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So I've been reading Las Llaves Del Flamenco by Hurtado Torres. They trace flamenco back to the Renaissance folia and jacara which led to the fandango and seguiriya respectively. I don't have an issue with their conclusions other than that they are partial and incomplete.
So here is a little history for you. Renaissance players did not play chords. They played horizontal, linear lines that when looked at vertically, look very similar to chords. With Amats publication of 1596 we get the first glimpse of chords as compositional tools, not just byproducts of contrapuntal voices.
So plucked linear lines were considered high art while this new chordal strumming phenomenon came to be considered low art. That did not stop baroque guitarists from experimenting with these novelties called chords. They arranged them into many progressions we recognize today.
Amat was the first to write about this new practice but southern Italy was under Spain's control at that time so many Italians picked up this new strumming style and dropped the plucked/refined style. In all the Italian treatises they refer to the chitarra Espanola.
So these chords were used to accompany dances. Little variations of chord progressions were played in between dances, in between verses to give the singer a break, or as intros to a dance...sound familiar?
Anyway, the plucked/refined style was neglected in favor of this new rasgueado (strummed chordal)/decadent style. Giovanni Foscarini synthesized the two styles.
In Foscarini we have rasgueado, simple lines, and some counterpoint all used to accompany song/dance at different times. The rasgueado is used for dance and song. The simple or contrapuntal plucking is used to fill in space when there is no song or to introduce or bridge dances.
The descending cadence is found in Foscarini but I have to look into that more. It is found in passacaglio and to a lesser extent ciaconna compositions.
Foscarini, even though he didn't play flamenco, seems to be the one that united strumming (rajeo) and plucking (falsetas) in the service of accompaniment. He gets my vote for great granpappy of flamenco.
Can't find anything with the descending tetrachord but you can hear the improv of strum melodic gesture.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
Hi Richard. Foscarini was doing it by mid-century. Santiago de Murcia was the generation after as well as the zenith. After Santiago came the "classical" composers; Carcassi, Sor, etc.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
Does not sound significantly different from Milan's fantasies which are chord riff chord riff based. Milan invented falsetas, or some one before him...Or Elizabethan lute song has a lot of these components in place earlier. Chordal movement, melodic movement alternate in support of a singer, throw in a hemiola or two. If you look back into the literature there are mentions of the disparaging remarks of strummers vs. polyphony players much earlier than Amat. Like a 100 years earlier. How can anyone say the strummers where doing only strumming without a fill here or there? There were medieval bands that had bowed string players and plucked strings how could a plucker not resist ripping one off to piss off the bowed veille player?
And there was dance being accompanied by plucked instrument string strummers and vielle players we know this. And we also know there was popular music not written down because it was non liturgical. Polyphony that was being lifted from church music and intabulated for lute and vihuela. But along with the formal sacred music being intabulated for plucked strings there were compositions made up that are improvisational structures which have repeating chord like patterns.
The reason Amat finally got round to writing that stuff dow is that the aristocracy with money to buy paper goods, which were too costly for the stable boy with his Joe strummer model guitar. The market finally emerged for the low brow cantina style to be play in fine society gatherings, so the rich could buy music books. The knowledge had been around, but not written down, it was passed by rote. The rich were into polyphony until Esteban Daza and Miguel Fuenllana finally milked the polyphony dry. And how great they were at it. And if you listen to the feeling of the Fuenllana it still feels "Spanish" and the structure is still mainly polyphony.
To say there was the Devil and the deep blue sea between strumming & melody line together and only strict polyphony until the middle to end of the 16th century is absurd. The first person to strum a polyphony derived "chord" played a face melting solo right after that. It is intrinsic to the way the instrument is designed.
Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
As has been pointed out above, the combination of plucking individual notes and strumming chords goes back a long way, and antedates flamenco, so it makes no sense to relate that to the origins of flamenco.
The problem is that you’re conflating technique with actual musical content. So while it’s true that flamenco utilizes both plucking and strumming, it does not follow that the mere use of those techniques had anything to do with the evolution of flamenco.
The details of that evolution remain somewhat nebulous, but it has been fairly well established and accepted that the origins of flamenco can be traced to the very late fifteenth century. And though many of its formative elements go back much farther than that, they don’t relate to the guitar.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to estebanana)
Let me preface my response by giving my sources because that is always a problem on this and many other foros. Richard Hudson, Neil Pennington, and James Tyler have all written dissertations or books on the matter and additionally, music historian Thomas Christensen. These have been my main sources. The Hurtado Torres also have a great book.
Also, in response to Prominent Critic, I admit I should have titled the thread something else. Flamenco as we know it and might actually recognize it goes back to around 1850 so Foscarini is not really the progenitor. El Planeta (1795-?) does not count because we do not know what his seguiriya sounded like and he was playing with pandereta and other instruments in something much more like an ensemble than a cuadro.
quote:
Does not sound significantly different from Milan's fantasies which are chord riff chord riff based. Milan invented falsetas, or some one before him...Or Elizabethan lute song has a lot of these components in place earlier. Chordal movement, melodic movement alternate in support of a singer, throw in a hemiola or two.
Milan was not thinking in terms of chords so far as we know. As for falsetas, I agree that intabulations are somewhat like falsetas. They are arrangements of famous pieces, for example Milan's arrangement of Josquin's Mille Regretz. Milan did not strum. His chords are byproducts of polyphony and they are always plucked.
All the above sources I mentioned assert that for a short time the strummed style overtook the plucked style and give Foscarini the credit for uniting them. I agree that chord, riff existed before him but we do not have any names or empirical evidence for guitarists that strummed and riffed. BIG difference between plucked chord riff and strummed chord riff.
quote:
The reason Amat finally got round to writing that stuff dow is that the aristocracy with money to buy paper goods, which were too costly for the stable boy with his Joe strummer model guitar.
Not true. He was an amateur musician and a doctor. He self published. His and many other books are descriptive of low brow, as you called them, practices.
quote:
To say there was the Devil and the deep blue sea between strumming & melody line together and only strict polyphony until the middle to end of the 16th century is absurd. The first person to strum a polyphony derived "chord" played a face melting solo right after that. It is intrinsic to the way the instrument is designed.
The point is that strumming became more popular than polyphony. Once it did, the guitarists never looked back. You are conflating polyphony with melody and plucked chord with rasgueado chord. Foscarini began interjecting melodic lines (not polyphony) and there is another aspect that neither of you have mentioned; improvisation. When you compare Milan with Foscarini the latter's scores seem very boring. That is because Milan's music is polyphonic and through composed. "Chords" were not independent phenomena yet. In Amat and all the treatises chords are compositional tools to be used at will (at the service of the dance or song that is) in an improvisatory manner. They are more like charts and Foscarini is the first to use both styles in his treatise that we have historical evidence for.
quote:
The details of that evolution remain somewhat nebulous, but it has been fairly well established and accepted that the origins of flamenco can be traced to the very late fifteenth century. And though many of its formative elements go back much farther than that, they don’t relate to the guitar.
Sources? Who established that? Read Hurtado Torres and Gerhard Steingress. The current accepted classifications are pre flamenco, proto flamenco, and flamenco with pre- roughly used for Renaissance Barowuepref
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
Not to be a downer or anything, but I think the guitar is not really important to the origins of flamenco as it's really is about song forms and the development in some cases of compas in those forms.
The stuff Amat wrote down came from somewhere, probably the street, taverns, stables butcher shops places where guys gathered to drink, play music and dance after work. And pick up chicks. "Moojhairs" if you will. Maybe some of the women also played the music, you never know, they probably did and certainly sang.
My point is that in the 16th century and earlier there was a huge class division in Spain an Italy that was carried on to the mid 20th century in many rural areas. Spain was still feudal in structural a sense in many rural areas in the early 20th century. So you have a class that worked an was not paid too mach attention to by the classes that had upward mobility or what was considered a cleaner life in doors and with privileges like being able to afford paper goods. Those in the mobile classes often were literate while those in the working caste were almost always unlettered, illiterate. Most of them did not know how to write. They probably could not afford paper in quantities it would take to write a book, and why would they buy paper if they were illiterate? That is an expensive way to wrap fish.
We do know that the standards for making instruments at the time were high and that there were guild examinations in which apprentices had to do some pretty amazing wood working to become journeymen. And at the same time there were instrument being made which are no longer extant, but documented in the writing of the times. To pass the Examine de Violeros in Spain in mid 16th century one had to build a "vihuela made from pieces " this as opposed to a guitar or vihuela carved from one single hunk of wood. There was a kind of instrument of lesser sale value that a lower classed person could get, or even make them selves which consisted of a large chunk of wood with an integrally carved neck. The outer shape of the guitar was carved and then the body was hollowed leaving the neck sticking up above the body. They were carved from the same piece of wood.
The problem with the integrally carved neck instrument made from log essentially is that is tended to fall apart over time because the grain went tin one direction while it passed through the form of the guitar or vihuela. This meant the grain changed direction in the vital areas of the body where stresses and drying basically tore it apart. These instruments were common, not decorated and not collectable by anyone wealthy enough to own with large dry house with ample storage who could pass it down generation after generation to be preserved. However the "Vihuela made of Pieces" was highly ornamented usually, as were lutes and viols and were kept by the literate classes for generations. Those are the instruments we have extant today in museums collections, not the logs carved for the boys in the taverns.
Funny thing is the logs that were made for those with less money and little if any education were loaded onto ships bound for The New World, sailors and priests took them to the Americas and introduced them to the people who lived there and these instrument structures stayed in the the lexicon of instrument construction until today. Examples of the integral neck solid wood one piece body style can be found in instruments all over South America and Mexico. One example would be the Mexican Jarana. The instruments that came with captains, governors, jesuits and their staffs were often of the pieced variety which cost more and were more ornate, also fell apart rapidly in the humidity of the West because the joints and pieces were glued.
So where does all this go? Let me take you on side trip first to the viola da gamba swamps. The gamba family instruments came from the medieval fiedels, vielles and violas da arco. Basically a vast number of regional variations on the idea of a thing you held to your shoulder that was made of woods carved and sandwiched together and played with crude bow of rough horse hair. Eventually these would be turned into the violin that the structure would become more or less codified. Then later in the 20th century a series of fat bald Jewish men would become known as the best of the best of the fiddle players. Surely you've heard of the greats like David Oistrach, Issac Stern and Viedelle Castro?
Anyway, the viol family can me set on the knee Paco de Lucia style with crossed legs and chords can be played on it. The gamba has the same tuning as a guitar and it has frets. Hmm....let's see, an instrument that can be bowed or strummed, tuned like a guitar and it existed a 100 years before Amat was born and played in the "Paco Position". That ain't no missionary tale.
To conclude I would like to thank my proud sponsors, Chevron, Nestle, BP, The Trilateral Commission and former US President Jimmy Cartier.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
quote:
The point is that strumming became more popular than polyphony. Once it did, the guitarists never looked back. You are conflating polyphony with melody and plucked chord with rasgueado chord. Foscarini began interjecting melodic lines (not polyphony) and there is another aspect that neither of you have mentioned; improvisation.
So you just pegged Foscarini as the ancestor progenitor of every guitarist to come in the future from Jimmy Page to Charlie Christian. And everyone before and after them back to Foscarini.
Congratulations on pin pointing the origins of flamenco!
I said those things to draw you out, now you've made it easy to refute your idea. It's like playing chess for me. It's really fun. If you open with a shaky Queens pawn game, it can be crushed if you don't know what you are doing. It is pretty and elegant theoretically, but has holes you can drive a semi through.
Posts: 1871
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
Grandpappy or not he was one melancholy dude.........beautiful piece.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Kevin
Killing some time while I wait at an appointment.
So I've been reading Las Llaves Del Flamenco by Hurtado Torres. They trace flamenco back to the Renaissance folia and jacara which led to the fandango and seguiriya respectively. I don't have an issue with their conclusions other than that they are partial and incomplete.
So here is a little history for you. Renaissance players did not play chords. They played horizontal, linear lines that when looked at vertically, look very similar to chords. With Amats publication of 1596 we get the first glimpse of chords as compositional tools, not just byproducts of contrapuntal voices.
So plucked linear lines were considered high art while this new chordal strumming phenomenon came to be considered low art. That did not stop baroque guitarists from experimenting with these novelties called chords. They arranged them into many progressions we recognize today.
Amat was the first to write about this new practice but southern Italy was under Spain's control at that time so many Italians picked up this new strumming style and dropped the plucked/refined style. In all the Italian treatises they refer to the chitarra Espanola.
So these chords were used to accompany dances. Little variations of chord progressions were played in between dances, in between verses to give the singer a break, or as intros to a dance...sound familiar?
Anyway, the plucked/refined style was neglected in favor of this new rasgueado (strummed chordal)/decadent style. Giovanni Foscarini synthesized the two styles.
In Foscarini we have rasgueado, simple lines, and some counterpoint all used to accompany song/dance at different times. The rasgueado is used for dance and song. The simple or contrapuntal plucking is used to fill in space when there is no song or to introduce or bridge dances.
The descending cadence is found in Foscarini but I have to look into that more. It is found in passacaglio and to a lesser extent ciaconna compositions.
Foscarini, even though he didn't play flamenco, seems to be the one that united strumming (rajeo) and plucking (falsetas) in the service of accompaniment. He gets my vote for great granpappy of flamenco.
Can't find anything with the descending tetrachord but you can hear the improv of strum melodic gesture.
Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
quote:
quote:
"The details of that evolution remain somewhat nebulous, but it has been fairly well established and accepted that the origins of flamenco can be traced to the very late fifteenth century. And though many of its formative elements go back much farther than that, they don’t relate to the guitar."
Sources? Who established that? Read Hurtado Torres and Gerhard Steingress. The current accepted classifications are pre flamenco, proto flamenco, and flamenco with pre- roughly used for Renaissance Barowuepref
Well, I have a mountain of books on the subject that I can’t unearth just now, but every scholar I have ever read traces the origins of flamenco as ensuing from the expulsion edict of 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, whereby the Jews, Gypsies, Moors, and other “undesirables” were ordered to leave Spain.
According to these theorists, many in these groups chose instead to flee to the mountains and hide. These three groups, joined by some disaffected Christians, banded together for common benefit and protection.
Incipient expression of flamenco came from the disparate religious music of these varied cultures. Arabic and Hebrew chanting mixed with Indian music of the gypsies, who are said to have originated in India, was added to by Christian religious music.
Obviously this or any theory is just that – a theory, but we have the music itself to look to, which lends credence to this theory. The vocal modulations of the cante strongly resembles Hebrew chant, and even melody in some cases is reminiscent of Sephardic songs that are still heard today.
Unfortunately, I simply haven’t the time to read Hurtado Torres and Gerhard Steingress, though I would certainly be interested in their theories. Perhaps you could cite a few basic ideas of theirs as they relate to the origins of flamenco.
But categorizing anything as “pre-flamenco,” and asserting that it is relevant to the evolution of flamenco cannot possibly have any meaning. If such is being offered as an integral part of the evolution of flamenco, then it cannot be called “pre-flamenco.” It has to be incorporated under the heading of “flamenco.”
Then anything preceding THAT could be called “pre-flamenco,” but of course that would simply mean something – or anything – that preceded flamenco, like the crusades, or maybe the Creation, which also preceded flamenco.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Mark2)
quote:
Grandpappy or not he was one melancholy dude.........beautiful piece.
So true, it's great stuff/ lets not throw out the guitarist with the bath water.
I'm just not going for a statement like:
'I'm killing some time, here is some history for you: Renaissance players did not strum. '
That is pure bullhonky. Can you categorically prove that this is an 'a priori' based on _all_ the historical evidence and not just selected evidence to support this idea?
There were plucked and arpeggiated polyphony "chords" played and there were strummers. There is evidence in the vihuela literature that that allude to strumming. There are alo other imitative based compositions in the vihuela lit. that show vihuela players were listening to other instruments. Mudarra's piece based on a harp player known a Ludovico is a famous example.
The vihuela was played as a polyphony instrument because strumming was difficult to pull off. The vihuela is a lot like a six or seven course lute and it requires a technique that consists of plucking with the soft part of the finger tips. In order to get a beautiful sound to play vihuela employs an over under thumb / fore finger picado technique. If you look at instruments that existed at the same time you find the Chitarrone, Therobo, used in early opera like Monteverdi and they use the finger nails and those instruments do not have double courses of strings. They have single strings. The thing that makes it difficult to strum the vihuela, although not impossible, is double courses of strings. There were instruments which could be strummed or even played with a plectrum, they were not often written into late polyphony based compositions. But they existed and you can see them in the iconography from the late middle ages into the Renaissance.
Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
quote:
quote:
"The details of that evolution remain somewhat nebulous, but it has been fairly well established and accepted that the origins of flamenco can be traced to the very late fifteenth century. And though many of its formative elements go back much farther than that, they don’t relate to the guitar."
Sources? Who established that? Read Hurtado Torres and Gerhard Steingress. The current accepted classifications are pre flamenco, proto flamenco, and flamenco with pre- roughly used for Renaissance Barowuepref
Well, I have a mountain of books on the subject that I can’t unearth just now, but every scholar I have ever read traces the origins of flamenco as ensuing from the expulsion edict of 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, whereby the Jews, Gypsies, Moors, and other “undesirables” were ordered to leave Spain.
According to these theorists, many in these groups chose instead to flee to the mountains etc and hide. These three groups, joined by some disaffected Christians, banded together in the mountains of Spain for common benefit and protection.
Incipient expression of flamenco came from the disparate religious music of these varied cultures. Arabic and Hebrew chanting mixed with Indian music of the gypsies, who are said to have originated in India, was added to by Christian religious music.
Obviously this or any theory is just that – a theory, but we have the music itself to look to, which lends credence to this theory. The vocal modulations of the cante strongly resembles Hebrew chant, and even melody in some cases is reminiscent of Sephardic songs that are still heard today.
Unfortunately, I simply haven’t the time to read Hurtado Torres and Gerhard Steingress, though I would certainly be interested in their theories. Perhaps you could cite a few basic ideas of theirs as they relate to the origins of flamenco.
But categorizing anything as “pre-flamenco,” and asserting that it is relevant to the evolution of flamenco cannot possibly have any meaning. If such is being offered as an integral part of the evolution of flamenco, then it cannot be called “pre-flamenco.” It has to be incorporated under the heading of “flamenco.”
Then anything preceding THAT could be called “pre-flamenco,” but of course that would simply mean something – or anything – that preceded flamenco, like the crusades, or maybe the Creation, which also preceded flamenco.
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
As William S. Burroughs would have said: "You connect the dots, you pick up the pieces."
Was that after he shot and killed his wife in 1951 in Mexico, as he was engaged in a drunken attempt at playing William Tell by attempting to shoot an apple on her head?
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Ramon Amira)
quote:
I simply haven’t the time to read Hurtado Torres and Gerhard Steingress, though I would certainly be interested in their theories.
You're not missing much, Steingress' main idea is that he puts forth the notion that non gypsies who owned venues for performance shaped the structure of the flamenco cuadro so that the palos had more or less the perfomance structure they have today. Like intro, Letra, footwork, letra, escobilla etc. Except for women maybe not foot work. It's not written in stone.
I think what you said about the expulsion of the Jews and the presence of Arabic culture before and during the time of Convivencia is where the origins of what would become flamenco were mixed together. All the ports of call along the Spanish coast received strangers and cultures melted together. Look at the way Sephardic poetry flourished in Spain during the time of the Arab occupation and how that came to be passed down the music of the late middle ages troubador songs.
I think to speculate on the origins and try to pin it down is folly. It is lost to the deeps of time for a reason. The further back in Spanish writing you look the more you see flamenco. It was just bred from the soil of that land and cultivated by all the cultures that lived there, but least by the Christians...
Look at this poem by Judah Halevi- born in Toledo 1080, it reads pretty flamenco to me:
NIGHT ON THE SEA
And as the sun sets, night comes up in ranks Of a heavenly army, led by a moon-captain, Like an Ethiop woman in garment of checkered gold And azure inlaid with crystals. And stars in the heart of the sea confused are Like aliens from their habitations driven, And like their counterparts above, they glimmer In the heart of the sea, flamewise, firewise. Waters wide as the skies, sea large as night, Together are mirror-clear. And sea is like unto sky in aspect – Two seas are both, enamored mutually, And between them my heart is a third sea, Uplifting the waves of my new hymns.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
Was that after he shot and killed his wife in 1951 in Mexico, as he was engaged in a drunken attempt at playing William Tell by attempting to shoot an apple on her head?
After, when he did a spoken word spot on Laurie Anderson's album Big Science.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
quote:
When you compare Milan with Foscarini the latter's scores seem very boring. That is because Milan's music is polyphonic and through composed. "Chords" were not independent phenomena yet.
Boring or not to you, there has been a lot of speculation on whether Milan's Fantasies were written down improvisations. When you say his music was through composed I get it, but the problem with Milan is that the Tientos, and the Pavanes, the later being a dance and the former being a freer composition, are different in conception from the Fantasias.
You can say the fantasias are though composed, but they are not really strict polyphonic works. They are comprised by half as much scalar work as polyphony movement. Scalar passage link "chords" even though they did not have anything like Charlie Parkers B flat 13th chord yet or Coltrane's interpolations of pentatonic scales.
The idea is that chords are implied because they did not have other landing spots called chords yet. But if you've ever played Milan you know there are chord shapes that he uses over and over, these shapes in the Fantasias are connected to one another by scalar riffs. The fact that he did not write Ad libitum in the margins or "Vamp on this Polyphony shaped ProtoChord" is sad, but a good listening structurally the music bears out that he was riffing and landing on chord shapes.
Also the idea that flamenco guitar accompaniment is born out of modern chord shapes is only half right. If you look at Al Andalus music which is scalar in construction, let's just call it that because Nicolas Slonimsky had not written his scale books yet, you see vocal accompaniment that is not based in chordal structure as a ground for the melodic line.
Melodic movement in Al Andalus music is supported by scalar movement. (WOW! Look Ma, no chords!)
So all the poetry subsequent the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 may have been supported by scalar structures if polyphony had not been invented yet. But if a player of one of the early fretted instruments like the late medieval six course lute were playing scalar accompaniment patterns and happened to notice that three notes make a triad and that you can hold them down and pluck them between modal passages he might have invented flamenco guitar. And every other kind of guitar playing which followed.
The issue is not who invented or refined rasgeuado, or whether plucked or strummed is used to accompany, it is how does accompaniment support melody line? It can be scalar or stacked or a combination of both, but the melody line comes before the accompaniment.
So the question remains where is cante come from, what did letra's evolve from and at what point did compas and cante come together? Since polyphony was a Christian music it was not aimed at supporting anything that may have been an early stab at cante'; it was vocal harmonic movement based on the precursors to the diatonic scale. So where is all the music in popular use which supported the vocal styles, stories and "letras" which were secular and handed down from the late middle ages by the Troubadors? Not written down were they( yoda grammar) because they where handed down by rote. Poetry have we, but not much music.
And to make it more complicated, there are late medieval dance structures which are patently not polyphony that make use of pedal tones and parts of chords, root/third combos in passing, that are used as harmonic rhythmic cells to weave melodic pattern over and between. Think of that classical guitar piece called Saltarello that you learn early on. That is a late middle ages lute piece. It is not polyphony, but it swings and has a kind of "compas". It has a repeating rhythmic cell structure that can be danced to, or sung over.
So why does singing have to be done over modernish strummed chords? Singing to repeated rhythmic cell structures is very ancient, it is a form of "compas" albeit not 12 beat compas of flamenco, but a driving rhythm cell. So if a flamenco palo can be sung without guitar, with palmas, why can't it be sung to a 'bass ground' type melodic accompaniment style of repeated melodic/bass fragments like the Saltarello?
There are still too many questions and everything is still up for grabs. But pinning chords to cante' on July 18th 1596.....nope.
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
I think what you said about the expulsion of the Jews and the presence of Arabic culture before and during the time of Convivencia is where the origins of what would become flamenco were mixed together. All the ports of call along the Spanish coast received strangers and cultures melted together. Look at the way Sephardic poetry flourished in Spain during the time of the Arab occupation and how that came to be passed down the music of the late middle ages troubador songs.
I think to speculate on the origins and try to pin it down is folly. It is lost to the deeps of time for a reason. The further back in Spanish writing you look the more you see flamenco. It was just bred from the soil of that land and cultivated by all the cultures that lived there, but least by the Christians...
Absolutely on the mark, Stephen! The Moorish and Sephardic Jewish influence is clearly evident in both cante and in the Andalusian Cadence of the guitar, not least in the Arabic quarter-tones one can make out in much of it. Less so the Gypsy influence and, as you point out, least by the Christians. In my humble opinion, the Gypsy influence is vastly overplayed among many, including the Gitanos themselves. They may have appropriated flamenco as their own, but the influence of the Moors and the Sephardic Jews overshadows that of the Gypsies.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
Absolutely on the mark, Stephen! The Moorish and Sephardic Jewish influence is clearly evident in both cante and in the Andalusian Cadence of the guitar, not least in the Arabic quarter-tones one can make out in much of it. Less so the Gypsy influence and, as you point out, least by the Christians. In my humble opinion, the Gypsy influence is vastly overplayed among many, including the Gitanos themselves. They may have appropriated flamenco as their own, but the influence of the Moors and the Sephardic Jews overshadows that of the Gypsies.
Cheers,
Bill
Ramon said it first above me. I just when there after he did to go further into middle ages. Judah Halevi, born in 1080. At the time there was an extensive poetry tradition of both Arabs, Jews and others that was particular to the Southern Iberian penn. And we have not even touched on non Muslim African musical concepts yet. Many of which go to equatorial and Coastal regions and were adopted by the Arabs. Most flamencologos don't bother to look that far because they can't see past Morocco.
Hey I can see Russia from here, can you?
There are parts of Flamenco that come for the part of Africa that is Yoruba culture in origin, but if you tell a flamenco that they spaz out and start getting mad. What people tend to forget about Africa is that is had centers of learning in the Central areas and during the European middle ages they were making realistic depictions of humans before Europeans... Deepest darkest Africa is European construction, they shall in my mind remain in light. To be talking heady about it.
Flamencologos in general are pretty narrow minded, so if you bring up stuff like this if they are intelligent they usually accuse you of creating a meta narrative about music, but then if you corner them and they have not read about Yoruba culture and its contributions to Northern African culture you can walk away satisfied they are under informed. If you dig back far enough you find that Aristitilean logic is in part based in old Central African thought. Or was it Egyptian..oh forget, but not really.
Or maybe I just made that up. You never know. Just killing time...
Oh I forgot the Greeks, the Greeks borrowed their philosophy base from Africa. Except for the early Elemental Philosophers who were quintesentially Greek. Excpet that the Yoruba had a version of that too....
So we were talking about where cante' came from?
Cante' is a virus that came from outer space on an ancient comet. It may as well be, maybe the Hubble telescope will shine some light on this problem.
Just killing some time...don't mind me.
doo do do dodahdah dadah dah *whistling along in background*
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Joined: Oct. 31 2012
From: The Netherlands
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
NRA
I think that the only comparision that you can make on that, is that people from the NRA seem to try to have the passion for something in the way this guy shows his passion. But the main difference to me, is that I believe payo's passion.
So if it's up to me, you better wash your mouth ;) (Or just watch his videos ;)
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Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
What people tend to forget about Africa is that is had centers of learning in the Central areas and during the European middle ages they were making realistic depictions of humans before Europeans..
Don't know about its influence on flamenco, but for sure the Islamist crushing of the great learning center of Timbuktu in Mali is a tragedy of the first magnitude. Whether Timbuktu and its great tradition of music and learning had anything to do with flamenco is an open question, but the fundamentalist Salafi crushing of the liberal Muslim center is a huge loss, both for Africa and for the world. We can only hope that these ignorant fundamentalist movements will be defeated and driven out.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Flamencito)
quote:
I think that the only comparision that you can make on that, is that people from the NRA
It as a bad joke about his dark ball cap and red hunting bathrobe. I'll be sure to wash my mouth out with beer later. In the mean time gaze at this beauty: Done in the 1100's while European art was still trying to find its way out of Byzantine flatness. Actually in 1100 they were still quite happy to be flat. Nothing is really this fun in Europe until Rodin about 800 years later. Michelagelo, yeah yeah, he was a really a painter despite his obsessive marble carving.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
Wow, too much to address.
Flamenco is not one thing, it is many. Although that might sound like a platitude, there are some posts here that implicitly ignore this. Flamenco is a marriage of East and West, not just East. We therefore have to trace the history of song and the history of guitar and then determine how they influenced each other.
As for Arabic and Jewish origins I have looked into lament particularly. I have researched the kharja, Zejel and Muwashaha for their poetic and musical content. I have found no empirical, provable link but I think there is more to it.
Indian music is much more problematic as an influence because there were several waves of migrations. Adding to the difficulties are the influence of the Arabs and then Mughals on Northern Indian music. Someone would have to determine which migration was the one that resulted in an arrival in Spain of the Gypsies. If it was pre 700ad then one would have to try and figure out what Indian music sounded like at that time. If it is post-700 then one would have to determine how the Arabs (later Mughals, 1500?) influenced Indian music and what traces one could find in flamenco.
As for poetry, my latest research is into the Fado as lament. Interestingly, the term saudade and soledad (solea) both imply lament for lost love and a feeling of solitude or yearning for the past or for something unreachable. I think the Fado and Solea are part of a larger regional lament tradition that began in the Cantigas and Cancioneros and was also popular in villancicos. The seguiriya also fits into the lament tradition lyrically. Trying to figure out how the descending tetrachord and 2-2-3-3-2 hemiola came about.
I also think there is a healthy dose of Orientalism in flamenco. Flamencos at times imitated "classical" composers' interpretations of their (flamenco's) own music.
By the way Stephen, your argument about the vihuela being hard to strum because it was coursed is weak because the Spanish Baroque guitar was a five-coursed instrument tuned a-d-g-b-e with the low courses tuned in unison or octave depending on the locale (Spain or Italy, I forget which was which).
quote:
Oh I forgot the Greeks, the Greeks borrowed their philosophy base from Africa. Except for the early Elemental Philosophers who were quintesentially Greek. Excpet that the Yoruba had a version of that too....
So we were talking about where cante' came from?
Stephen, we have so many of the same interests that I wonder why we don't get along better. I love reading and just finished two books entitled House of Wisdom that discuss the contributions of Arabic culture to Western civilization. But you can be such an arse. Did I offend you?
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
My point in discussing Foscarini was to place flamenco in a larger context of Spanish guitar and especially the rasgueado style that began (pre-)Amat and extended to Santiago de Murcia. Sure, we could talk about the virus that came from another planet and your point is taken. However, one always has to construct a context. To look at Arabic music is much more speculative than what I was trying to communicate.
You also forgot to mention the vihuela da mano which is the guitar-like instrument you are talking about.
quote:
...if you tell a flamenco that they spaz out and start getting mad.
Aghh-hem Bull**it cough cough. How many flamencologos do you know personally? I get so sick of defending them. There are some really good ones now who are looking at all kinds of stuff. Funny thing is they say the same thing about flamencos.
As for Yoruba, I certainly think that is worth looking into. However, you again speculate and don't offer any supporting research. My argument about Foscarini uniting the styles is at least supported by three scholars even if you have a different perspective.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
quote:
your argument about the vihuela being hard to strum because it was coursed is weak because the Spanish Baroque guitar was a five-coursed instrument tuned a-d-g-b-e with the low courses tuned in unison or octave depending on the locale (Spain or Italy, I forget which was which)
Vihuela an baroque guitar are two distinct animals. Baroque guitars are made to strum and play a top melody line on the upper string, that reentrant tuning, right. Baroque guitars have a different scale and tension and they don't strum as well as a modern gutiars, but they are different than a vihuela.
A vihuela de mano is the one I was talking about, it's a plucked instrument like the lute. There is also vihuela de arco, bowed, and vihuela de pen'ola something, I'm to lazy to look it up, but it was played with a plectrum.
The vihulea de or da mano depending on whether you were in Italy or Spain, has the stringing, scale length, bridge, geometry and top of a six or seven course lute superimposed on the body of a small guitar shaped instrument. The bracing is different than lute . They are not designed really to be strummed, but you can strum them a bit. It is a gracile instrument and it is really made for light release of the string by an underhanded cupping motion by the fingers along with the over under thumb/forefinger picado runs.
The baroque guitar has a longer body, more string tension and a laterally braced top with five courses which are in reentrant tuning, meaning the strings are not tuned in descending order, but with treble string at the top of the nut and then basses, mids and trebles. Because it has this tuning and more tension with fewer courses it plays rasgueado more naturally than the vihuela. Another modern instrument with reentrant tuning is the ukulele, the *my *dog *has *fleas solfege sequence to tune a uke is a baroque invention. Baroque guitar is really more set up for arpeggios with melody runs, but they strum a bit too. Nothing really strums super nice until Torres makes that larger guitar with fan braces.
My argument is not really weak because pretty much everyone who plays baroque guitar and vihuela would look at it this way. And since baroque guitar is used in such a different way in the music than was vihuela. But even though the vihuela was made to play polyphony, it can be strummed a bit and in some places in the vihuela literature modern vihuela players throw it in.
As to why we don't get along, well... I'm an irascible douchebag and don't get along with anyone. So don't feel special about peesing me off.
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