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ORIGINAL: mark indigo

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most if not all teachers/professors of music theory/harmony will regard soleares to be written in Am

I would agree with what you write here.... but add that they are wrong!

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another point to make is that many flamencos will say that solea is "in" E major, because that is the home chord, the home tone etc.

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ORIGINAL: guitarbuddha
The roots are much much older. Rennaisance pieces are just chock a block with Phrygian Major pieces which function in exactly the same way as flamenco. They have shared roots which probably go as far back as the first musical instruments.

D.

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It uses the andalucian cadence as a basis for a passacaglia. Gm F7 EbMaj D7(b9).
More recognisable in E, Am G7 Fmaj7 E7b9


Break it down into pairs and go round the cycle.

Am/Dm G7/Cmaj7 Fmaj/B7(tritone sub) E7b9/G#dim



You get 'Fly me to the moon' or 'Entre dos Aguas' or 'I will survive' or the first sixteen bars of 'All the things you are'. Depending on how you tweak it.

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ORIGINAL: guitarbuddha


Autumn leaves is the same thing but with all chords one place to the right in the harmonic scheme ( instead of Am/Dm to G7/C etc it would be Dm/G7 to CMaj Fmaj etc).

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There is a wonderful book on harmony by Conrad Cork called 'Harmony With Lego Bricks'

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What he says about Jazz, Standards and lyrics - if there was a book like this but about Flamenco, Cante and letras, I would have ordered it instantly whether I could afford it or not.

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I did not pick it up in any post, but probably should say also the Andaluz cadence ends in a major chord. So that is the reason the key center feels resolved on E major

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I did not pick it up in any post, but probably should say also the Andaluz cadence ends in a major chord. So that is the reason the key center feels resolved on E major


Well, that implies that all minor key compositions should use the Picardy third at the end of phrases, which is not necessary. Further the Andalusian candence is a vague description of what happens in flamenco simply because the same cadence (Am-G-F-E) might be used por Arriba as in a piece in A minor. The candential info for either case is actually more simple...F-E por Arriba and E-Am for Am. The rest is color.

Ricardo

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ORIGINAL: estebanana

I believe this is a learned cadence or sense of home key by familiarity with flamenco palos. You learn to feel it as resolved as you learn to understand the music. Like Eric said, some classical people hear it as A minor, I think over time for a listener, due to the Andaluz context, the E takes on more tonic weight.

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ORIGINAL: estebanana

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I did not pick it up in any post, but probably should say also the Andaluz cadence ends in a major chord. So that is the reason the key center feels resolved on E major


Well, that implies that all minor key compositions should use the Picardy third at the end of phrases, which is not necessary. Further the Andalusian candence is a vague description of what happens in flamenco simply because the same cadence (Am-G-F-E) might be used por Arriba as in a piece in A minor. The candential info for either case is actually more simple...F-E por Arriba and E-Am for Am. The rest is color.

Ricardo

The actual resolution is the F to E step sure, but I was saying the reason is "feels" resolved is because of the stepwise context of a drop down to into E major. from Am It sets of an expectation of finality. Like in blues a typical riff will rise step wise maybe twice to set up an emotional or color tension, or call it what you will, but the decent back to a tonic gives you the resolution. To me at least, that waking down the staircase from Am to E maj sets up the resolution emotionally.

Even though the 123 count in Solea is that drop Am G F, theh F holds the most tension. I think the drop into F from Am is important to feeling the resolution because this gives the F a context to be heard against. That is not really talking hard theory, so I'm not rationalizing that is means anything else in any other key center.

However, when you toggle back and forth between A to B flat in bulerias it never feels fully resolved even though technically it is. What makes it have a finality is the close, and to me it is a dual action finality brought about by a drop from higher pitched chords and a rhythmic cadence. The rhythmic cadence alone is not enough to resolve with Ummph from B flat to A, it also needs a higher chord sequence to step down from.

Just my opinion that is not explaining this as pure harmonic theory. I believe this is a learned cadence or sense of home key by familiarity with flamenco palos. You learn to feel it as resolved as you learn to understand the music. Like Eric said, some classical people hear it as A minor, I think over time for a listener, due to the Andaluz context, the E takes on more tonic weight. I propose that a perceptual shift occurs if the Am G F decent is super posed over a phyrgian mode in the way it is in Solea.

I think the feel of the tonic E in Solea is a Jedi Mind Trick that flamenco plays on a well tuned listener.

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I agree with you that the cadences of flamenco are "learned" over time and practice, also agree that "toggling back and forth" in por medio might not seem "resolved" as it's also referred to as "modal vamping", but must disagree with everything else you said, sorry.
My reasons that I disagree with your points, I will put forth that Am never need to occur at anytime what so ever in a perfectly resolved Solea performance, the "closure" your ear requires need not have a decending progression of any kind, chords can ascend or jump around in different ways, (por medio example, F, Gm, Bb/Ab, A is a cadence, C, Gm,Bb,A, or Db,C, Gm, A etc all cadence just fine) and finally, "rhythmic cadence alone" is in fact the key to the whole thing that needs to be "learned over time", think palo seco examples of dance.

Now, while I agreed above that the toggling vamp is "ok" in terms of SOUNDING unresolved, it needs to eventually be learned as actually a "V-I" movement, and this is again a rhythmic thing...to prove it I can give you a "wrong" example of "toggling back and forth" by reversing the two chords. You will see what I mean, that your inherent feeling will recognize why one chord sequence over the other is correct and the other is NOT...and the reason for that is because there is resolution going on that is NOT happening with proper "vamping". FURTHER....proper vamping involves a single mode or scale that relates the two non tonal harmonies....where as the "toggling back and forth" implies, melodically, TWO different scales....the Bb lydian scale and the 5th mode of D harmonic minor (A phrygian dominant), which is a tonal concept rather than a modal one.