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I was interested and somewhat surprised to see that Yago Santos has created a new palo, called "Norteña."
Is this really the first new palo created for solo guitar since rondeña?
Also, I would have thought that whether a palo 'exists' depends on its adoption by at least some segments of the flamenco community. But if a new palo comes into existence, it has to start somewhere, right?
Here's ChatGPT's translation of the description from the Spanish on the YouTube page:
Yago Santos has released a new piece titled "Camino de la Plata," composed in "Norteña," a new flamenco style that combines the rhythm of seguiriya with the Aeolian minor mode. Up to this point, a similar sound has not been heard. Just as the Cabales are performed in seguiriya with the Ionian mode, this new style, "Norteña," works with the Aeolian minor mode as the tonal axis, using the perfect cadence as its guiding thread.
In an interview with Yago, he states, "As the first composition serving as an introduction to this new style, I have based it on the perfect cadence V7(alt) / I. As you can see, the harmonic material is very traditional, but it will facilitate better assimilation by the audience and other guitarists."
While it is true that flamenco has evolved a lot in recent years, since the creation of the rondeña by Ramón Montoya, no new style or aesthetic form has been created that breaks with the traditional modes used in them, and at the same time, has the intention of being performed as a solo guitar piece.
In the words of the composer, "With this new style, I aim, with humility and the respect I have for this art, to enrich its traditional aesthetics in order to expand the horizons and creative elements that govern it."
Posts: 14825
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: New Palo: "Norteña" (in reply to machopicasso)
quote:
ORIGINAL: machopicasso
I was interested and somewhat surprised to see that Yago Santos has created a new palo, called "Norteña."
Is this really the first new palo created for solo guitar since rondeña?
Also, I would have thought that whether a palo 'exists' depends on its adoption by at least some segments of the flamenco community. But if a new palo comes into existence, it has to start somewhere, right?
Here's ChatGPT's translation of the description from the Spanish on the YouTube page:
Yago Santos has released a new piece titled "Camino de la Plata," composed in "Norteña," a new flamenco style that combines the rhythm of seguiriya with the Aeolian minor mode. Up to this point, a similar sound has not been heard. Just as the Cabales are performed in seguiriya with the Ionian mode, this new style, "Norteña," works with the Aeolian minor mode as the tonal axis, using the perfect cadence as its guiding thread.
In an interview with Yago, he states, "As the first composition serving as an introduction to this new style, I have based it on the perfect cadence V7(alt) / I. As you can see, the harmonic material is very traditional, but it will facilitate better assimilation by the audience and other guitarists."
While it is true that flamenco has evolved a lot in recent years, since the creation of the rondeña by Ramón Montoya, no new style or aesthetic form has been created that breaks with the traditional modes used in them, and at the same time, has the intention of being performed as a solo guitar piece.
In the words of the composer, "With this new style, I aim, with humility and the respect I have for this art, to enrich its traditional aesthetics in order to expand the horizons and creative elements that govern it."
Interesting post. I have a lot of thoughts about it, but try to be brief. Early on in my learning I read about how Paco and Camaron tried to create a new form “Canastera”, which, never took off, rather became a singular song. It had three traditional elements, Fandango compas, Rondeña guitar tuning, and cante that borrowed elements of siguiriyas (opening line) Fandango, (verse melody move to relative major, using V-I-IV, but resolving there to III or phrygian), and tangos (decending estribilo III-II-I phrygian). In theory we can see how it had all the ingredients to be “added” to the existing palos….so why did it fail?
The reason it does not work is because “palo”, referring to branches of a tree the eminate from a primal source, is based on standard or set cantes. While variants seem to manifest, here and there, WITHIN a song form, a brand NEW song form does not seem to occur with regularity. Something about the classical canon is preventing this from occurring. Honestly, interms of formal structure, there are only a few formal structures…the rest of the branches are variants of those and can mix with them. This canastera for example, can’t mix with any one form, it stands apart somehow. Sure someone can stick it in to a round of fandangos for example, similar to doing bulerias and mixing cuple, fandango, huapango etc… where the unrelated forms are riding on the compas wave. But the idea of a formal structure is that it can be “the same form” but have various melodies. So didn’t really happen like that for Canastera. The modern guitar players taking Paco’s lead have composed many cante albums with unique melodies, which otherwise tend to fit a traditional form despite being novel.
So if the greats can’t do this, is this guy really doing it here? Let’s first say, it is a great idea and composition. But it does not really attach to a cante so to call it a “palo” is a stretch. Let’s talk Montoya quickly. We think of Rondena as a palo, but it truly is NOT. It is simply a “key” with which he literally accompanied Tarantas cante and a big etc, even using Levantica melody for a falseta. Same goes for Minera guitar wise. These are not “palos”, rather, cante minero accompaniment alternatives. They don’t necessarily define the cante or attach to any one as a permanent thing. IN Norman Kliman and Chaves cante minero book, they point to examples where even por medio or por arriba is used for some cantes long ago in this category. So creating a guitar form that can be used to accompany cante melodies, is certainly a thing to be achieved, and important. David Serva introduced D# phrygian as an alternative guitar solo to Rondeña, but later it is embraced as an option for EVERY PALO…but it never becomes its own palo. Make sense?
So the same situation here…siguiriya compas treatment of the A minor tonality (not Aeolian, it is not modal, it is basic A minor like Farruca or Tangos de Malaga). It is like Tangos de Malaga/Farruca (arguable the same form minus any cante or baile to define it), with the compas TREATMENT of siguiriyas (5-count). Buleria and solea have also been done in minor key exactly like this. Is it novel to use this compas treatment? Sure! Has it NEVER been done? I am not totally sure but I doubt it. Cabales mentioned. Yes, it is accompanied via major key chords like Alegrias. There is set of solea that do this too (Carapiera). Last year I went through the Cabales cantes and noticed a profound thing. There is a lot “false relation” between the vocal melodies and those chords. Meaning, the cante is NOT in the major key like Alegrias. A closer look we actually see minor melodies, or rather, a lot of melodic minor, very much like is heard in the tonas, martinetes, etc, that normally don’t use guitar. My conclusion quickly became that the cantes sin guitarra were a descion by singers that could not tolerate the false relations ,where the guitarist could not get the correct tonos as the accidentals of the traditional melodies are sung.
This guys “guitar form” actually , would work perfectly for the Siguiriya style attributed to Planeta as you might have heard it. It is clearly a minor key melody, with the wrong chords used. The compas treatment is almost not even important. But if it were me…I would personally invite a cantaor to sing that style, mixed with some cables, and use this guy’s falsetas and it would totally work, and call it Siguiriyas/Cabales. One thing he could do with his piece, is certain cadences use A major instead of A minor (all the rest being as is), a “Picardy third” in otherwords to end certain phrases, and it would really achieve the affect I am hearing implied by the various cantes in this camp. But is a “new form” really created here? To me, not really.
Here the singer is not “out of tune” or flat as it sounds, he is literally singing C naturals while guitar hitting C# against. The end uses Bb, so you see this mixture..at least the guitar gets that change. However, when listening try to focus on the singer only and image use the nice A minor material as in the Santos video as accompaniment instead. It would fit much better until the end Bb. This type of thing is common for the cantes sin guitarra as well.
The reason it does not work is because “palo”, referring to branches of a tree the eminate from a primal source, is based on standard or set cantes. While variants seem to manifest, here and there, WITHIN a song form, a brand NEW song form does not seem to occur with regularity. [...]
Let’s talk Montoya quickly. We think of Rondena as a palo, but it truly is NOT. It is simply a “key” with which he literally accompanied Tarantas cante and a big etc, even using Levantica melody for a falseta. Same goes for Minera guitar wise. These are not “palos”, rather, cante minero accompaniment alternatives.
The criterion you use for classifying palos (i.e. that a palo has to be anchored in cante) makes sense. But it also has that counter-intuitive implication that Rondena isn't really a palo, despite PDL and all the other greats seemingly treating it as such! When the greats label their songs in that tuning as "Rondena," are they not referring to a palo? And if they are, then doesn't that perhaps suggest the need for a few different criteria for classifying palos, one being the cante criterion you propose, alongside another one for handling the Rondena cases?
Posts: 14825
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: New Palo: "Norteña" (in reply to machopicasso)
quote:
When the greats label their songs in that tuning as "Rondena," are they not referring to a palo? And if they are, then doesn't that perhaps suggest the need for a few different criteria for classifying palos, one being the cante criterion you propose, alongside another one for handling the Rondena cases?
Right. To be fair, Rondeña already exists as a “palo” by name, referring to a cante that is accompanied Abandolao por Arriba normally, so that means the term itself has a double meaning, so it seems, one referring to cante, the other to the guitar. The truth is that this concept can apply, for ANY Palo really, such that the guitar key/tuning/aire/compas, etc, is defining a specific thing different than the cante itself. And Then there is the BAILE, which has a third purposing for a palo by name as well. So we come to a place where we could have 3 distinct definitions for a single song form, whether we mean singing, guitar playing, or dancing.
Example. BAMBERAS. As a song form, if you are a dancer, you are simply dancing Solea por buleria. Only the letra is a slightly different length than typical, ie, a special case situation. In otherwords, an existing choreography for SolXbul can be repurposed and called “Bambera”. The guitarist simply plays Solea but quick tempo like SolxBul por arriba. Since that tempo can also apply to basic Solea, nothing more than “Solea” is needed, conceptually, interms of compas, falsetas, escobilla theme, llamada, etc.
But then there is the CANTE, or rather, the formal structure of the letra. Here is the distinction. This is NOT solea, but something different. The first line of verse is the same as a certain Paquirri solea, (Paquirri 2), however, after that, the lines of verse diverge from Solea melodically and harmonically, constituting a UNIQUE formal structure. It IS a Palo, not a stand alone song, as many letras can apply to this structure and the melody variant that concludes the form typically. So, without the cante, nothing more than basic Solea is being expressed, no need for a new song form name.
So I tried to clarify earlier about guitar accompaniment forms, when a new key or tonality appears to function, it normally gets taken seriously when cante is involved with it. It does not have to be a single cante style. Hence the D# tonality, and recently things like C# phrygian as well, get utilized for various palos, but don’t become NEW palos themselves. Back to Montoya, he chose Rondeña as a working title for a guitar form that he already used for Taranta cante accompaniment….but he already had his F# Taranta solo in place. He didn’t want TWO Tarantas. There have been several cases of TarantO, the cante, getting labeled as Rondeña for some reason….I suspect Montoya was thinking that way (he split his 3 cante minero forms arbitrarily as Taranta, Minera, Rondeña, all three basically ONE palo), and ironically his falseta is using Levantica, which could have been the title for it. Taranto as a title appears later in history, attached to that cante melody, however, the DANCE Taranto (often believed as a qualifier, meaning 2/4 compas setting of TARANTA) develops with that rhythmic usage for the melody.
This is all why there is confusing situations such as here: Carmen Amaya singing Taranto (1st), and Taranta letras (the rest), the guitar is playing Minera (G# phrygian), and the dance is called Rondeña (because of the first letra only):
This is all why there is confusing situations such as here: Carmen Amaya singing Taranto (1st), and Taranta letras (the rest), the guitar is playing Minera (G# phrygian), and the dance is called Rondeña (because of the first letra only):
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