RE: Give us your opinion: Advent of the six-string guitar in flamenco

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Ricardo

Posts: 14848
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Give us your opinion: Advent of ... (in reply to Guest)

quote:

It is possible that there waws a precursor that inspired the Talega's creations, but if

we are to believe Talega, at least as far as the solea is concerned, flamenco is relatively

young.

Getting off topic I think, but... have you heard Romances and/or Corridos? They tell stories

of knights and medieval adventures, but the melodies I have heard clearly would have

evolved into Solea/Bulerias as we know them.

Hey, as an aside, in case you missed this thread in audio uploads, would be nice to have your input

or maybe like to just check it out:

http://www.foroflamenco.com/tm.asp?m=124692&mpage=1&p=1&tmode=1&smode=1&key=

Ricardo

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CD's and transcriptions available here:
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 2 2010 22:23:47

NormanKliman

Posts: 1143
Joined: Sep. 1 2007

RE: Give us your opinion: Advent of ... (in reply to Guest)

Romerito:

quote:

Before Montoya and Chacon these songs were really regional and Chacon made incorporated them into his repertoire.

Thanks for all the info you posted. In that sense, I think Chacón did a lot of "codifying" as you say. He repeats letras, temple (vocalization before the letra) and even tercios. I'm not trying to put him down, what I mean is that he sometimes sounds systematic to my ears. For example, in those cantes mineros, he sings the same fourth sung line in all those cantes. Torre, Cojo de Málaga and others used a different kind of melodic arc at that point. The supreme example is Torre's "que me apareje el caballo tordo" from the "espuela" taranto. It's not the only way to handle the fourth sung line, but it's surprising that Chacón never did it that way. Different timeframes, I guess.

quote:

It is possible that there waws a precursor that inspired the Talega's creations...

I thought the consensus was that those cantes existed before Joaquín and that he "lengthened" them. If I remember right, his son Enrique said that in an interview in Rito y Geografía.

Estebanana:

quote:

No, I don't think it's a contradiction because the classical period did not happen until Haydn.

Okay, I understand you.

quote:

There was probably a crossover of court music taking influence from street and folk music and vise versa,

Yeah, that sounds reasonable.

quote:

It was also a shallow fashion statement, but it had a serious undercurrent as well.

And it's fun.

Another good reason for people to play the guitar!

quote:

This could explian some of the French love of Flamenco in Ramon Montoya's day because they had been interested in Spanish folk culture as an invader five generations earlier.

Sure: neighboring countries.

quote:

All this is to say these things all happened when Flamenco was beginning to emerge and could have had an effect on the popularity and bringing to the fore of an already existing six string guitar.

Interesting contribution, thanks. And thanks for the Bermudo reference!

quote:

I mean think about it, any idiot in 1555 with a pencil and a rubber band could have fashioned a capo.

Yeah, but you ever try doing that with a piece of string when your capo breaks at a party or something? Never works!

I did it once but haven't been able to repeat it since.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 3 2010 4:06:48

estebanana

Posts: 9372
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

RE: Give us your opinion: Advent of ... (in reply to NormanKliman)

quote:

That is actually wrong. In the 17th century it became popular and affordable for people to play the guitar. Amat's treatise (Christensen article) and others like it (Foscarini) for example were meant for the general public. That means everybody. You had to be able to afford the guitar but the alfabeto system was meant for the layperson to be able to accompany in a continuo setting without being schooled in polyphony. That was the beauty of the alfabeto system...it was kind of the precursor to our "caged" (bar chord) system in that once you learned the shapes and some progressions you could play in any key.

I was reffering to the 16th century not the 17th. Amats book was still not available to everyone because of cost. But the fact that it existed still supports the idea that a six string guitar was played much earlier than claimed. Those chord were taught by rote first before Amat wrote his book. He did not invent chords.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 3 2010 6:45:14

Estevan

Posts: 1936
Joined: Dec. 20 2006
From: Torontolucía

RE: Give us your opinion: Advent of ... (in reply to estebanana)

quote:

However if a guitar or vihuela did get into the hands of a common person it's manufacture would not have been fancy and whether or not it was designed for six doubled courses of strings or for six single strings, the fact that hand made gut strings were a precious and expensive luxury the common person would have a hard time affording all those strings. It has been documented that a dignitary visiting from mainland Europe brought a cache of gut lute strings to Queen Elizabeth and that it was considered a fine gift makes the point that strings were valuable and rare. So it stands t reason that the people who owned guitars or vihuelas were in competition for strings, those of means could afford them in quantities that enabled them to string double course instruments and those who held jobs in taverns and forges would have seen the six string option as a more economically feasable alternative.

Good point. Perhaps an even more feasible alternative would have been to use a wire-stringed instrument, as was common in the rest of Europe. While those that could afford it played the lute (for example - in the 16th and early 17th centuries), the rest played the cittern/gittern/bandora and variants thereof.

Just a thought. I don't know what the lower-class alternatives to the vihuela and baroque guitar were, but there were probably some ancestors of the present-day bandurria and its relatives.

Cittern in Spain etc
http://www.mail-archive.com/cittern@cs.dartmouth.edu/msg01279.html

"The Cittern in Portugal and the Portuguese Guitar"
http://www.cittern.theaterofmusic.com/misc/portugal.html

[CITTERN] Spain
http://www.mail-archive.com/cittern@cs.dartmouth.edu/msg00507.html

"a Spanish 18th century [cittern] tablature"
http://em.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/2/3/203-e

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 3 2010 18:43:35

Guest

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 3 2010 19:57:59

Guest

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 3 2010 20:07:35

NormanKliman

Posts: 1143
Joined: Sep. 1 2007

RE: Give us your opinion: Advent of ... (in reply to Guest)

quote:

...so it is interesting about that fourth line...

It's all in those old recordings, but the interesting cantes mineros of Chacón and Torre were made in different periods (1913 and 1928) and they're not the same cantes, so it's hard to compare. I say interesting, because most of what they recorded consists of just two styles of cartagenera, the same two that you hear today. Aside from that, there are just two recordings of two other styles from Chacón and two recordings of one other style from Torre. So there's surprisingly little from either singer (five styles total).

It's also hard to compare because not much research has been done to set up a classification of cantes mineros.

There are some styles with a similar fourth line but it seems more agachonao to me. For example, compare Pastora's "Gabriela" ("que duerma y no tenga pena") to Torre's "muchacho" ("si estará bebiendo vino"). Pastora certainly wasn't gachí, but I think she got those cantes from Chacón and Escacena.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 4 2010 5:35:11