accents in cante

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accents in cante

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andante

Posts: 16
Joined: Mar. 30 2005

accents in cante

There's something I've wondered about for quite a while.

Camaron sings:

Cadá vez que nos miramos (or so it sounds to me)

Now, the first thing you learn in any Spanish course is that each word has one single unique stress. So the line should be:

Cáda vez que nos miramos

This seems to happen a lot in flamenco, especially in repeated lines. The other day I heard Jose Merce begin tientos with something like this:

Hablo con mi dios
Habló con mi dios

This one is even more confusing as hablo and habló have very different meanings.

It seems that, here in in England at least, the lyricists who are most revered such as Lennon/McCartney, Ray Davies, Roger Waters, always choose their words carefully so that the accents fall just as they would in natural speech. In fact the first sign, for me, that I'm listening to a bad song is when the lyrics have been forced in with a shoehorn.

I should add that these variations in the examples above do not disturb my listening. The meaning is quite clear to me, but then I am not a native Spanish speaker. Given the "one word, one stress" rule, is flamenco littered with bad lyrics?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 30 2006 5:40:14

flyeogh

Posts: 729
Joined: Oct. 13 2004

RE: accents in cante (in reply to andante)

A few years ago I was working hard on my spanish. I started reading poetry (Pablo Neruda among others). When I went to language lessons I tried to use some of the phrases but I was told it was argot and of bad form. When I said it came from poets they said that "poetic license" was fine for them but not for me if I wanted to speak properly.

I never have liked the academic world and its structured approach to life. I now still read the poems but I cancelled the lessons

.

With Merce and Camaron (my favourites) I don't bother with the words, just the sounds, as besides poetic license I think there is often a lot of Gitano mixed in? But I hope there are experts here who can respond to your question Andante. It is rare in English that a stress changes meaning, normally just emphasis, but as your example of hablo there are many examples in Spanish and not just limited to verbs. Thus musical rhythm based on accents must be very restrictive I imagine.

_____________________________

nigel (el raton de Watford - now Puerto de Santa Maria, Cadiz)

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 30 2006 8:27:20

Ricardo

Posts: 14822
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: accents in cante (in reply to andante)

Rhythm (compas) is king in flamenco playing, dancing, and singing. Accents are literally part of the rhythm of the song. Songs in english sometimes do the same, and even when rhythm is not so important. (as it is in flamenco.)

Ricardo

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 30 2006 9:31:34

andante

Posts: 16
Joined: Mar. 30 2005

RE: accents in cante (in reply to Ricardo)

Gracias amigos.

For a second opinion I asked a señorita, and although she has little interest in flamenco she gave much the same explanation. Neither example struck her as odd in any way.

As I said before, this way of singing in Spanish sounds great to my ears.
The flamenco student in me was saying "Yes!" while the Spanish student was saying "hang on..."

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 31 2006 5:36:20

veet

Posts: 231
Joined: Nov. 29 2004
From: L.A.

RE: accents in cante (in reply to andante)

The whole line goes
hablo con mi dio y le digo.

"le digo" confirms which tense it is - present indicative. Musicality puts stresses where normal speech wouldn't. And if you want proper Spanish, flamenco is probably not a good candidate any more than Delta Blues would exemplify the King's English.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 16 2006 21:51:15