Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
I was wondering what the meaning behind the palo's names are?
I got told "solea" means "loneliness", not sure if that's right though. "Seguiriyas" is translated as "followings" by my translation website. Bulerias? Fandangos?
Are there meanings behind the names, or are they unique names?
Don't know about meaning, but here's how to remember the spelling of siguiriyas:
- Si, guiri. - Yas!
What did she agree on? We leave that to the imagination of the reader...
EDIT: However, it is likely more proper to spell it seguiriyas. It is the older name, and 'siguiriyas' seems like a phonetization of an incorrect anglicized pronunciation of 'seguiriyas', in that an English-speaking guiri would pronounce 'se' as 'si'. Rito y Geografia del Cante also spells it 'seguiriyas'.
The google ngrams, however, are inconclusive. one might say the 60s-70s overtaking of seguiriyas by 'siguiriyas' might have to do with the 60s influx of foreigners wanting to learn flamenco, corrupting the spelling and popularizing 'siguiriyas'; however this is the Spanish corpus, so..
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
Are there meanings behind the names, or are they unique names?
Probably a lot are stolen and now you must ignore the original meaning or implication.
Siguiriyas = seguidillas, different dance and music altogether. Soleares= soledades Guajiras = Guajiras = Cuban girl and different song form. Rumba= rhumba, Afro Cuban stuff, not the same compas Tango = tango napoli rooted Argentine music dance form TARANTA Taranto = tarantella, different sh1t Fandango= fandango from baroque, not the same form at all. Flamenco= pink bird.
It goes on and on. Ignore the superficial trivia and go for the meat and potatoes of the song forms.
Martinetes: Ildefonso Maria Rodriguez was working in the forge one day when his hand slipped and he crushed his fingers under a mallet (martinete). This prompted him to sing the most jondo song ever heard. The name martinete stuck.
Saeta: in 1873 in a village near Alicante, Maria Martha Maria de Martha took some shrooms and saw Jesus. The name stuck.
Polos: comes from the tragic story of two young boys, Jorge and Luis, who were playing Marco Polo in the Mediterranean. Jorge was swept off by the current. Luis kept on yelling Marco, with no reply. In the months that followed, grief drove him mad and he started singing Polo, the imaginary response of his now dead friend.
Granainas: actually come from Barcelona. But Barcelonaninas is a crappy name, so the inventor, Isabel Puigxet, put her finger on a map at random, landed on Granada, and called it Granainas.
Chuflas: called that because it's fun to say. Chuflas. Chuflas.
Caña: named after a beer-worshipping cult that had mild success in 17th-century Cadiz.
Tarantas: a song sung exclusively by women during the 1632 sex strike of Valencia. Now merged with Tarantos and called Tarantxs. Pronounced as written.
Cartageneras: a song about obsession. Delenda est.
Zapateado: in the early days of capitalism, a song of rich shoe-owners who use to gloat and fret in front of their shoeless counterparts.
Solea: actually not about soledad, but songs about Marisol, the most famous Madam of 1870s Sevilla. Used to be called Marisolea, but has been shortened to solea.
Romeras: songs about Rome, preferably sung in the original Latin.
Caracoles: war songs to make fun of the French after Napoleon came to Madrid. It was either snails or frogs. They made a call.
Jaberas: songs from soap operas.
Zarzuela: songs about bad seafood made by neophytes. Zarzuela is what California rolls are to sushi, or what ham-pineapple toppings are to pizza. The song bemoans the unnatural violation of basic aesthetics.
Colombianas: songs about Christopher Columbus. Basically variations on that Vangelis song from the 1992 movie. You know... in noripe peripeeeeeeee, in noripe bla bla blaaaaa
Verdiales: songs about green vegetables. Mostly green beans.
Bambera: cheap knock-offs of the Gipsy King hit song Bamboleo.
No one has mentioned Alegrias. I thought it was the easiest one. My guess is Alegrias come from an italian word allegro (fast, quick) which is one of the tempo markings. Allegro is around 150bpm. I wonder which bpm Alegrias have.
Yep. Living in Italy, I can confirm that allegro means cheerful here. Having lived in Spain, I can also confirm that alegrías means joys or happinesses.
Yep. Living in Italy, I can confirm that allegro means cheerful here. Having lived in Spain, I can also confirm that alegrías means joys or happinesses.
You guys are right about the meaning of alegro.
quote:
I got told "solea" means "loneliness", not sure if that's right though.
Another theory says Solea doesn't mean soledad (loneliness). The olive harvest is called soleo. Gitanos used to sing the earlier version of Solea when they worked on the olive plantation. Solea was like a work song of African slaves who sang it in a group. During the olive harvest Solea was sung in a group as well. A clear contradiction to soledad.
No one has mentioned Alegrias. I thought it was the easiest one. My guess is Alegrias come from an italian word allegro (fast, quick) which is one of the tempo markings.
Allegro is Italian and it means ‘bright’ tempo. It connotes something peppy and light. Allegro con brio means bright with spirit. Allegria does come from allegro linguistically, probably from a long time back when antiquated forms of Latin took root in what’s now Spain.
I could give you a long lecture on why allegro begets allegrias, but you could read Barcelona by Robert Hughes and around page 35 or 40 he’ll explain it.
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Palo names - meaning? (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
Cover the of now trending Israel Fernandez with little morao spells it Se not Si
Of course the artists wouldn’t do that
quote:
I’m guess the graphic designers didn’t get the memo
Correct, whoever designed the cover did that. It’s the same when they spell “Nadie” or “Pobre” in the liner notes when they clearly don’t pronounce that ever. Weird they think is ok to write “ pa’ “ and “mare” and things like that but not spelling of letter mix ups.
RE: Palo names - meaning? (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
Allegro is Italian and it means ‘bright’ tempo. It connotes something peppy and light. Allegro con brio means bright with spirit. Allegria does come from allegro linguistically, probably from a long time back when antiquated forms of Latin took root in what’s now Spain.
I could give you a long lecture on why allegro begets allegrias,
Surely both Italian and Spanish derive from Latin, not one from the other.
From Latin alacer, alacrem - lively, brisk, cheerful
In checking I also read that Allegro came into Italian via French "alegre" so not even direct from Latin to Italian!