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Posts: 3055
Joined: Aug. 30 2008
From: Boston, MA, U.S.A
Metric Modulations in Flamenco: Exam...
There's the basic stuff that happens all the time like tientos to tangos or solea to bulerias. The eighth notes from the previous palo just becomes the quarter notes for the new one.
But how about some unusual stuff? Like Vicente's Campo de la Verdad. Sounds like the pulse gets divided by threes and you get the transition from the slow part to bulerias.
Are there any other examples of this kind of stuff? Or any examples/ideas of switching between two rhythmically different palos that is not usual or common?
I remember seeing a video of Tomatito going from tangos to bulerias (or the other way around.) How did that work?
RE: Metric Modulations in Flamenco: ... (in reply to at_leo_87)
quote:
But how about some unusual stuff? Like Vicente's Campo de la Verdad. Sounds like the pulse gets divided by threes and you get the transition from the slow part to bulerias.
It's actually pretty straightforward, and nicely done (although my explanation might be neither).
The transition out of the first section, the popular and very suave palo salón-bar romántico, starts when the bass player switches from quarters to eighths at 1:44. Vicente plays triplets over the eighths, so six notes to a quarter.
If you keep tapping the eighths, then you're obviously tapping one to every three of Vicente's triplet notes. If you take those six (i.e. two of his triplets) and tap every second one (instead of every third one) then they'll make a triplet over the original quarter note. So for every two of his triplets you tap three beats. (Try tapping the two on one side and the new three on the other - hands or feet, any convenient extremity will do. Or tongue-clicks for one of them.)
Then just tap every other one of your three beats, and you will have your basic 12-2-4-6 etc. for the bulerias which is officially announced just before the three-minute mark. (N.B. I've never heard this piece before, so the timings here refer to this live one on Yutú:)
If you tap twos at around 3:00 and then go back and compare at around 1:00 you'll see that it's not quite twice as fast as the eighths there. In fact it's (theoretically) 1½ times as fast.
Nice Reyes.
As for the video - Dude, what was in those churros?
RE: Metric Modulations in Flamenco: ... (in reply to at_leo_87)
quote:
I remember seeing a video of Tomatito going from tangos to bulerias (or the other way around.) How did that work?
It was a similar idea, where threes become twos, or vice-versa; triplets in the tango. It's a way of appearing to speed up or slow down. Ricardo gave a very good explanation some time ago.
Just search the archive for "Excellent explanations of interesting stuff by Ricardo" and you will get a ton of hits - it'll be in there somewhere.
Posts: 233
Joined: Apr. 7 2005
From: Adelaide, Australia
RE: Metric Modulations in Flamenco: ... (in reply to at_leo_87)
My favourite example of this is tangos to siguiriyas from the track 'Acontecio' from El Pele & Vicente Amigo's album 'Canto'.
The cajon starts in fours, Vicente follows in fours, then when El Pele starts singing (por siguiriyas) the palmas comes in por seguiriyas. The cajon keeps going in fours through this, so I guess it's more an example of polyrhythm than metric modulation.