Spanish Music

Last friday the 16th(?) I was finally able to attend a concert. After doing some search around the town I was able to find a concert list and now I?m slowly making my way down the list seeing as many concerts as possible. The first concert was Stanley Jordan an American jazz artist. The concert was held on the street Patio Chico at the footsteps of the city?s cathedral. The concert was awesome.

Ok Ok, so I know someone is going to chime in and say "Hey what are you doing watching an American artist in Spain". Well let me tell you. The city of Salamanca is HUGE into American Jazz, HUGE! The city put on this concert and they sponsor many concerts and streets parties throughout the summer, this is what the people of Salamanca listen to. At the concert foreigners made up about 5-10% of the crowd and the rest lived in the town. Throughout the town the city also puts on Jazz en la Calle?Fiestas,?roughly every other day there is a jazz concert going on in the town. It may not be the stereotypical Spanish music but it?s what they listen to.

Stanley Jordan is awesome. He plays his guitar by tapping the strings and rarely strums them. He only strummed periodically so that he could get a different sounds or just to get the strings moving. The Notes are played with both hands (i.e the left hand plays one note and the right hand places a different note) so essentially he is placing the bass and treble portions of the song. When he came on stage he played three songs without a backup band and I spent the entire time through the first songs looking for the second guitar and then I realized that he was playing both parts. It was pretty amazing.

The best part, however, is when he played a covered of Led Zepplins Stairway to Heaven but with a heavy heavy Jazz enfluence. If you weren?t listening carefully you could not tell the difference. The crowd was really into it but then he went a bit crazy and switch over to some distortion, oh man the crowd immediately gasped in awe. Think of the movie "Back to the Future" when he Michael J. Fox turns up the distortion at the high school dance and the entire crowd has no idea what?s going. That is exactly what it was like. Luckily he turned off the distortion after having fun for about 2 minutes and finished the song with a clean guitar song, the crowd loved him again.

The next day, saturday. There were two concerts, another one at patio Chico and a second one two or three blocks down. The first concert was an African drum band and the other concert was, again, jazz. We checked them both out. I can?t really say much about either of them, they were good and exactly what you would expect them both to be like. They were fun.

I am still looking for some punk rock, rock, alternative or hip-hop shows here in Salamanca. I am getting close and I know that a scene must exist. I have seen fliers looking for singers and a few signs for a band that states that they are playing out and need a bass guitarist immediately. There is?a scene I just have to find the right bars/clubs.

Class are going great I?m starting to learn more. We are getting into future and past tenses and then it?ll be all about talking talking and more talking past then. I?ve got a long way to go...

Current Weather temp: 30 C

Check out the Weather temperature in Salamanca here

I?ll upload pictures as soon as I can, it?s hard finding an internet cafe with accessible USB ports.