end of the 1980s. Played with just the thumb.
Falseta 20. My arrangement of a falseta often played by Jerez-based guitarists.
Falseta 22. My arrangement of a falseta of Paco de Lucía. I play it with just the thumb and ligados; he played it with barres.
Falseta 23a. My arrangement of a falseta of Melchor de Marchena with a bass line.
Falseta 24. My strummed arrangement of an arpeggiated falseta I learned in Madrid in the 1990s.
Falseta 26. My falseta.
Falseta 30. My falseta.
Falseta 31. My falseta. It's been on my website for a while, but this version has a couple of new details.
Falseta 38. Niño Ricardo.
Falseta 42. Niño Ricardo.
Falseta 47. Melchor de Marchena.
Falseta 48. Melchor de Marchena.
Falseta 49. Melchor de Marchena. The same idea as Falseta 48, but with Melchor's dramatic starts and stops.
Falseta 53. My arrangement of a falseta of Melchor de Marchena.
Falseta 56. David Serva.
Falseta 57. Manolo Sanlúcar. Heard on several of his early recordings. Once you get your head, hands and heart around this one, it can be played surprisingly fast.
Falseta 65. Manuel Parrilla. An excellent but difficult three-compás falseta. I like to play it toward the end of a soleá, at a faster pace and after a falseta or two of Niño Ricardo.
Falseta 68. Paco de Lucía. I think I got it from a recording with singing; maybe with Camarón.
Falseta 70. Paco de Lucía.
Falseta 71. Paco de Lucía. Everyone was playing this in Madrid in the 1990s, and I still hear guitarists playing variations today. Notice how the chords anticipate beats 3, 6 and 9.
Falseta 74. Paco de Lucía. A very nice falseta that some guitarists don't play correctly. Check Paco's videos to get the fingering right.
Falseta 75. Paco de Lucía. Another that not everyone plays like Paco.
Falseta 76. Enrique de Melchor.
Falseta 77. Moraíto.
Falseta 78. Moraíto. Excellent three-compás falseta.
Falsetas 80 and 81. Vicente Amigo.
Click on the "Buy Now" button to buy the new soleá falseta collection. The button will take you to a secure page of PayPal in which you can pay with credit card or with a PayPal account. I also accept payment through Veem and bank transfer. For more information, contact me at the email address seen below (it's an image, not a link, and you'll have to type it into your message).