El Torta singing soleá.

This is the first of what I hope a permanet serie of post by wich we explained a letra from great singers of flamenco.

These are not scores or tablatures. Are transcriptions of the song and how it machs in compás, but they migh be not musically accurate. It just a tool for English speakers that love flamenco and want to know how it is sung. 'Compas' is alwars refered to flamenco compás conception.

We start with 'El torta' and his soleá. El Torta sings here a fantastic quiet and slow solea. We transcribe the first letra that he sings with 10 (one marked as 0, starting in the previous 1,2 ) compases. In the third compas El torta is in silence and the guitar carried out a falseta.

Andrés Segovia vs Paco de Lúcía Generation.

Manolo Cano, Andrés Segovia, Sabicas and Rafael Gómez Montero

This post translate som e texts from the document "ANDRES SEGOVIA: SUS RELACIONES CON EL ARTE FLAMENCO." That you can find here (Spanish)

Especially if you are not very good with proportions,it is difficult to distinguish a classical guitar from a flamenco guitar can be complicate. I know, nowadays the World is full of people that have obsession for flamenco guitar and its manufacturing ... but behind the so identical appearances there is a history of arrogance and haughtiness from classical guitarists to flamenco guitarists.

Who was Demofilo? Flamenco collections.

There are two poets in Spain that you hear especially in the Spanish schools: Lorca and Machado.

Flamencos usually know Federico García Lorca. He and his imagery has been really important for flamenco dissemination. In the second case we the can read something about the second name in records. But Antonio Machado was not a really important for flamenco. "Sevilla without sevillanos, what a wonderful” was one of his sentences and he prefered to live in Castilla. But, Curiously, his father, Antonio Machado Álvarez, is so importat for flamenco as Paco de Lucía.

Manitas de Plata. Great 'flamenco Guitarist', but not 'tocaor'.

Manitas de Plata is a Gypsy French Guitarists. A really virtuoso guitarists. But, as you can see we are not include this guitarist tag "Great Guitarists (tocaores)" of this blog. He will be a good example for the true tag of this post: Understanding Flamenco. And this section is mainly for talking about the conceptual frame of flamenco.

The Soleá and its 'compás': root and equilibrium of true flamenco.

The flamenco style ('palo') called soleá is a basic style that flamenco beginners has to understand. As I always say, I am not going to show you a score to play soleá. I will to try to explain what solea means within flamenco.

The solea is a flamenco style (palo) quiet, reflexive, simply in harmony but complicate in rithm and variations. But if you need a true adjective for solea it is solemn o majestic. Never forget this. Solea is solemn, is a deep and serious dialog of the singer with himself. It is a style where audience should hear. Solea is something like the 'perfect' quiet style in flamenco.

The 'Ground Rithm' in bulerías, (compás de tierra)

When a flamenco guitar student start playing bulerías the first approach is a common rhythm patter as follows:

1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 

As you might know, underlined beats are the accents of 'compás'. But when the student start listening to records, it is usually difficult to find these accents. Currently we can find very brainy explanations like this of nice José Tanaka's page about how guitar and claps fit in that pattern. http://josetanaka.com/lesson/palmas_bulerias.htm.

When you can see this kind of explanations, one should say chapeu!. But, in my opinion, it's a professional level and despite it is really interesting, even if you are simply a flamenco amateur it is tricky for beginners. The previous rhythmic pattern has to be, probably, the first approach to bulerias its really poor for beginners. It is frustrating when you listent to a good flamenco singer or guitar player and you are lost.

Internationalization and professionals of flamenco have produce this laudable skillful explanations. But does a four years-old Spanish Gipsy needs this kind of explanation? :))

First what you might realize is that flamenco is a popular music not an academic issue. Things cannot be so complicate. I am not gypsy, but they are the main source of flamenco and I allways learn from them.  I will try to give you a easy explanation about how to understand bulería with claps. A 4 years old child cannot count twelve easily and accent for them means  nothing, but they understand bulería. 

For this purpose, I invite you to discover true and ancient flamenco in this video where gipsy women, from the quarter called 'Las 3000' in Seville, they sing bulerías using only claps and voice. Is the first performance, the others are Tangos.

This is the true flamenco than Paco de Lucía loved. These are the primitive voices and sounds of flamenco. I'm sure that you can not find the 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 there (But it fit!). There are several clap patterns in the video but the basic and 'general' one is the compas that usually flamenco students has learnt as 'medio compas' (half compás) and it is profusely used in some styles of bulería.

1 2 3 4 5 6 

or

1 2 3 4 5 6  1 2 3 4 5 6 

For twelve beats.

Forget all you learnt before and simply try to listen to the previous video while clapping. It fits!. What's more, it fits with all bulerías and is one of the classical claps that you can hear on records. Most of the folk Spanish rhythms lay on 3/4. Before modern music the Spanish music was in the 3/4 rhythm and three of the major families of flamenco styles come from 3/4 rhythm (siguirillas, soleá and fandangos).

And what's more important. Singers commonly use this rhythm. This rhythm is commonly used as 'Ground Rhythm' or ‘ritmo de tierra’. It is a concept about the subjacent 3/4 of bulería and it is really important for understand bulería. For guitarists, here is a video where you can see a clear explanation in this sense with José Luis Rodríguez. 

As he said, bulería are not full of sound anywhere and strict accents: silences are really important, and of course, robust sound is only obtained if you do not forget the subjacent rhythm.

As José Luis said... do not count, feel it!. And I thing this approach is easier. 

The concept of 'Compás' in flamenco music

Since Guido de Arezzo invented pentagram, the occidental music has been developed on scores. Musicians met the perfect tool to understand relationship between notes, chords, armories, scales, a wonderful conceptualization of the music that include all the musical knowledge … really all?

During the XX century popular music supported on analogic or digital media become more important as business that all the classical music and there were very special people that play and discover new musical ways (Academy, of course, hate them) and really exceptional players. A paradigmatic case was Hendrix. I do not remember who, but a very good 70's guitarist say that “And them Hendrix appeared from nothing ...”. A genius, whose fingers and head looked being directly connected by optical fiber. How Hendrix conceptualized music will be a mystery forever. But he did anyway without any notion on paper.

But what has this in common with flamenco? The great mathematic Mandelbrot, father of fractal mathematics, was a subversive mathematician that claims that mathematic thinking was lost in the paper and had forgotten the use of other tools. Most of the modern mathematics are being developed with a complex writing and proper language, but ancient mathematics were developed by using figures, pure visual intuition based on lines an circles.

Flamenco has this special aspect. Flamenco as other Word music in usually learned from experience, from a parallel conceptualization to the classical scores, using the musical rhythm in a very special way.

Usually, basic music students learn music with 2/2, 4/4 or 3/4 rhythms. All is right, because then start with notes, scales, chords, etc. The harmony and the melody is the pit of the Western music. The beat, the rhythm is just a rigid skeleton. Its even similar in popular music as blues or country music.

In flamenco things change. The most important is what you can do with the skeleton and also that tricky concept that jazz call ‘swing’ understanding as these feeling and coherence during a jam session.

With respect to melody and harmony, flamenco usually use in Phrygian scale and usually is played with Andalusian cadence or major tones. But, despite Andalusian cadence is a basic characteristic, the key is into the rhythm.

The old Flamenco and the mature jazz love each other because they are part of the same philosophy. But despite jazz is focused on harmony flamenco is focused on rithm using less frequents rhythms types as the hemiola (a mixture of 3/4 and 2/4 rhytms) and the overexploitation of swing. Hemiola can be found in classical music and other musics.

Flamenco player thinks in small ‘pieces’ of rhythm and over this rhythm there is a pseudo-improvisation in a musical game between singer and guitar player. Singer and player are collectors of short pieces of music than match perfectly on these ‘pieces’ and surprise each other choosing more or less in an random way these pieces from their collections.

This short ‘pieces’ full of hemiolas (or not, it depends) and studied breath are call ‘compás flamenco’. Its study is the base of flamenco. Each style of compass has their own tones and subjacent melodies with infinite possibilities. The mixture of the ‘compás’ and these tones generate all the styles of flamenco that are called ‘palos. the 'compás' is usually learned on a clock model, because most of this styles of 'compás' include 12 beats.

Flamenco is not a different played music, is a music played from other point of view. And the concept of 'compás', that is not exactly rhythm, is the keystone

Flamenco Chords. About this blog.

I begin this blog with the aim to write all I know about my major passion: Flamenco.

Flamenco may be the most important Spanish artistic expression or, at least, the most original. Flamenco emerged from a complex mixture of cultures and conditions in the South o Spain, creating a flamboyant universe around a special conceptualization of music, dancing, singing and guitar playing. A gift of the poor and outcasts Spanish class to the World. 

There are thousands of blogs that talk about flamenco. And, there are thousands of books and videos that explain how to play it. Why would this blog be different? How can I contribute to this huge information? When I was young, I did not learned flamenco, I learn to respect and admire the flamenco. I learn to admire not only great dancer or guitarists on stage, but good singers, poets and unknown people that sang in the taverns and 'peñas': I learned to play some flamenco guitar, (my voice is horrible) and I learnt that guitarist flourish were the less important if the communication with singer was perfect. But, today, when I read international articles about flamenco, I see that only technique is appreciated and I notice than craftwork of a guitar it is sometimes more important than hearing. 

On one hand, this blog will be for English speakers. I know that my English is not the best in the World, but I thing that is good enough to communicate how a Spaniard think about flamenco, his history and their main artists. On the other hand, for years I have been far away for the true core of flamenco: the night, the flamenco people, etc... This might be a blog that teach about basics things in flamenco but also about the vision of a flamenco person that deeply miss flamenco atmospheres.

And excuse me for my opinions, They are only opinions :)