Posts Tagged ‘Conde Hermanos’
Adam Del Monte at GSI – Tremolo Lessons
Virtuoso classical and flamenco guitarist Adam Del Monte stopped by the showroom this week. He’s had a busy year with a new flamenco CD called ‘Asi Lo Siento Yo’, his online guitar classes (you can check them out here) and a new flamenco concerto that he will be premiering here in Santa Monica on January 15th. Adam was kind enough to record a bunch of lessons for us, as well as some guitar demos and an interview about what he’s been up to and more. We got so much material, in fact, that it’s going to take some time to get all the videos up and I’m going to be posting them over the next few weeks.
For starters, here’s Adam on the finer points of tremolo. We did two videos: one focusing on the classical tremolo and another on the flamenco termolo. In both videos Adam is playing a 2006 Conde Hermanos ‘Esteso’ model. Check back to see Adam’s lessons on arpeggio and scales, as well as some great performances and the interview.
Gypsy Kings lead guitarist Tonino Baliardo came by GSI on Sunday before his show at the Greek Theatre to pick out a new guitar. Though he loves the sound of the koa Conde AF25/R that he used to record the last Gypsy Kings album, he felt the guitar was a little small (It’s actually an interesting guitar – a smaller bodied Conde AF25/R that to my ear sounds no different from the regular sized ones), so he wanted essentially the same guitar but bigger, and ended up falling in love with another, regular sized, rosewood Conde AF25/R. Bottom line is that he took the new one with him and left us the smaller bodied koa one to sell. So if you’ve ever wished you could get a smaller-bodied Conde, this is actually the only one I think I’ve seen. Here he is playing his koa gutar and then his new rosewood one.
Since we have these two guitars that are aesthetically identical except that one is a blanca and the other is a negra, I thought it’d be fun to play the same stuff on both to really hear the difference between the two types of guitars (it’s a big choice for many). The guitars are a Felipe Conde FC26 and a Felipe Conde FC28, both made this year and both serious flamencos. Of course we’re dealing with two specific guitars, so my little demo isn’t going to settle any bets, but it’s a pretty straightforward way to hear the difference between cypress and rosewood guitars (and whatever construction details may be adjusted for each).
I could listen to David pretty much all day every day. And his son Israel is almost as good as he is already. Here’s more of him playing the guitar he eventually bought at the new Felipe Conde shop in Madrid
Here’s Felipe Conde talking about how his dad, uncle and Paco De Lucia changed everything when they made a new kind of Flamenco guitar
While in Madrid I went with my friend and teacher David Cerreduela and his son Israel to try out guitars at Felipe Conde’s new shop in Madrid. It’s just amazing to be around David and watch him play, and his son is pretty amazing too, so look out for both of them.
The new shop is very cool – I’ll be posting some pics and more video soon. And David liked this guitar so much he ended up buying it.
