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.
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
Los Cantes Mineros
Sorry I posted this in the audio video section for somereason.
Just want to say I bought the big book when i was in Spain that Norman wrote with Rafael Chaves Arcos. 560 some pages and comes with a disc that has 168 examples discussed in the book. Believe it or not, that is a fraction of what is discussed. However, it is very well organized that you can read the book along with the CD and pick out by ear which versions are described. Norman’s contribution is only about the guitar playing but it helps keep focused, and gives context (such as the key the guitar is playing in). All the recordings are super old. I spent a day or two getting through the whole thing. It was very interesting to familiarize myself with the various melodies and the arguments for attributions were interesting. Also whenever my ear made some connection like “hey that sounds exactly like Minera de Pedro Morato!”, sure enough the author mentioned those similarities as well. Because it focuses on the early epoc we don’t learn much about evolution of the various forms (if you recall I pointed out how the los Picaros tartaneros changed significantly from Chacon to Camaron and it seems it was the version by Valderrama that influenced that).
So one thing in the back of my mind was a melody my friend Jesus sang on our live in Fresno concert. I could not place it but it seemed “familiar”. So I go through the entire darn book and FINALLY here the singular version called Taranta de Jose de la Luz on page 358. It basically functions like normal Taranto but the higher melody is like diatonic thirds above the normal (more or less) and jumps down. It was weird for me that it was so obscure relative to all that is in the book. However, they mention Carmen Amaya and it clicked. That was the first ever flamenco album I ever heard as a teenager. Here is the track…and she sings the style the second letra onward.
This track was the famous one mislabled as Rondeña, where she sings Taranto (and next this style of Jose de la Luz), and the compas marches in 2/4 and at the end they move to 3/4 like Jaleo or abandolao….however Sabicas plays in MINERA key.
The book is very interesting in anexo 3 where Norman explains how guitar was used generally. We get the singular example of Rondeña tuning used for Taranta de Basilio….(basically a type of Cartagenera), and there are the earliest examples of the Minera key being used. 1922 Antequerana. If you have the book and CD it is interesting to listen to the evolution of the guitar accompaniment used por Minera following this track sequence: 87, 101, 97, 35, 110, 36. To my ear, they were ALWAYS marking the 2/4 beat similar to Sabicas above, though sometimes the phrases work in groups of 3 (6/4). I think it is clear the abandolao type accompaniment used for these cantes evolved into the baile thing you hear with Carmen Amaya and modern Taranto today.
Norman also points out the singular example of por medio being used (on the CD, but used occasionally for cantes mineros). Also por Arriba was used often. While the book is focused on what today are cantes de la Mina separate or grouped forms, there are several examples of performances on the CD where various styles of Malagueñas and Fandangos are mixed in. Some, like the Fandango de Rivas were very unique, and others like Fandango de Trini, very familiar.
Because it focuses on the early epoc we don’t learn much about evolution of the various forms (if you recall I pointed out how the los Picaros tartaneros changed significantly from Chacon to Camaron and it seems it was the version by Valderrama that influenced that).
I do recall, another one of your highly valuable posts. Linked below for anyone else interested. The whole thread is worthwhile, e.g. Henry posts a link to the 'Los Cantes Mineros' book two posts below.
(I miss the even older foro times when there were others here like Norman, who could meet and discuss at your level of understanding.)
Because it focuses on the early epoc we don’t learn much about evolution of the various forms (if you recall I pointed out how the los Picaros tartaneros changed significantly from Chacon to Camaron and it seems it was the version by Valderrama that influenced that).
I do recall, another one of your highly valuable posts. Linked below for anyone else interested. The whole thread is worthwhile, e.g. Henry posts a link to the 'Los Cantes Mineros' book two posts below.
(I miss the even older foro times when there were others here like Norman, who could meet and discuss at your level of understanding.)
Yeah, I learned a lot of things since that thread and have revised some of my thinking. So the interesting fandango de Riva I mentioned earlier also has the thing where, like the old Cartagenera, the melody concludes the first 3 sung lines all to the 6th scale degree. Meaning in the key of C, the melody drops C-B-A and holds the A note and the guitar answers each line with C, F, C. That means only that F chord sounds “correct”. Whatever the origin melody was, the singers of these variations (and I keep finding similar styles with different names, such as Fandango de Trini 2, Rojo alpergatero Cartagenera etc), are sticking to it like glue, in the face of the Fandango structure. My first thinking was the singers wanted these tensions to hold and be affected by the Fandango progression. Like in the Mellizo Corte melody that also does this emphasis of the C-B-A… In that thread I point out how young Paco instinctively changed the chords to better fit the melody and later as an adult had learned better how to keep the Fandango form but stay out of the way of the dissonance. Pepe Martinez as well surprised me.
So I now believe that the singers are inserting melodies into the formal structure and don’t care about the dissonances, because they were not constructing melodies with tensions in mind. It was the guitarists like Montoya that were dealing with the tensions in their own way to preserve the form, but the instincts of the later generations to change the formal structure are revealing that the singers were pulling melodies from outside sources and stuffing them into the form via the poetic delivery. This also means it is likely that Fandangos proper and these Levante songs with dissonance are likely springing from two separate sources, NOT the exact same one.
I will also say that I have since read that the reason for two versions of Mellizo Malagueña is because when he was older and not feeling well, he sang a diatonic third under the original melody (the higher pitch version) to make it easier. This comes from some old guys that witnessed it in the juergas. It makes perfect musical sense, and I can imagine variants of melodies probably have similar origins (being diatonic harmonies either under or above some parent melody). In that sense, some of the dissonances could simply be unintentional. For example the picaros and other styles I described that emphasizes the 6th could have been under a melody that was simply hitting the tonic, which would have been consonant with those chords. A tired voiced singer would have “created” the lower harmony and it stuck as the main melody as in the case of Mellizo.
OR….those diatonic melodies C-B-A resolving could have been the diatonic third ABOVE the typical malagueña descents that go A-G-F…where we play C major and it seems odd. Same with Taranto etc, B-A-G play a D answer.
Printable Version
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread