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RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
There's one more thing you should know, the original manuscripts are written 'Italian tabulature', while some of the modern cleaned up computer printed versions are printed in 'French tabulature'.
The Italian tab style was to notate from the bottom up and the French from the top down. In Italian tab the highest string the treble 'g' will be at the bottom of the staff lines. French tab is just the opposite, the top highest string will be at the top of the staff lines. Why modern publishers do this, hmm well it is probably to streamline how compilations of lute and vihuela music read. If they mixed the two formats together in a modern book it might be confusing.
So if you look at a facsimile edition or a photo online of vihuela music from an original manuscript you'll se the melody line at the bottom of the tab. If you see a modern computer version of the same music, you can be pretty sure the melody will be at the top of the tab. There are of course notated versions in modern regular staff notation for classical guitar, but you have to be careful because a lot of times they take them out of the original key when they transcribe them for guitar which is of course in the key of E. It changes the dynamic of the music and how it lays on the instrument.
If you can look at a facsimile manuscript in a good music library or print out some the ones you find online. They will look like Klingon or Elvish at first, but soon you'll see them as regular charts and be able to play form them.
There's another annoying thing they do with tab in historical music and you will find this too in some French tab editions. Instead of giving numbers to indicate which fret the note is played on, it will give you a letter from the alphabet. 'A is open 'b fIrst fret 'c second fret, ect. PITA!
And then there is German tab, but it's really stupid and overly complicated and totally different from French and Italian tab. But you can be thankful vihuela music is not in German tab. However if you wish to play Girolamo Kapsberger you have to learn German tab and you have to get a theorbo, something you can't fake with a guitar. Kapsberger's music is very modern and has arpeggios a person could steal and make into flamenco falsetas. Does it remind you of arpeggios in Taranto?
This must be in G Minor, which according to Nigel Tufnel the great Renaissance scholar, is the "saddest of all keyes. "
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to estebanana)
Hi Stephen. I was aware of the two styles of tablature. The Italian style is really odd because we're so used to the French.
Additionally, all the Baroque treatises up to Foscarini include alfabeto. A letter name was attached to each of the major and minor chords. Then all the composers/arrangers had to do to notate the accompaniment for the song was write the letters on a tablature staff. The chords were arranged in the circle of fifths so A=a, E=b, B=c, etc. So in the key of E one could shorthand a I-IV-V progression in the key of E by notating b-a-c. These are not the exact equivalents because I don't have my resources as I am on vacation. Also, each guitarist might use previous alphabets or make their own. There was also one guitarist who was modulating in the mid-17th long before the Germans.
This brings up an interesting point. It is possible that the Spanish are responsible for propelling homophonic song toward tonality and that homophony is Spanish in origin and not Italian. That would put a new twist on the history of tonality. It would also blunt your remark about Spanish guitarists bring the progenitors of every type of popular strummed music which, as a guitarist, I am biased toward.
Amat might be said to be the first to use the circle of fifths as a compositional tool, not for use in sequences, but so guitarists could play pop songs in every key without a cejilla.
Also, since chords are emancipated in this literature, some interesting "mixture" occurs. For example, i-IV-V (a major chord on 4). That is nothing new soundwise. What is new its that the vertical sonorities were not constrains by voice leading rules.
There are some interesting charts on dissonance by some of these guitarists. Although I would be careful to read too much into it (as I would with Foscarini, that was tongue-in-cheek), there was one guitarist whose charts on dissonance in d minor (safest of all keys, not g minor) look like the 500 flamenco chords thread. So some of these posturas (as flamencos call them) or grips (a a jazz pianist or guitarist might call them) are found 200 years before flamenco.
Is there a direct connection? Still not sure. As you pointed out, it is possible that there are just certain traits idiomatically inherent on the guitar.
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From: Washington DC
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Kevin)
I wasn't trying to be difficult. I know there are different perspectives. I hoped to get two lists where at a certain date and style one can focus attention. Kevin's list helped me yet he did not place Foscarini whom he claims "stands out". I am still not sure his dates of creation. If estebana tried to make a different but similar lineage we could put the two together and see what we come up with.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Kevin's list helped me yet he did not place Foscarini whom he claims "stands out".
Sorry. Foscarini: 1629 (Books 1 + 2)
The descending tetrachord first appears in Foscarini as a melodic gesture. Then in root, 6th motion Dm-Am/C-Gm/Bb-A or iv-i6-vii6-I in flamenco or i-v6-iv6-I in tonal terms.
The lament bass also emerges in Italy at this time and the early passacaglio in some compositions shares the descending tetrachord with the lament bass. Since there is a tradition of lament in the Mediterranean my conclusion (although tongue-in-cheek as previously mentioned) is a decent hypothesis. It is no worse than some of the other speculative scholarship such as that which argues that the Renaissance folia or later jacaras is the antecedent to the seguiriya. The scholarship that is emerging concerning flamenco is amazing. There are some really cool studies being done that are reaching very interesting conclusions. That said, it is still more fun to do flamenco than to do scholarship.
Posted this before but here it is again.
Pepe Habichuela playing a Jacaras and into the seguiriya. (Again I would caution that it is possible to read too much into the connection. However, I think there is substance to the argument. It needs to be examined from other perspectives; poetic, rhythmic, etc.) They shift at 2:29 from the Jacaras to seguiriya 12-3-6-8-10 to 8-10-12-3-6 Dm---A---------Dm-C--Bb-A-A
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RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to estebanana)
Yeah those Fandangos along with other Peruvian genres during the colony like Folias Criollas, Zamacuecas, etc were a base for some contemporary Peruvian guitar styles like the famous Peruvian Waltz (developed between middle of 19th century):
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RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
I just like to listen to the vihuela, but here you can see a good example of the right hand technique used to play the vihuela. It will strum, but generally they don't do it because it does not engage the string as well as this 'under over' thumb and forefinger scale runs he uses.
After scholars and early instrument makers began to seriously reconstruct these instruments accurately what they found is that modern guitar technique is exactly the opposite of the way you get them to sound. They used paintings of players from the time period and studied the hand positions. After they had made vihuelas and lutes with light tops and strung them the way they would have been in the period it became evident that this under handed technique was what made them work, not a modern technique or strumming to any great extent. There were other instruments that could be strummed, but when playing the majority of the vihuela literature the technique seen in the video was how it worked.
Also no finger nails engage the strings. The doubled courses have to be released at the same time to make the sound work right. Two strings tuned in octaves or in unison are touched by the finger tip at the same time and released at the same time. If you release one before the other it chokes out the unreleased string. it's not as easy as is sounds a takes a lot of practice to get the instrument to "bloom" as the lutenists say.
If you dig into it remember a few years ago Sting made a CD of Elizabethan Lutes songs of John Dowland? I really like that he did that, I thought that was really cool even though a lot of stuffy early music people dismissed him. Well he learned to play the lute for that and he plays with this lutenist on the CD, I can't remember his name, but he is good lute player. If you search for the live performance video on You Tube you can see Sting and this guy both playing lutes at the same time. The professional lute player has a great sound and he makes the lute full and lush, but Stings sound is not so good because he forces the lute too much. You can hear the Sting 'crunching' on the strings, which is what lute players do not want.
When you strum a vihuela or lute too forcefully or can't release the two strings simultaneously you get a crunching sound. This guy in the video below does not crunch.
10+ years ago, I didn’t care about flamenco lineage/origins, and acknowledged it is difficult or impossible to construct any serious narrative about music that even in the modern era is not clearly understood. However, discussions with you guys on foro pushed me in the direction to “look” at things, and I have adopted a new perspective. Since this thread appears, I now feel nearly everything stated in here has some relevance to junk I have dug up, with some missing details. So I used to hate Narvaez etc, it reminded me of my kid classical guitar 8th grader books, etc, although I like watching Bream’s use of a vihuela to play old music. I remember seeing this video of Baxo Contrapunto and thinking “weird, interesting, who cares”. So Bermudo said, take a guitar and add a bass string and a treble string in 4ths, and voila (not viola), you have a vihuela (not voila nor viola ). So, what is a vihuela? It is a freaking guitar. But more specifically, it is a guitar tuned like Montoya’s Rondeña, almost. The low E could be dropped to D and THEN we have Rondeña. And all those years ago we speculated, or discussed where in ever living heck did he come up with this off the wall idea for a song form (guitar wise), which serves to ever confuse flamenco aficionados what’s the difference between the forms that have the same darn title. (I might have said or noted Lute uses a similar tuning, not caring much about vihuela).
Anyway, as a guitarist there is a universal ‘mentality’ about what a fingerboard looks like. It is a “world view” of music, sort of. Not about the sound, but the intuitive feeling of our musical environment. THAT is the thing that is weird about Rondeña when you learn it. I don’t know what folks reading here have in terms of that, but I for one always loved this “world”, and my teacher Gerardo, explored it quite deeply and taught us some of it. Well, looking at Narvaez Tabs, I realized that it is a VERY similar world, this vihuela thing. To me it is not about direct lineage connections etc, but about a “world view” as a musician. In this regard, most of the vihuela music is foreign or weird to me on paper (original sources I mean), because we flamencos stick to this ONE tonality/key mainly, even the most adventurous modern examples. So I just so happened to glance through this tab of Narvaez, looking for some aug6 chords (which I didn’t find), but found this Piece you posted here….and suddenly I found myself in ALL TOO FAMILIAR TERRITORY.
So what I am saying is this tune doesn’t sound like flamenco, but if you know your Rondeña, most of the fingerboard language we use is in this piece. The modal keys and relations (E mixo, A major, F#minor etc.), the accidentals (D#, G natural, E#, etc.), some of the open string runs (sounds funny here with double strings and the technique he uses, jumping octaves, however it is a basic Montoya lick). And I probably would have missed most of all that if not for the conclusion of the piece, which is a standard C# PHRYGIAN CADENCE, which, even in Rondeña guitar solos, tends to pop out of left field after a lot of other meandering, but in the end is decidedly “flamenco”. Also, the imitative theme expressed melodically is heard in Pandaderos (same key concept, but tuned like normal guitar if folks can hear it) of Esteban de Sanlucar.
So if one were to simply drop the 6th to D and play this Narvaez piece, and perhaps add a couple of those low D’s when appropriate in this piece, and there are several spots it could go without changing the music too much, the uncanny similarity can not possibly be coincidental…or if it is, it would be a 1 in a gazillion type thing, because Montoya’s creation is so specific and out of left field. There was an article by Rodrigo de Zayas where he points out it is not logical to claim Vihuela derives from lute, but rather they both derive from guitar (tuning) and Lute uses the oud body. So I know the impossible task of constructing some lineage between this piece and Montoya’s, however, I personally, as a working artist, can’t deny the basic mentality that these two are related in a deep way.
Perhaps you guys know any more vihuela pieces in this tonality?
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
10+ years ago, I didn’t care about flamenco lineage/origins, and acknowledged it is difficult or impossible to construct any serious narrative about music that even in the modern era is not clearly understood. However, discussions with you guys on foro pushed me in the direction to “look” at things, and I have adopted a new perspective. Since this thread appears, I now feel nearly everything stated in here has some relevance to junk I have dug up, with some missing details. So I used to hate Narvaez etc, it reminded me of my kid classical guitar 8th grader books, etc, although I like watching Bream’s use of a vihuela to play old music. I remember seeing this video of Baxo Contrapunto and thinking “weird, interesting, who cares”. So Bermudo said, take a guitar and add a bass string and a treble string in 4ths, and voila (not viola), you have a vihuela (not voila nor viola ).
Historically, the vihuela and the viola are conceptual extensions of the oud. They had convex backs but were precursors to the guitar, although the four-course guitar may have had other roots too. There is a reason the Brazilians call the guitar "violão."
quote:
Anyway, as a guitarist there is a universal ‘mentality’ about what a fingerboard looks like.
There is no universal. There are possibilities and constraints that each culture (located spatially and temporally) experiences with the instruments they develop. The instruments usually evolve as well...there is a coevolution and coadaptation of the musician and its environment.
It is a surface level similarity that Montoya's Rondena has the f# tuning. Those kind of similarities are shunned in the ethnomusicology world because EMs want to know the historical Ws (who, what, when, where, why) and how. Was there a direct lineage from Narvaez to Montoya? Probably not. So where would we have gotten it? The speculation that it is one in a gazillion shot is ok as long as it is acknowledged as a speculation and not fact.
As per our private conversation, I think he could have heard someone play it, but who? Segovia was trying to expand the guitar's repertoire at that time and looked to its past. Adding the D tuning would have made the borrowing less conspicuous if that is what happened (as well as facilitate the II chord root in the bass). It could have continued in "folk" or "popular" circles but why Montoya? Why not Patino, Barbero, Lucena, or many of the early flamenco guitarists?
As for Augmented sixths sonorities (not only chords), I've recommended Ellis book before. It's a chronocentric error to call anything an augmented sixth "chord" from the Renaissance or Baroque. That has to be qualified.
Funny thing. When I started this thread it was tongue-in-cheek. If I recall, Estebanana and others took issue with the claim. I have not reread the thread but Foscarini is Italian and more than a century distant from flamenco. Also, I think he pointed out that the practice of strumming clearly predated Amat's instructional booklet so are we talking about Late Renaissance guys figuring this out? Is it a folk/popular thing that then gets turned into "high" art (a question I ask in my dissertation)? My point was that counterpoint and polyphony were not chordal in nature. It was the Spanish Baroque (or Renaissance) guitarists who identified and extracted/abstracted chordal harmony from polyphonic voice-leading practices, likely by playing intabulations (transcription of four or more voice vocal pieces) which at times constrained the kinds of voicings they could realize. My hypothesis is that they saw patterns beginning to emerge in the shapes and by 1596 Amat recognizes chordal harmony in his publication (Ricardo points out that Palumbi publishes a year earlier).
The rasgueado style is so new and unique that counterpoint is forgotten for awhile. Foscarini brings counterpoint and single-line playing back into the bag of tricks (at least in documentation, perhaps someone else was doing it but there is no evidence). So Foscarini is the first documented guitarist to mix the strumming style (that had never existed until the Spanish Baroque guitarists) and the punteado (plucked, single line and polyphonic).
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From: Washington DC
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
I think he could have heard someone play it, but who?
According to Prat, Miguel Borrul studied Tarrega’s music in private. LLobet was also influential on the Madrid Guitarists like Montoya. So a clue could be hiding there.
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It is a surface level similarity that Montoya's Rondena has the f# tuning.
The tuning I agree. But it goes deeper with voicing and phrases, and most importantly, the final cadence. Circumstantial evidence piles on and that is how a case is built.
quote:
Why not Patino, Barbero, Lucena, or many of the early flamenco guitarists?
The Flamencologists were going by song title on bilboards etc., they don’t get it. A guitar tonality can be used for any cante (as Norman shows us in cantes mineros, every thing known was used, por medio, por arriba, Granaina, Rondena, and Minera). There is no way to rule out that they DID NOT use it just because they did not record with it, write it down, or some knowledgeable critic observed it. The same could be said for toque Levante or Minera (F# and G#, respectively). The fact Montoya used them AT ALL proves the “flamenco guitarist mentality” allows them to exist. It is only because of the RECORDINGS that flamencologists put forward A HYPOTHESIS that he was the “creator” as in INVENTOR OF KEY. For ME, THAT is the speculative stretch right there. Point being is we don’t know if he was the FIRST to use the key for cante utterly. As a creator, if this was indeed corroborated by anecdote, THAT could mean, only “creator of falsetas”, which is not the deeper point.
The main reason for necroposting on this is because the piece pointed out is interesting, and I want to know if this is THE ONLY PIECE IN THE VIHUELA REPERTOIRE in this tonality. Again, my concept of tonality, is in fact “Universal” in this case, because I am talking about specific key, tuning, fingering of chords and scale runs, final cadence, etc., that create a map or world view of the musical landscape that MUST BE ADHERED TO, in order to create within the form. In other words, the constraints are present. I just want to see more of the same.
Specifically I am looking for this important theme over an E chord: A-G#, E-F#, C#-D, repeat. If that thing is in the vihuela repertoire somewhere, and is in the correct tonality (by its very nature it would be), we should add it to the pile of circumstantial evidence.
About punteado vs rasgueado, Ocón clearly discusses this issue with specific examples. By that time, the rasgueado (specifically moving chords on the un accented beat as we are today familiar with fandangos) was considered “modern” and the punteado old school, but both were implicated as in use. Ocón misses the situation with Seguidilla Sevillana which is doing the same thing as rasgueado fandango.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
According to Prat, Miguel Borrul studied Tarrega’s music in private. LLobet was also influential on the Madrid Guitarists like Montoya. So a clue could be hiding there.
There is no evidence any of them played that early repertoire. Segovia does seem to be the first one to rescue it from oblivion, although, heavily romanticized playing.
quote:
The tuning I agree. But it goes deeper with voicing and phrases, and most importantly, the final cadence. Circumstantial evidence piles on and that is how a case is built.
As you note yourself, it's not flamenco. And what choices did Montoya have for cadences. Is it more likely that he was working with cadences he already knew and just toying with them in a new key, perhaps discovering new possibilities, or he heard Patino or Barbero play vihuela pieces? And if anyone new vihuela pieces four to five centuries removed, why did they not play baroque guitar pieces that were not as far removed. I agree and promote speculative history because sometimes insights are made that are then bolstered by new evidence and can then be fit into an emplotment, narrative, or theory about the past.
quote:
There is no way to rule out that they DID NOT use it just because they did not record with it, write it down, or some knowledgeable critic observed it. The same could be said for toque Levante or Minera (F# and G#, respectively). The fact Montoya used them AT ALL proves the “flamenco guitarist mentality” allows them to exist. It is only because of the RECORDINGS that flamencologists put forward A HYPOTHESIS that he was the “creator” as in INVENTOR OF KEY. For ME, THAT is the speculative stretch right there. Point being is we don’t know if he was the FIRST to use the key for cante utterly. As a creator, if this was indeed corroborated by anecdote, THAT could mean, only “creator of falsetas”, which is not the deeper point.
I agree with this point. Montoya often gets credited with using por arriba first for solea but we see it in Ocon.
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Again, my concept of tonality, is in fact “Universal” in this case, because I am talking about specific key, tuning, fingering of chords and scale runs, final cadence, etc., that create a map or world view of the musical landscape that MUST BE ADHERED TO, in order to create within the form. In other words, the constraints are present. I just want to see more of the same.
Wrong! Sorry, but that is a big claim. Before you even go there offer a definitions of scale/mode and modality/tonality. You will in fact see that there is no objective "truth." And I am not even a postmodernist. I posted a thread (or it might have been single posts) years ago about enactive embodiment that shares with postmodernism that there is no objective reality in the way the "objective reality" is conventionally thought. Yes 2+2=4 and a car will kill you if you step in front of it. There is a reason that flamencologists, historiographers, musicologists, philosophers etc continue to write about all sorts of subjects--because none of them has the final, definitive say. Your take is not universal! The augmented sixth is a great example...the fact that we do not agree on when it would be appropriate to call it a chord, a sonority, not to mention what role voice-leading has played in its evolution in flamenco and who might have played it first, all point to the fact that none of this is universal. That is not my opinion. That is coming from scholars working in various fields on problems of embodiment and situated knowledge.
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Specifically I am looking for this important theme over an E chord: A-G#, E-F#, C#-D, repeat. If that thing is in the vihuela repertoire somewhere, and is in the correct tonality (by its very nature it would be), we should add it to the pile of circumstantial evidence.
Although I agree about speculative history, but again, that would be a surface level similarity four hundred years distant. I would ask you, what if a baroque guitarist has something in the equivalent of C# or F# with the transposed notes, runs, and cadences you mention, but in standard tuning? Why the preoccupation with Rondena tuning? The problem is that Montoya could have borrowed other musical elements but "discovered" or rediscovered the tuning. Anyway, I am just pushing back as an ethnomusicologist would.
quote:
About punteado vs rasgueado, Ocón clearly discusses this issue with specific examples. By that time, the rasgueado (specifically moving chords on the un accented beat as we are today familiar with fandangos) was considered “modern” and the punteado old school, but both were implicated as in use. Ocón misses the situation with Seguidilla Sevillana which is doing the same thing as rasgueado fandango.
You have this backward. Two studies demonstrate that harmonic vs metric accents had already become of Spanish Baroque practice. Amat does not go into it but you can see it in the works of Sanz and de Murcia and the Italians (Foscarini especially) who borrowed the chitarra Espagnola tradition and made it their own.
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From: Washington DC
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
There is no evidence any of them played that early repertoire.
I have to take your word for it. I assume this is based on an inventory of their libraries at death? Pujol seemed to know a lot about one of the vihuelists (Mudarra?) and you are saying that is only because of SEGOVIA??? How the hell did he learn about it then??? Again, this could be the case, but perhaps someone should look closer there?
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As you note yourself, it's not flamenco.
Well, it is “Franco-Flamenco” in style.
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Wrong! Sorry, but that is a big claim. Before you even go there offer a definitions of scale/mode and modality/tonality. You will in fact see that there is no objective "truth."
Sorry, but it is NOT a big claim. Here is the definition: “Rondeña”. To explain it deeper than that perhaps one needs to take 20 freaking years of studying flamenco in Spain to understand all the parameters. I don’t give rat butt about what ethnomusicologists require, if they are not willing to deep dive into a subject such that a simple definition like that suffices, then they SHOULD NOT BE PUBLISHING PAPERS ON A SUBJECT THEY BARELY UNDERSTAND FUNDAMENTALLY. People such as yourself that have experience with the art should not have to go through layers of BS red tape. Of course “universal” is not every human, but a subjective, educated, has travelled the path, universality of the SONG FORM. Defining what the F is a song form turns out to be a massive challenge for teachers of this art…as you probably already know.
As soon as a veteran hears a description of what a palo is “doing” out come all exceptions that have been well traveled {isn’t Rondeña a verdiales from Granada/Taranto de Pedro morato/G# guitar piece/C# guitar piece/C# guitar piece with drop D/C# guitar piece with Drop D and F#/ but wait, is this bulerias or is it Rondeña????}. Once all that CONFUSION gets worked out, then you enter the “universality” of the fingerboard I am discussing. To be objective. If one were to only look at music score, say 500 years from now. And researcher A found this guy Francisco Sanchez Gomez playing “Camaron”, and researcher B finds Montoya’s “Rondeña”. Well researcher B says “hey this looks like it might be related” and researcher A says “Oh give me a break. The tuning is surface similarity! Look at all those lydian augmented scales! It doesn’t even have the same cadences. Totally NOT related”.
If you get my drift.
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Why the preoccupation with Rondena tuning? The problem is that Montoya could have borrowed other musical elements but "discovered" or rediscovered the tuning.
Well, that is just IT! Researchers I have read notice these details, but seem to miss important contextual information which is FORMAL STRUCTURE. They want to believe all this formal structure in flamenco that is adhered to like law, by those that do it, magically appears or evolves out of these random elements. Makes no sense at all. Formal structure, in all cases, likely has a model. The only question is WHY stick to it so strongly? “Nice falseta, but that is NOT flamenco!!!”. You know the drill.
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You have this backward. Two studies demonstrate that harmonic vs metric accents had already become of Spanish Baroque practice.
Don’t understand, I was referencing Ocon from mid to late 1800s. You have gone WAY back I guess. I think you mean they would be doing rasgueado for different music ALREADY by the time flamenco appears? I get that, obviously Ocon was told by the popular voice that in Andalucía the fandango was first accompanied via punteado, and more recently had been taken over by rasgueado and he presents both on paper, meaning BOTH were still in use. He is just a transcriber remember. A very simplistic interpretation is the slower Verdiales rhythms, however expressed with arpegios etc, very downbeat oriented, vs. Fandango de Huelva/Sevillana, where there is poly rhythm. These two concepts coexist today.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Ricardo)
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I have to take your word for it. I assume this is based on an inventory of their libraries at death? Pujol seemed to know a lot about one of the vihuelists (Mudarra?) and you are saying that is only because of SEGOVIA??? How the hell did he learn about it then??? Again, this could be the case, but perhaps someone should look closer there?
That is interesting. The question would then be, did Pujol transcribe for standard tuning or did he include the F#. If he did, you have an argument.
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Sorry, but it is NOT a big claim. Here is the definition: “Rondeña”. To explain it deeper than that perhaps one needs to take 20 freaking years of studying flamenco in Spain to understand all the parameters. I don’t give rat butt about what ethnomusicologists require, if they are not willing to deep dive into a subject such that a simple definition like that suffices, then they SHOULD NOT BE PUBLISHING PAPERS ON A SUBJECT THEY BARELY UNDERSTAND FUNDAMENTALLY.
Agreed 100%. The problem is that ethnomusicologists write for ethnomusicologists so there are possibilities and constraints in what they write (as with all writing).
In writing about the simple act of chord construction, that is, a theory of chord construction, I am going through partimento, basic theory course methods, jazz, and flamenco. On the one hand, as an academic interested in history and social and cultural context, it is interesting to note the subtle differences between traditions. On the practical side, there is a ton of information that is either unnecessary or is very difficult to translate from practice into theory (what translation studies calls intersemiotic translation).
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If you get my drift.
I do, but that is a little different. It's more like in 500 years someone says "Hey this 'Hispaniana' has this tuning that I found in a recording by some guy named Paco. He calls his tune Camaron but it is in a genre they called Rondena. I found other Rondenas by earlier guys named Arcas and Murciano. I'm confused....let's just play"
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You know the drill.
You'd make a good ethnomusicologist. There are a few that I think are trying to break away from the more anthropological models and shift toward practical and historical concerns. But it is slow going. My point is that I agree it is another piece of evidence and as we stack those up we might eventually have enough data to interpret and understand how things might have occurred in the past.
I love anthropology but ethnomusicology appropriated the idea that we aren't supposed to "go native," "seek the aesthetic experience for ourselves," or impose western analysis on non-western musics (but what is flamenco if not a western-Eastern hybrid?). I think some of us, especially those working in flamenco, have to make better cases for historiography and music theory and analysis within ethnomusicology.
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You have gone WAY back I guess. I think you mean they would be doing rasgueado for different music ALREADY by the time flamenco appears? I get that, obviously Ocon was told by the popular voice that in Andalucía the fandango was first accompanied via punteado, and more recently had been taken over by rasgueado and he presents both on paper, meaning BOTH were still in use.
Yeah. That seems backwards. Sanz and De Murcia were both doing punteado, rasgueado, and mixed fandangos from what I remember. And I think Foscarini as well. I'd have to go direct to the source, this is only from memory but I am pretty sure Ocon was citing conventional wisdom. But yes, playing harmonic accents that did not coincide with the metric accents had a profound effect on the sound of the music and I think flamencos inherited this practice from their Baroque forbears.
Posts: 14819
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Romerito)
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That is interesting. The question would then be, did Pujol transcribe for standard tuning or did he include the F#. If he did, you have an argument.
Received some historical info from John Griffiths. He is not willing to say yes or no to people like Arcas or Tarrega knowing the music. Historically the stuff first appears in Paris 1869 transcribed for Harpsichord. The first republish in Spain was a single song by Fuenllana in 1873. Vihuela is in the Encyclopedia of the time in spain so these two facts mean somebody somewhere knew about the music (it did not totally disappear into obscurity to be discovered later), however, it was not popularly known. Morphy’s anthology of vihuela music is published after his death in 1901 Germany. Griffiths does not know if that publication made it into Spain after that. So the guilty guy has to be Pujol who actually was told to look at the tablature in 1912 by Felipe Pedrell. Pujol performed the pieces in concert in the 1930s. He got a Simplicio Vihuela in 1936. But played in Barcelona, the first ever public performance since the renaissance.
So montoya records for cante 8 years before the famous solo recording…and Norman offers that he possibly didn’t want to repeat Granaina tonality for whatever reason, that he might have been using too often in the studio. I say as a pro, he would never want to fumble about in a recording studio with a new idea unless he had it very well under command for some time already. Remember they didn’t cut and paste back then, one shot go. So we can assume he had this thing under his fingers for a time in the 1920’s. So we have a perfect time frame to investigate whether or not contact could have been made between Felipe Pedrell (add his buddy de Falla), Pujol, and Montoya/Borrull??? 1912-1922, more or less. Montoya also first introduces Minera in 1922 for Antequerana. (Both cantes are considered “tarantas” by the way.).
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In writing about the simple act of chord construction, that is, a theory of chord construction, I am going through partimento, basic theory course methods, jazz, and flamenco. On the one hand, as an academic interested in history and social and cultural context, it is interesting to note the subtle differences between traditions. On the practical side, there is a ton of information that is either unnecessary or is very difficult to translate from practice into theory (what translation studies calls intersemiotic translation).
I get it. A translation of concept I think is fine. Back then there were voices and when they crash into each other there were “vertical intervallic concerns”. Today they are not “concerns” they are “chords”. Mr. Griffiths insisted that I think interms of “G” with the piece, so the ficta F# and later the cadence is a “Fa-Mi” cadence, etc. I get it. I am like “dude, capo 3!!” But he also said “no” he did not know of any other pieces that used this exact tonality like Narvaez is doing. Hmmm. I find it quite surprising.
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I do, but that is a little different. It's more like in 500 years someone says "Hey this 'Hispaniana' has this tuning that I found in a recording by some guy named Paco. He calls his tune Camaron but it is in a genre they called Rondena. I found other Rondenas by earlier guys named Arcas and Murciano. I'm confused....let's just play"
Let’s add a new layer of problem. Paco’s newest album came out today with “variations de Minera”. Guess what piece the audio ACTUALLY IS???
I can already see the arguments of the future aficionados, with PILES of evidence in support of BOTH sides of Minera vs. Rondeña.
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Yeah. That seems backwards. Sanz and De Murcia were both doing punteado, rasgueado, and mixed fandangos from what I remember. And I think Foscarini as well. I'd have to go direct to the source, this is only from memory but I am pretty sure Ocon was citing conventional wisdom. But yes, playing harmonic accents that did not coincide with the metric accents had a profound effect on the sound of the music and I think flamencos inherited this practice from their Baroque forbears.
I see. The thing is the word “fandango” is just….grrrrr. The copla is the flamenco fandango to me, the rest is fluff. Call it fandango fluff. But assuming there is some sort of harmonic progression other than the ritornello fluff or tonic dominant see saw, (Jeeez I just had to play some obscure one I read off a sheet score for a dancer that won a grant award to choreograph something Spanish…and the flamenco puro producers did not want recorded music used. Ugh!!!), can you please point me to the thing you seem to say that they changed chords on a weak beat?
I ask cuz maybe you missed it but Steelhead had asserted that N. Ricardo first presents that, and I changed his mind with the Ocón score. For me the Ocon score is “flamenco” as I think of it, because of the copla, or FORMAL STRUCTURE, but I am ok if there are older fandangos than that that have relevance to guitar accomp. I would just be surprised to see it from before that time as well. (Steelhead was very surprised even by the Ocón).
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Ricardo)
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Vihuela is in the Encyclopedia of the time in spain so these two facts mean somebody somewhere knew about the music (it did not totally disappear into obscurity to be discovered later), however, it was not popularly known.
An encyclopedia just tells us that the music existed. Not a clear indication that anyone knew the music. Plus, have you read through the renaissance music? First off, fairly easy to read as its in italian tablature. Second, they are in the tonos de organo, not in church modes or keys. That is important to know for an editor and performer. How the music was played was little known. If you look at Pujol or Segovia, they imposed the romantic tradition on most of the music they played from renaissance to baroque and even twentieth century.
Just being a contrarian...but, again, I think speculation and hypothesizing can sometimes lead to solutions and other interesting questions.
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Montoya also first introduces Minera in 1922 for Antequerana. (Both cantes are considered “tarantas” by the way.).
Fandangos-tarantas-mineras Some genres seem to be general categories while others are subcategories within the subgenre. Tarantas, mineras, etc are based on fandangos. People get really polarized about whether granaina, mineras, tarantas, etc are fandangos variants or not. From a cognitive anthropological and historical perspective it seems important to trace the etymology of such labels and what musical features might have made it from one genre or subgenre to another.
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Today they are not “concerns” they are “chords”.
NO!!! Just look at the partimento tradition. They were thinking intervallicaly, not functionally. Function theory came later to describe numerous practices over large swaths of time and repertoire.
I do not understand what you are communicating with the "G" piece with musica ficta (another loaded term...not just chromatic embellishment). THat piece says it is in octavo tono which is one of the tonos de organo (in contrast to the church modes). THat tono is common in the Renaissance. Not sure what exactly you are hearing in that piece. You have a time stamp?
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Let’s add a new layer of problem. Paco’s newest album came out today with “variations de Minera”. Guess what piece the audio ACTUALLY IS???
I can already see the arguments of the future aficionados, with PILES of evidence in support of BOTH sides of Minera vs. Rondeña.
Haha It's minera of course. Paco said it. But seriously...minera or MINERA. Another problem in the cetegorization of palos is the abstract to specific problem. Fandango literally meets party or festive occasion so at least some of the early fandangos would have had that more vivacious characteristic. But its 3/4 meter, its tonalities, and other features could be appropriated and used in other genres that were not festive. I think Nunez (Faustino) maps three different fandangos types that were influential on the flamenco fandango.
Which brings us to your final comment.
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I ask cuz maybe you missed it but Steelhead had asserted that N. Ricardo first presents that, and I changed his mind with the Ocón score. For me the Ocon score is “flamenco” as I think of it, because of the copla, or FORMAL STRUCTURE, but I am ok if there are older fandangos than that that have relevance to guitar accomp. I would just be surprised to see it from before that time as well. (Steelhead was very surprised even by the Ocón).
Go straight to the sources. Sanz and De Murcia, Foscarini. Their notations are difficult to read but fun once you learn the notational system (I am still learning). They very clearly change chords on metrically weak beats which juxtaposes the metric, harmonic, and rhythmic accents in interesting ways. I do not know if they imply a hemiola pattern but some of the modern interpreters are interpreting them that way. That would take a deeper dive. But certainly, even if they did not, the seeds were planted to be reaped by later generations.
Posts: 14819
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Romerito)
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Just being a contrarian...but, again, I think speculation and hypothesizing can sometimes lead to solutions and other interesting questions.
I didn’t mean the people PLAYED the music, but knew of its existence, ie, if they wanted to play it they could probably have found it and played it. Otherwise those two obscure examples would never have been produced. Where there is smoke, there is fire. And we can’t rule out the option that the people in the 1800s that DID dig it up, hadn’t become aware of it from some random guy playing it. “Hey, did you write that, cool?”. “No, it is vihuela from Narvaez, I learned from grandpa, no music”. Then they are intrigued and go look for the score. Pedrell knew enough to tell Pujol to go look into it.
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Fandangos-tarantas-mineras Some genres seem to be general categories while others are subcategories within the subgenre. Tarantas, mineras, etc are based on fandangos. People get really polarized about whether granaina, mineras, tarantas, etc are fandangos variants or not. From a cognitive anthropological and historical perspective it seems important to trace the etymology of such labels and what musical features might have made it from one genre or subgenre to another.
Of course, that is the story. But as you know, the glaring reality that the sung melodies of Fandango family, tend to stick to natural notes that work consonantly with the chords, and the Levante cantes use accidentals that clash, sometimes violently such that even modern flamenco players can’t tolerate it and alter the traditionally learned formal structure to better harmonize with the cantaores. This means that there is a DISTINCTION to be made, generally, between “fandangos” and “cantes Levantes”. Of course they remain RELATED as musical forms that is for sure.
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NO!!! Just look at the partimento tradition. They were thinking intervallicaly, not functionally. Function theory came later to describe numerous practices over large swaths of time and repertoire.
You’re violent “no!” Seems to be because your are attaching baggage to my use of the word “chord”. I am in a category of theory guy that I differentiate between functional and non functional harmony very clearly, black and white. At no point was I talking about FUNCTION. Especially modern music, pop rock, uses chords that don’t function. Most often as modal vamp expressions. That leads me to “modes” which has too much baggage as a term that I have ever encountered in music. Organ/church/Makkam/Jin’s/ragas/jazz, etc, it means different things depending. On a guitar, the individual strings are the same thing as different little singing people (ie voices) and when we play chords they are just singing all together at once. So looking at singing, the “tonos” or modes, depending on which set of rules are employed (as you say organ vs church etc), you are just setting parameters so there is some sort of expectation, but you will eventually have to have some sort of cadence. And cadences are the seeds of FUNCTIONAL HARMONY that evolve later. Yes it starts with intervals but later these rules result in chord function. That is all I was saying before.
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I do not understand what you are communicating with the "G" piece with musica ficta (another loaded term...not just chromatic embellishment). THat piece says it is in octavo tono which is one of the tonos de organo (in contrast to the church modes). THat tono is common in the Renaissance. Not sure what exactly you are hearing in that piece. You have a time stamp?
Ok. So I was inquiring about the fingerboard conception of the piece (the key plus tuning, and the types of relationships the melodies and intervals/chords found in the piece have specifically that AN ILLITERATE GUITARIST UNDERSTANDS) wanting to know if others exist in the repertoire. Mr. Griffiths wanted me to think of it as educated musician/solmization expert of the time, tono 8, as in G major, with F naturals (my term for this is “Mixolydian ish” sounding junk), which, for him “unusually” has a Fa-Mi cadence, or tono 3 final cadence. He describes the piece in more detail I won’t bore people with here, but the point is the relationships between notes and the expectation of the “tono 8”, are not typical, yet, in no special violation of anything. There is no time stamp, just look at the darn frets to be played. As a flamenco guy, none of this concept is “strange” to me, in terms of the sound. I mean, ignoring the Panaderos obvious melody that Narvaez moves around, the general relation of tonality with the surprise cadence, is EXACTLY like Paco’s opening falseta of Luzia. Sounds like E major for a minute, then, Oh wait, it goes to C# Phrygian. Ok. So By “ficta” notes I mean notes that are accidentals to the expectation. If you check that falseta I showed you have D#, then D natural. G naturals appear, etc. I am just saying the overall relationship is the exact same even if you want to claim “surface similarity” and keep it strongly separate. I am very surprised by seeing it on paper an just wanted to know if there is anymore like this. That is all, no need for big argument about it. It is Spanish music, and if known, then it is a possible candidate for inspiration.
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Fandango literally meets party or festive occasion so at least some of the early fandangos would have had that more vivacious characteristic. But its 3/4 meter, its tonalities, and other features could be appropriated and used in other genres that were not festive. I think Nunez (Faustino) maps three different fandangos types that were influential on the flamenco fandango.
So I guess my big problem is “surface similarity” versus “formal structure”. I don’t feel these as the same thing. Tango is not tango, seguidilla is not seguiriyas, fandango is NOT fandango , etc. All for the same reason, has nothing to do with meter or verse structures, which to me are superficial surface similarity, as are the stupid titles. “Fluff” to me. Formal structure is what makes them distinct as musical forms (the glorious cante melodies with chords that fit them, the powerful and purposeful aspect that we as artists have to take great care of). The idea of interpreting a letra or style with a different compas treatment is a perfect example.
So I have Sanz book on hand. Can you at least point me to a few specific examples you know of in there? I don’t mean hemiola but rather just moving chords on weak beats cyclically.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Ricardo)
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So I have Sanz book on hand. Can you at least point me to a few specific examples you know of in there? I don’t mean hemiola but rather just moving chords on weak beats cyclically.
Which Sanz? Yeah, hemiola is another area that is deeply problematic. Ocon for example, does not really play chords that are either hemiola or cyclic. That's why I just can't see that (solea) as flamenco. To me it is Canto Andaluz. Full fledged solea (guitar wise) is still evolving in the earliest recordings.
As for chords, the term doesn't really get used the way we use it today until after Rameau and Riemann. For that reason, to me, the way I communicate any sonority, is to start with how the cultural group in question would have. Can't do it here because the keyboard won't allow it, but for example 653 for a chord of the sixth on the 6th degree in minor. This is not D minor in first inversion. And in fact, the question would be whether D minor 7 and FM6 should be thought of as the same chord. It's not the way the Italians thought of them. All depends on whether one wants to take theory seriously or not. If one does, then think about how many hours it takes to get decent at flamenco...that's how many hours it takes to get decent at theory, especially if you don't want to impose your own biases on your analyses and theory.
Posts: 14819
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Romerito)
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Which Sanz?
See the picture attached of the index (there are 3 libros or sections, can’t upload all 3 photos), book has 161 pages total. Analysis and scoring by Rodrigo de Zayas. I was hoping this was all of it.
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Ocon for example, does not really play chords that are either hemiola or cyclic. That's why I just can't see that (solea) as flamenco. To me it is Canto Andaluz. Full fledged solea (guitar wise) is still evolving in the earliest recordings.
What in the ever living??? It shows the same cyclic progression I just played for escobilla in dance class last week!! Wrong wrong wrong….are you blindly following Castro Buendia interpretation? He miss aligns compas counts to standard toque. Go to a dance class and try to argue something like that. . The worse claim of his was to show a correlation between second line of fandango to a first line solea, but I don’t want to get into it, he obviously had an agenda and needed to interpret the score that way, or it conflicts. I get it, there is red tape in acedemia. But as pro player some things are inexcusable, and that little thing is one of em. Another is “flip the damn paper over and show the music on side two jeez us Christ!”. And a third would be, hunting for formal structure (thumbs up that is the right idea), here it “almost is….must be a page missing”. WTF???
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Can't do it here because the keyboard won't allow it, but for example 653 for a chord of the sixth on the 6th degree in minor. This is not D minor in first inversion. And in fact, the question would be whether D minor 7 and FM6 should be thought of as the same chord. It's not the way the Italians thought of them.
See, you are just trying to do a translation. That is all I was saying….”you can do a translation”, to get an idea across. A “sound” idea. Flamenco guitarists also don’t think the same way, that is ok, different disciplines use different theory language.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Ricardo)
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See the picture attached of the index (there are 3 libros or sections, can’t upload all 3 photos), book has 161 pages total. Analysis and scoring by Rodrigo de Zayas. I was hoping this was all of it.
Without seeing the Zayas I can't make any judgements but you should go straight to the sources. They are difficult to read and you'll really get a feeling for how difficult translation (i.e. cultural, historical, music-notational) can be and the many problems that can occur. Nothing is universal. I mean the fretboard, the tuning, the key(s) or mode(s), all have to be taken into account.
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What in the ever living??? It shows the same cyclic progression I just played for escobilla in dance class last week!! Wrong wrong wrong….are you blindly following Castro Buendia interpretation? He miss aligns compas counts to standard toque. Go to a dance class and try to argue something like that.
Two different things. You can play that in dance class all you want. Me too. The question is how you are fitting it into compas and where your cadences are. If I recall, you say that the guitar parts are not in strict "compas" [we are talking about the solea, correct?] but it aligns with 12 beats throughout. That is a different claim than if there is an actual hemiola and if that hemiola actually gets reified as a RHYTHMIC CYCLE and when historically that happens.
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See, you are just trying to do a translation. That is all I was saying….”you can do a translation”, to get an idea across. A “sound” idea. Flamenco guitarists also don’t think the same way, that is ok, different disciplines use different theory language.
Actually, I was not translating...I was trying to show that there are difficulties in trying to translate. A Dm7 in first inversion IS NOT an F with a sixth. Those are two different "chords" and there are implications for other aspects of theory such as, did the aug sixth come from Dm7 in first inversion or F with added 6th, or both?
Posts: 14819
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Romerito)
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Without seeing the Zayas I can't make any judgements but you should go straight to the sources.
Oh. I thought you were pointing me to those sources because you actually did know of concrete examples. If you mean you “think you remember seeing it” that is a different story, and I have to go looking for that myself? Yeah, no, I am sticking to my whatever original thought was then. To be honest, Maximo Lopez is evidence of stuff we are talking about and that basically proves flamenco, as we think of it, is older than the general claim there. He would not be pulling that from his rear if it were not a known form (it has copla formal structure coupled to Germ6-A Phrygian cadence violating the German two step cadence of I/6-4in good Spanish flamenco fashion, albeit amongst the Dm fluff).
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If I recall, you say that the guitar parts are not in strict "compas" [we are talking about the solea, correct?] but it aligns with 12 beats throughout. That is a different claim than if there is an actual hemiola and if that hemiola actually gets reified as a RHYTHMIC CYCLE and when historically that happens.
Um. No. That is not the point. The point is it is a “solea” as we need to be playing it. Hemiola has very little to do with anything today or back then. That thing is an emergent property of math involved with rhythm, not a basis. That should be obvious to anyone that plays in a dance class even one time. Flamenco obeys phrasing ideas, that is a language it uses, not incessant patterns of cycle. That is part of the fun when the new guy can’t stop on the correct beat, otherwise thinking he or she is “inside” the compas. Why? Well, they try to tell us, over and over, the cante is guiding us, and at first we wonder why, it is just singing. But along the way we observe the FORMAL STRUCTURE. And then we stop getting lost, and start understanding the language, which is not mathematical. I am ok that everybody wants to hypothesize that these formal structures and phrases evolved overtime, somehow, but I get concerned that these aspects need to be followed or kept track of. Ocon is showing a lot of that on paper, and by my understanding, it seems to have not changed by the point he was around. Missing is the Siguiriyas patterns, however, most of the other things are in the book, meaning, the genre is OLD, not in some transitionary proto-baloney state of existence.
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Actually, I was not translating...I was trying to show that there are difficulties in trying to translate.
Well, that is the point I was making all along about different disciplines. However, there ARE translations that can be made once TWO disciplines are well understood. You were yelling “no!” at me as if you don’t accept a translation is allowed. It is like “hypophrygian” and then you see a scale etc, and then you look at the music and you see something else very normal going on that is easily translatable, depending on who you are talking to. I feel, this business of Dm7/F vs. F6, as modern chord charts use, not translating properly to a vocal part written situation, because of the directionality of the voices, is coming from an ACADEMIC direction. There is no reason to disallow a translation because of certain learned musician mentality or practices that involve rules, that an uneducated musician of the same time period may not even understand. I get that there won’t be lots of examples on PAPER, but something like “augmented 6th” is allowed to be in the mentality of any time period. That guy Pierre Fontain shows them on paper in 1400 (interval between C# and Eb in the bass, resolving to D/D), and later copies of the piece, the LEARNED musician mentality forces “corrections” to the concept and resultant sound. That right there proves that a translation is absolutely permitted, because the rules are imposed on the sound. I agree that learning partimento, solmization, vocal polyphony, etc., is all important … but the activity is only about labeling and rules of use.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to kitarist)
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Why - because the 'D" notes are an octave apart?
No, because the history of the sonorities (notice I did not say "chords"). And because of the history of music theory as it is taught at university and the assumptions and ontological commitments that concepts and theories carry as they are taught there.
Yes, the pitch content is the same but that does not mean each of those chords was thought of by the people that were using them as the same. In many of the early writings in the partimento tradition (which we don't learn at university, it's just gaining popularity now and is being met with some resistance by the old guard), in the Rule of the Octave a chord built on F can include the fifth and the sixth, or the sixth as a substitute for the fifth. That does not make it a dm chord and the Italians would not have thought of it that way. Furthermore, the chord built on d would include the 3/4/6 making it a V chord in 4/3 inversion, not d minor. In A minor, the chord built on d would be d-f-a-b with b being a possible sub for a. This is only d minor if the sixth is not added or subbed. Which means dm, dm6, and bhalfdim are all the same category of chord in that tradition.
Roman numeral analysis and scale-degree theory (and function theory) is what we learn, our common ground in classical and jazz. But we are learning theories that were reworked in the middle third of the last century when music departments began to flourish at universities. It is historically inaccurate to think of those two chords in this way. But most working musicians will probably not care because they are not concerned with historical or cultural accuracy in theory, only in practice.
Not here to argue. Only introducing information that tons of history of theory scholars have put forth. Take it or leave it as you will.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Ricardo)
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Oh. I thought you were pointing me to those sources because you actually did know of concrete examples.
The facsimiles are the concrete examples. Zayas is a translation into modern notation(?) or cifra(?). Hudson points all this out. I am not familiar with Maximo Lopez.
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Um. No. That is not the point. The point is it is a “solea” as we need to be playing it. Hemiola has very little to do with anything today or back then.
The Ocon has next to nothing in common with accompaniment in the earliest recordings except for the a-b-d c-e-g f-e-f figure that could be used in escobilla or as a falseta. THe accompaniment stays on e-f-dm-e when the melody goes to C and implies a G with a b melody note (where Ocon goes to C). Are the seeds there. Sure. It is a Canto Andaluz and gets flamencoized later in my opinion, a slow evolutionary process.
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not incessant patterns of cycle.
Yes, please go through a whole dance class or performance without palmas (the unsung heroes of the "cuadro"). THose patterns are possibile because there is something underneath them, even when there is not. The cycles are baked into the patterns. THat is what was so brilliant about Paco...breaking the patterns to go wherever and resolve wherever, and bring it back. He could only bring it back because there is a pattern underneath. I would say, that the hemiola did not begin to be codified until the earliest recordings and was still being codified then. THat is why Ricardo sticks with the twelve and Montoya, Borrul and others use the extra six...because it was not codified yet. The extra six acts as harmonic-rhythmic punctuation. We can agree to disagree about Ocon. I am in the camp that Cantos and Bailes Andaluces predated flamenco and much of them were reworked in to flamenco. In my opinion, the etymology of the term "flamenco" offers only a slight clue because it does not tell us what any of that music actually was or sounded like, only that they use the term to describe song and dance that we impose our concept of flamenco on and then confirm our bias. As for the seguiriya-siguiriya, there is a popular guitarist who notates his work in 5/4 with the 3rd and 4th beats notates as triplets. To me, this is a clue that some of these musicians were trying to capture the notation but did not quite know how. 2/8-2/8-3/8-3/8-2/8 was what he tried to capture. If you play his triplets as straight eights it adds up compas wise.
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You were yelling “no!” at me as if you don’t accept a translation is allowed. It is like “hypophrygian” and then you see a scale etc, and then you look at the music and you see something else very normal going on that is easily translatable, depending on who you are talking to.
Sorry. It is difficult to be emphatic on the internets. You know I respect you and your knowledge. But here is a clue....you say "depending on who you are talking to." That is an indication that all of these concepts, theories, etc are highly dependent on not only how they were understood in theor time, and by whome, but who has the vocabulary, background, knowledge, today.
I have seen more than one comment to the effect of "Enjoy your guys discussions even though I don't understand everything."
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I feel, this business of Dm7/F vs. F6, as modern chord charts use, not translating properly to a vocal part written situation, because of the directionality of the voices, is coming from an ACADEMIC direction.
Yes. A historically inofrmed academic direction.
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I get that there won’t be lots of examples on PAPER, but something like “augmented 6th” is allowed to be in the mentality of any time period.
Concepts carry loads of assumptions. For practical reasons I agree with you...for historical and cultural reasons I do not.
quote:
I agree that learning partimento, solmization, vocal polyphony, etc., is all important … but the activity is only about labeling and rules of use.
Again, then just say here do this, which is what flamencos do anyway. THat is a valid way of communicating. "Check this out (proceeds to play Gm-dim3rd-A cierre por tangos). You can add your second finger and it makes this cool, chromatic bass ascent." No need for theory. But if your gonna look at theory and practice to make historical observations and speculations about musical culture, it is probably a good idea to understand that a Dm7 and F with added 6th (notice I did not say F6 or Fadd6) are not the same intra or interculturally.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
Yes, the pitch content is the same but that does not mean each of those chords was thought of by the people that were using them as the same
Sure, I don't disagree with that. Also presumably it would be interpreted as one or the other depending on the musical context within which they are encountered. In a blind test, though, I wonder if people perceive a difference in quality. Doubly interesting because of the major versus minor aspect.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to kitarist)
quote:
Sure, I don't disagree with that. Also presumably it would be interpreted as one or the other depending on the musical context within which they are encountered. In a blind test, though, I wonder if people perceive a difference in quality. Doubly interesting because of the major versus minor aspect.
After I read your post I began playing through the two chords with different voicings. They sound so similar, but blind test of whom? An 18th century partimento master? Bach? Rameau? Aldwell and Schacter? Joe Pass?
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Romerito
quote:
Sure, I don't disagree with that. Also presumably it would be interpreted as one or the other depending on the musical context within which they are encountered. In a blind test, though, I wonder if people perceive a difference in quality. Doubly interesting because of the major versus minor aspect.
After I read your post I began playing through the two chords with different voicings. They sound so similar, but blind test of whom? An 18th century partimento master? Bach? Rameau? Aldwell and Schacter? Joe Pass?
I am looking at this as a physicist; today, with regular folks doing the blind test. Surely in that setup, it is the same collection of pitches, so the same 'chord' in THAT sense? Any perceived difference will come from surrounding musical context or other externalities. But if so, this is still interesting because there are lots of papers exploring how innate it is (and what is the mechanism) to tend to associate universally a major chord/tonality with joy and a minor one with pensiveness or sadness. And here we have an example of a chord that can be interpreted as either a major or a minor one. But this is getting away from flamenco onto a broader musical subject.
RE: Great Grand Daddy of Flamenco (in reply to kitarist)
quote:
I am looking at this as a physicist; today, with regular folks doing the blind test. Surely in that setup, it is the same collection of pitches, so the same 'chord' in THAT sense? Any perceived difference will come from surrounding musical context or other externalities. But if so, this is still interesting because there are lots of papers exploring how innate it is (and what is the mechanism) to tend to associate universally a major chord/tonality with joy and a minor one with pensiveness or sadness. And here we have an example of a chord that can be interpreted as either a major or a minor one. But this is getting away from flamenco onto a broader musical subject.
In light of the recent nobel prize and Bell's theorem, do you believe in an objective world? Not the facile 2+2=4 or a car will kill you if it hits you objectivity. I mean an objective world that does not include externalities, as you put it, that may be individual, social, cultural, cognitive, and possibly highly contextualized? Your blind test would only test for similarity in sound? Wouldn't that be meaningless since both chords arose in multiple social, cultural and individual compositional contexts?
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