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It's been a while since I've posted here so I think it is time I show face :) I have been seeing a lot of Solea in E and then some Solea in A (Same Progression as Seguiriyas almost). I used to think they both the same Solea in different Keys, but now I'm seeing that they are not quite the same.
Are they different types of Soleas? If so how do you differenciate them by name as in to look them up? I'm pretty sure the one in A is not Solea Por Bulerias but just another variation of Solea? Here are examples of Solea in E (first video) and Solea in A (second video) that I'm talking about!
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to roozbeh60)
There is no difference whatever. The cantaor dictates the tono. If it should be uncomfortable for the tocaor to play por arriba, he can easily play por medio, and vice versa. The cante is the same, with the same compás and has nothing to do with seguirayas.
Do not confuse soleá and soleá por bulerías, but be aware that soleá por bulerías can be accompanied por arriba as well.
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Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to Morante)
Yes,, but if you listen to the bass line on roozbeh60s second vid of Duquende , i can certainly hear why folk will be thinking of a seguiillas or maybe solea por bulerias .. So I dont think in this case its a pure Solea , I would go with Soleá por Bulerías As a Solea speeds up a bit the change of one to the other isnt clear ,, A medium fast solea or a bulerias slowed down ...??
But in the intro and during the song you do hear the typical a descending bass line in the guitar of D-C-Bb-A on beats 7-10, ( about 55 secs for example ) However its not always clear but ...... If the compás starts on 12, and is about the same as an Alegrías; and its about as fast as a slow to mid-tempo bulerías; the letras follow the form of soleares letras ish , but the repeats at the end of phrases can vary and sometimes there is that descending bassline
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to El Kiko)
quote:
ORIGINAL: El Kiko
Yes,, but if you listen to the bass line on roozbeh60s second vid of Duquende , i can certainly hear why folk will be thinking of a seguiillas or maybe solea por bulerias ..
Yeah I was simply saying the progression sounds a bit like Seguiriyas, but obviously it is Solea! The reason I'm saying the one is A has a different bass line you mentioned is that the traditional bass of Solea is not heard in the second song what-so-ever. In the first video, the parts you hear from 00:05-00:18 and 00:30-00:35 are played in every solea but are not heard in the second song!
Also the one in A major has what you hear at 00:47-00:57 which I've heard in many similar Solea. The two are never mixed! almost there there are 2 versions of Solea, where the one in A sounds almost like a combination of Solea and Solea por Bulerias.. Here is another one played by Moraito
Posts: 14799
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to roozbeh60)
quote:
Are they different types of Soleas? If so how do you differenciate them by name as in to look them up? I'm pretty sure the one in A is not Solea Por Bulerias but just another variation of Solea? Here are examples of Solea in E (first video) and Solea in A (second video) that I'm talking about!
The simple answer is that yes there are different types of solea, so it depends what you are referring to, cante, baile, or toque. In other words a singer could be singing solea de Alcala or Cadiz or Jerez, but the guitar might be playing "solea por buleria" and confuse the student as to what to call the song form at hand. So break it down first into three categories:
Cante: There are tons of different types of solea. Only a few main ones are popular today, especially when sung for baile. To learn about each one visit www.canteytoque.es and look up styles of Solea.
Some singers will actually mix different styles, rather than do the orthodox thing of stick with a single style such as Alcala or Andonda, or whatever. Even Bulerias por solea, of which there are only a few basic blue print styles, might get mixed into a performance of other solea types. To be clear, there is no song style called "Solea por buleria" as far as cante goes, regardless of the speed at which the song might be sung. For example in Jerez you might hear solea de Frijones 2 (as per the site linked above) sung in a buleria Juerga at very fast tempo. So for song it comes down to specific melodies and letras that might be associated.
Baile: The dance is done notoriously slooooooooooow por solea, at least for the opening sections. The most typical letras sung are extremely exaggeratedly slowed down versions of solea Alcala, Serneta and Andonda. Tempos can be as low as 50 beats per minute or slower, setting up a HUGE challenge for the musicians to drive a strong feeling. For this reason, the vast majority of dance choreography is only done by guitarists "por Arriba" or in E, and so guitarist that play for dance often tend to develop very slow material in this key. This is regardless of the type of letras sung.
Many solea dance solos with speed up after footwork to a normal tempo solea (around 120 or 130 bpm) or even faster. This section is normally referred to as "solea por buleria" probably the origin of this song form name. The guitar will stay in the same key of course but with a new tempo and driving compas, the feel and sound is very different than the slow section. YOu can't just simply speed up whatever you played slow, the feeling and specifics of notes and rhythms change. However, in old times THIS was the normal speed and feeling for solea in general. Letras typically sung here are Solea De jerez, Frijones and the like, but often times Buleria Larga is mixed in if more than one letra is needed. Hence a lot of confusion of why the dance is still called "Solea".
Some dancers will dance "solea por buleria" as the complete solo, so no slow opening section, it just starts normal speed, and nothing is really different than the above section of a long Solea dance as described, singing and all, with the exception that the guitarist, needing none of that slow stuff, may opt to use the por medio key instead (solea in A). So now the concept of "solea por bulerias" as a song form becomes important as a way to describe the dance or guitar playing, and the singing may wrongly be referred to as "solea por buleria" as well.
Both dance solos typically speed up into bulerias at the end, and the same stuff will be sung in bulerias regardless of the key the guitarist plays in.
To make this all real clear, if a dancer wants to dance solea slow as her solo, and she hears a guitarist playing por medio in A, she might say to stop that and play in E.....for fear that the material most guitarists have in A is fast driving stuff like Solea por buleria, and will not have the slow tempo and weight needed that the Key of E seems to afford guitarists. This is where the musician mind and the dance mind might clash and whoever has seniority will be the boss.
Toque: As hinted to above the guitar necessarily takes on different sound and feel when different tempos are required. So a guitarist playing solo will probably compose solos with this concept in mind....Solea por Arriba=slow stuff, por medio= fast stuff. And they might also label their solos differently for this reason, since there is no cante or baile to dictate so it is sort of arbitrary. However, a guitarist might deliberately compose interesting fast material for por Arriba, or extremely slow stuff por medio, so the labeling becomes about the tempo and feel. Finally, there might be elasticity to the tempo, and here again it is more typical to do that for Solea and NOT solea por buleria. In other words, take your solea por buleria and slow it down a bit and make it breath up and down rhythmically, and you have got a nice new solea.
Posts: 14799
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to roozbeh60)
At top of this page, you can see a good example of how the guitar affects the cante performance as I did the first take por medio in A, and the second take for the same cante I played por Arriba.
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to roozbeh60)
what Ricardo said!
As well as that good example of Solea played both por medio and por Arriba, does anyone have example of same guitarist and singer performing solea-por-bulerias/bulerias-por-solea in both por medio and por arriba?
here same guitarist and singer perform both solea and bulerias-por-solea por medio (skip to 2:10 in second vid)
Posts: 14799
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to mark indigo)
I searched but couldn't find a freebie share version but the performance of Fernanda de Utrera in the Saura Flamenco movie, the movie version is done por Arriba (easy to find on youtube), but the CD soundtrack (can't find free audio samples) that was recorded separately, the same letras were performed by Paco del Gastor POR MEDIO instead....basically similar results to what I did with the Moneo Track. If anybody has that track and can upload it, it's a perfect example.
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
the Saura Flamenco movie, the movie version is done por Arriba (easy to find on youtube), but the CD soundtrack (can't find free audio samples) that was recorded separately, the same letras were performed by Paco del Gastor POR MEDIO instead....basically similar results to what I did with the Moneo Track.
Posts: 14799
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to mark indigo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: mark indigo
quote:
the Saura Flamenco movie, the movie version is done por Arriba (easy to find on youtube), but the CD soundtrack (can't find free audio samples) that was recorded separately, the same letras were performed by Paco del Gastor POR MEDIO instead....basically similar results to what I did with the Moneo Track.
a-ha! i have both.
here the film version:
Cool, if you could upload the audio from the CD it would be great to hear again, I only recollect hearing that in someones' car decades ago and it struck me funny at the time cuz I was just learning about this stuff.
Just checked out Serva and Agujetas above....nothing but curve balls all over the place in both forms. But Serva does great dealing with it all, in fact he uses a cambio I have never noticed done before in the Buleria por solea, as Agujetas likes starting things after count 3 oddly, so his cambio that normally would have fallen at count 3 (half compas) is shifted 3 beats to count 6 so in the first two letras Serva resolves to F on 6-9, then Bb on 10, back to A on 12. The final letra is more "normal", and I always like how Agujetas puts his hands out to the sides of this lap to signal the end, but Serva can't see his hands under the table.
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Just checked out Serva and Agujetas above....nothing but curve balls all over the place in both forms. But Serva does great dealing with it all, in fact he uses a cambio I have never noticed done before in the Buleria por solea, as Agujetas likes starting things after count 3 oddly, so his cambio that normally would have fallen at count 3 (half compas) is shifted 3 beats to count 6 so in the first two letras Serva resolves to F on 6-9, then Bb on 10, back to A on 12. The final letra is more "normal", and I always like how Agujetas puts his hands out to the sides of this lap to signal the end, but Serva can't see his hands under the table.
David played for Manuel for five years as his pretty much exclusive guitarist. The big curve ball came when he walked into a club one night and another guitarist was playing for him and Manuel had never told him anything. He just turned on him out of the blue and they did not speak for several years. He said it felt like getting punched in the stomach. Then subsequently they spoke, years later. David met up with him in I believe in Rota, and it was when his daughter was making a film about David. About 2011-ish, Agujetas would not sing for the movie, but they had lunch and a good visit. And David said a woman approached Agujetas in public to talk to him and he barked at her, I understood she was a fan and he was not having any of it. David said in a dry way, he was "quite rude, frankly". Taken to mean he was quite an a$$hole to the woman. So he pitched curves well into his last years.
On the subject of odd cambios, there is an Buleria por Solea cambio the Inez Bacan sings that is F to C instead of C to F. But it's more like a big cargo ship moving slow and sure so the target is bigger and easier to hear. The Viva y Voz recording she did with her brother playing has it, as does I think the later CD with Moraito playing a few years after Pedro Bacan tragically died. I've seen David play quite a bit for Luis Agujetas, Manuel's brother and he has some of the same way of entering and going into cambio that is not square on.
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to roozbeh60)
The soundtrack version of Fernanda is much better than the por arriba in the movie. The Por Medio version is really in the spirit of the 1980's recording of her at her peak in Paris on the Ocora label recording with Paco. If a person wanted to study solea por medio that is probably a must have disk. Well IMHO that is a must have disk no matter what.
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to estebanana)
It was said, no doubt with mala leche, that when Agujetas walked in looking for a tocaor, all the guitarists ran out the back door. Last one out had to accompany
RE: Difference Between Solea in A an... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
Are they different types of Soleas? If so how do you differenciate them by name as in to look them up? I'm pretty sure the one in A is not Solea Por Bulerias but just another variation of Solea? Here are examples of Solea in E (first video) and Solea in A (second video) that I'm talking about!
The simple answer is that yes there are different types of solea, so it depends what you are referring to, cante, baile, or toque. In other words a singer could be singing solea de Alcala or Cadiz or Jerez, but the guitar might be playing "solea por buleria" and confuse the student as to what to call the song form at hand. So break it down first into three categories:
Cante: There are tons of different types of solea. Only a few main ones are popular today, especially when sung for baile. To learn about each one visit www.canteytoque.es and look up styles of Solea.
Some singers will actually mix different styles, rather than do the orthodox thing of stick with a single style such as Alcala or Andonda, or whatever. Even Bulerias por solea, of which there are only a few basic blue print styles, might get mixed into a performance of other solea types. To be clear, there is no song style called "Solea por buleria" as far as cante goes, regardless of the speed at which the song might be sung. For example in Jerez you might hear solea de Frijones 2 (as per the site linked above) sung in a buleria Juerga at very fast tempo. So for song it comes down to specific melodies and letras that might be associated.
Baile: The dance is done notoriously slooooooooooow por solea, at least for the opening sections. The most typical letras sung are extremely exaggeratedly slowed down versions of solea Alcala, Serneta and Andonda. Tempos can be as low as 50 beats per minute or slower, setting up a HUGE challenge for the musicians to drive a strong feeling. For this reason, the vast majority of dance choreography is only done by guitarists "por Arriba" or in E, and so guitarist that play for dance often tend to develop very slow material in this key. This is regardless of the type of letras sung.
Many solea dance solos with speed up after footwork to a normal tempo solea (around 120 or 130 bpm) or even faster. This section is normally referred to as "solea por buleria" probably the origin of this song form name. The guitar will stay in the same key of course but with a new tempo and driving compas, the feel and sound is very different than the slow section. YOu can't just simply speed up whatever you played slow, the feeling and specifics of notes and rhythms change. However, in old times THIS was the normal speed and feeling for solea in general. Letras typically sung here are Solea De jerez, Frijones and the like, but often times Buleria Larga is mixed in if more than one letra is needed. Hence a lot of confusion of why the dance is still called "Solea".
Some dancers will dance "solea por buleria" as the complete solo, so no slow opening section, it just starts normal speed, and nothing is really different than the above section of a long Solea dance as described, singing and all, with the exception that the guitarist, needing none of that slow stuff, may opt to use the por medio key instead (solea in A). So now the concept of "solea por bulerias" as a song form becomes important as a way to describe the dance or guitar playing, and the singing may wrongly be referred to as "solea por buleria" as well.
Both dance solos typically speed up into bulerias at the end, and the same stuff will be sung in bulerias regardless of the key the guitarist plays in.
To make this all real clear, if a dancer wants to dance solea slow as her solo, and she hears a guitarist playing por medio in A, she might say to stop that and play in E.....for fear that the material most guitarists have in A is fast driving stuff like Solea por buleria, and will not have the slow tempo and weight needed that the Key of E seems to afford guitarists. This is where the musician mind and the dance mind might clash and whoever has seniority will be the boss.
Toque: As hinted to above the guitar necessarily takes on different sound and feel when different tempos are required. So a guitarist playing solo will probably compose solos with this concept in mind....Solea por Arriba=slow stuff, por medio= fast stuff. And they might also label their solos differently for this reason, since there is no cante or baile to dictate so it is sort of arbitrary. However, a guitarist might deliberately compose interesting fast material for por Arriba, or extremely slow stuff por medio, so the labeling becomes about the tempo and feel. Finally, there might be elasticity to the tempo, and here again it is more typical to do that for Solea and NOT solea por buleria. In other words, take your solea por buleria and slow it down a bit and make it breath up and down rhythmically, and you have got a nice new solea.
Hope that makes sense.
Ricardo this was very helpful! I took some time to analyze this and you are spot on! I also noticed that solea por medio (in A) is also often used when there is a transition from Solea to Bulerias toward the end of the song. I've heard this a few times in the past, the same as how Tomatito goes from Seguiriyas to Bulerias when accompanying Cameron where both Palos are in A.. Also does it seem that the Soleas in A have a 'Happier' theme than the ones in E or is it just me?
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