Aloysius

This journal will explore flamenco.

I’ve been interested in (ok, obsessed with) flamenco for a long time - at first just the guitar side of things but soon after the wider world of flamenco, as I started spending more and more time in Spain learning guitar and accompanying dancers and singers.

Flamenco is traditionally made up of song, dance and guitar, along with percussive elements (including palmas (hand clapping), all types of percussion instruments especially cajón, and jaleo or yelling stuff out). This journal will probably end up being pretty guitar-centric but it should be noted that for most hard-core aficionados the song (known as cante or cante jondo for the most important forms) is the most important part of flamenco with guitar and dance closely following the song forms, either accompanying a singer or describing the song in a more abstract way when a singer isn’t present. Some things I plan to cover:

1. The palos (or forms) of flamenco, such as buleria, solea, tientos, fandangos and so on
2. Regional styles - flamenco that is typical of Jerez, Seville, Madrid, etc
3. Some guitar-centric stuff like keys and modes, different tunings
4. Some album lists (top 10s and the like)

Let me know if there’s anything flamenco-related you would like to see here.

Frownland

I'm a really big Paco de Lucia fan, but that's about where my knowledge of the genre ends. Excited to see what you'll be posting in here.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

grindy

Purists might scoff, but I'd like to rep Uwe Kropinski and Renaud Garcia-Fons.

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A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.

Aloysius

Both interesting - I'd never heard Uwe Kropinski before, I can definitely hear his classical and jazz backgrounds here, looks like there is some flamenco influence too. The Renaud Garcia-Fons piece sounds like it has a Cuban 'son' feel in spite of being 5/4.

Aloysius

Palos of flamenco part 1: Bulería

Bulería in its native environment is festive, improvised and spontaneous, and often features a large group of guitarists, dancers and singers taking turns. A bit like this:



That clip is partly staged as it forms part of Carlos Saura’s film Flamenco, but it gives you some idea. At a real juerga a bulería can go for several hours.

For flamenco guitarists bulería is always the go-to form for a jam, and what they will usual play if they want to show they know what they are doing. Every flamenco guitar album will have at least 1 bulería, more often 2.

The rhythm of bulería is tricky to describe - many books will tell you it’s in a cycle 12 beats with the following accents (bolded):

12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

However that is only part of the story - the palmeros (people clapping) tend to mark the following rhythm (slight accent italic, stronger accent bolded, no clap but a foot stamp underlined):

12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

If there is a cajón player they will often accent every 1.5 beats (thus dividing the 12 beat cycle into 8 equal parts). Guitarists will usually mark every second or every third beat, depending on the section of music and also where they are from (players from Jerez will often tap there foot every 2nd beat even if the music has a 3s feel). Another common pattern for guitarists is to tap the following beats (bolded):

12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

All of this, with variations and improvisation, combines to give a bulería its characteristic groove. Here is some buleria with Camarón accompanied by Paco de Lucía back in the early 70s:

Aloysius

Palos of flamenco part 1: Bulería (continued)

Now for some legendary guitar bulerias. First off Moraíto - for many the king of bulería, recently passed away:



Now some Tomatito kick-***ness:



And my current favourite - Moraíto’s son Diego del Morao:

Aloysius

Palos of flamenco part 1: Bulería (continued)

The most common key on the guitar to play bulería, by far, is A Phrygian (also known as ‘por medio’), often capoed at around the second or third fret. (Although this means the effective key is B or C, guitarists will still refer to this as playing in A or ‘por medio’, as the crucial thing is how the chords interact with various open strings rather than the absolute key). Every example so far has been played ‘por medio’. However many other keys are common in bulería - E, B, F#, G#, C# or D# phrygian, and most of the typical (for the guitar) major and minor keys. Singers will often switch to the tonic major or minor, and guitarists are expected to follow and change mode accordingly. Here are a couple of examples of other keys.

Here is singer Montse Cortes accompanied by Diego del Morao in C# Phrygian:


Here is a blistering bulería in D# from Gerardo Nuñez:

Aloysius

Palos of flamenco part 2: Soleá

Often referred to as the mother of flamenco, soleá forms part of cante jondo or deep song, and is slow and introspective. There are dozens of varieties of soleá, often named after where they came from (soleá de Alcalá, soleá de Triana, soleá de Utrera etc). Lyrical themes include death, unrequited love and solitude. It’s also a popular form for solo guitar, and for dance.

Here is Jesús Méndez singing some traditional solea, accompanied by Manuel Valencia. This style of singing probably holds little appeal for the casual music listener, it’s an acquired taste but for an aficionado this is the ****:



Here is a solo guitar soleá by a young Vicente Amigo:

Aloysius

Palos of flamenco part 3: Alegría

Alegría means happiness, so the vibe and lyric content of this form is in stark contrast to the heavier cante jondo forms that tend to deal with suffering and death. It probably comes from Cádiz.

The rhythm cycle is more or less like bulería, a 12 beat cycle with the main palmas pattern bolded:

12 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 & 9 & 10 & 11 &

When Alegría is danced there are usually extra sections added:

• The ‘Silencio’ which is about half speed and usually in the tonic minor
• The ‘Escobilla’ or main footwork section
• The final part usually speeds up into a major key version of buleria known as bulería de Cádiz

Here is Paco de Lucia’s famous alegría “La Barrosa”. This alegría is so insanely difficult to play even Paco didn’t always nail it live. Here, however, he is on fire:



Eva “la Yerbabuena” dancing an alegría, including the aforementioned extra sections (silencio, escobilla, bulería de Cádiz). The main guitarist, Paco Jarana, is her husband. (This happens a lot).

Aloysius

10 Flamenco guitar albums you have to hear - part 1

I interrupt your regular broadcast of flamenco palos for the definitive list of flamenco guitar albums you must hear. I’ve made this list one album per guitarist. Please note that this is the definitive list and any other similar lists you may see are wrong.

1. Paco de Lucia - Siroco



A number of Paco’s albums could be here if I hadn’t set myself a one album per guitarist limit. He led a flamenco guitar revolution through the 70s and 80s and was simply way ahead - each album through that period would change what other guitarists had believed possible. The late 80s saw a number of great up and coming guitarists and from then the focus would no longer be just Paco - in particular Tomatito’s debut came out in ’87 and Vicente Amigo’s in ’91. Both Tomatito and Vicente Amigo would be claimed as the heir to Paco’s throne by various commentators, in reality there was an explosion of great flamenco guitarists through the 90s, standing on the shoulders of the work Paco had done (and indeed Ramón Montoya before him).

Siroco is I believe the best album of Paco’s modern period (for traditional Paco check out La fabulosa guitarra de Paco de Lucia).



2. Vicente Amigo - De mi Corazón al Aire



Vicente’s debut landed like a grenade in 1991. This was a different type of flamenco - more sparse, intensely melodic and emotional, more personal but still packs a punch when it needs to. Others had attained this level of virtuosity but Vicente combined it with an incredible aptitude for composition.

Ridiculously this album is out of circulation and hard to get. Also worth checking out is Ciudad de las Ideas - after that if you’re hooked and want more, all his albums except for Roma are top notch.



3. José Manuel León - Sirimusa



By far the most avant-garde album of this list, León pushes the forms to the limits. I mean just check out this bulería:



4. Agustín Carbonell “Bola” - S/T



The most underrated of the list by far. The other 9 are well known to any flamenco guitar fan, but somehow this one slips through the radar, even though it is without a doubt one of the greatest albums ever recorded. Bola went on to do other good stuff, disappeared to Brazil for a decade (a long story) and came back to Spain recently. Check out this soleá, one the most achingly beautiful ever recorded:



5. Gerardo Nuñez - Jucal



Gerardo’s style is pretty unique - he’s from Jerez so has that ‘roots’ feel of the Jerez style, but he combines it with the modern playing of Madrid’s ‘caño roto’ style. Technically he is a monster, with the most advanced right hand thumb of any guitarist. Check out this bulería in D# phrygian. Even though D# phrygian would become a very common key for bulería, tangos and other palos, in 1994 when this came out guitarists were just starting to explore it.