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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Romerito)
The first time I found a book anotating seguiriyas in a 5 beat system like my father was a studybook for dansers from if I remember well the early 20th century.
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Erik van Goch
The first time I found a book anotating seguiriyas in a 5 beat system like my father was a studybook for dansers from if I remember well the early 20th century.
Well I’m as we say in America ‘the turd 💩 in the punch bowl’ for my opinion on how Siguiriya can be written down. I agree with your dad’s inclinations.
Further I’d only add that the ones advocating writing in a number/number meter are the guys that put the ‘guiri’ in Siguiriyas 😝
RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Romerito
The point of any transcription is the same as face-to-face lessons. Some people here on the foro don't have the luxury of going to Spain. They have consumed what ever is on the market. This is especially useful if they already have (had) a teacher and use printed material to augment their repertoire. I personally studied with two masters who became expatriates and lived in New Mexico. You have a few like Jose de la Paz (who recently passed QDeP), but, that is not the norm. And where does anyone think that elastic compas came from? It came from the more structured versions used in dance. I understand that many people view it backwards - the elastic compas was forced into dance. I find that unlikely for historical and cultural evolutionary reasons.
quote:
I’m not seeing any of this as ‘next level’ but as over complicating something that’s already settled.
Who settled it? I am not seeing your conclusion here. Is Herrero or Granados, or Martin, or Faucher, or Worms or Pena the better way of notating?
My wife is Japanese (Fukuoka, best Tonkotsu Ramen) so I have heard Otaku used in both ways. Oops, off to work.
Fukuoka is known more for ramen soup made with flying fish dashi, Kagoshima is were the Japanese pata negra come from. As a ramen otaku, I can say with certainty that Kagoshima has the best pork based soup, but I congratulate you on marrying a sensible Kyushu woman.
RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
Further I’d only add that the ones advocating writing in a number/number meter are the guys that put the ‘guiri’ in Siguiriyas 😝
Two different identities; flamenco and academic. Any writing "about" flamenco is guiri unless written by a gitano, in which case it can range from horribly unmethodological and downright misleading to interesting and insightful. And where does the guiri stop: a gitano that is an academic writing about flamenco? A flamenco like Sanlucar wrote a confusing treatise but no one doubts his flamencura.
Tonkotsu style is the broth not the pork chashu. Some people from Fukuoka told me it originated there but it looks like it originated in Kurume prefecture and spread to Fukuoka and Kagoshima. Anyway. I only know what they tell me in Fukuoka. You won't have to commit sepuku if you tell them on their ground that Kagoshima Ramen is better.
Since you won't be explicit, I assume you prefer "cells" with no time signature.
RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Ricardo)
I have to edit my previous and this post. Your notation 6/4 time in measure 2 is mathematically correct if the 3rd beat was a dotted quarter note. You can correct that because the 5th beat (8th note triplet) can be seen as a quarter note. Or you can leave it as it is when you think of that 8th note triplet as three 8th notes.
How about 12/8? In fact Siguiriya has 12 beats. What most of us feel is 5 pulses which is the most common way.
Actually we have metric modulation in 12 beat compas. For example Siguiriya has different meters 2/4, 6/8 and 1/4. To me the best way to notate it in one time signature is 12/8.
RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
Estebanana raised the issue of practicality vs theoretical discourse.
You learn flamenco face-to-face for the best results. But that steers clear of issues of memorization, analysis (historical, theoretical, etc.) and repertoire accretion that the many different transcriptions provide. I came across Trotter's transcriptions of Escudero, Luis Maravilla, etc (I'm in San Diego and when Paco Sevilla passed away, he passed on much of his library - I was second or third and I inherited some cool stuff. Wonder who was before me). Trotter's transcriptions are in 3/4-6/8 with nothing (dotted barline) to mark the second beat where the compas starts. To me, as a practical matter, I don't care which version is used. Personally, however, I prefer either the 3/4-6/8 with a dotted barline after the first beat in the 3/4 measure to mark the beginning of the compas, or the 2/4-6/8-1/4 alternate meters to mark the compas. Either way, "cells" should be beamed according to the time signature and phrasing.
And when the music thicken up with sixteenth triplets or 32nd notes, to me the time signature seems very useful. In the third system the beaming is wrong (transcription programs can be fickle sometimes) so using "cells" for reading purposes along with the time signature is helpful. But if you know the compas and are just using a transciption to add to your repertoire it does not really matter.
Everyone on here with any experience noticed the triplet issue in the Marin and Parga examples and explicitly suggested fixes for them and explanations for their analytical choice.
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
As a consequence, we can conclude there is no existing Bulgarian uneven meter configuration that can be applied 1:1 for siguiriyas because the siguiriyas meter would have to have 2 long pulses per bar - and of course because a bar of it actually adds up to even number of eights - 12). Hence, writing it as alternating 7/8 + 5/8 in specific pulse configurations.
I wonder, do they ever use written notation or is it also oral tradition like flamenco? Second question, what is the poetic meter of this music when it is sung?
1. It was all oral tradition, but because of the primacy (I think) of dancing it, it was a better signal/noise system in terms of rhythm memory and reproducibility than if it were simply singing. Then some smart local academics with very good ears (and familiarity from growing with it) spent their time roaming the countryside and recording it sometime in the 19th century. Again because these are most obvious in folk dancing specific dances (accompanied by instrumental group), they also likely had visual clues as to the long bits versus the short bits rhythmically (though with faster dances, not sure this is always true), so I imagine it was easier to keep it a true and consistent representation of the rhythms.
2. If I understand the question , the singing follows the rhythm (when there is rhythm - there is a large body of a capella songs where the syllables and expression drive it, with no specific steady pulse).
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
I have to edit my previous and this post. Your notation 6/4 time in measure 2 is mathematically correct if the 3rd beat was a dotted quarter note. You can correct that because the 5th beat (8th note triplet) can be seen as a quarter note.
That is false. You should edit your post to "oh sorry Mr. Marlow, you were correct all along". But, you don't get the math, but it is ok, it appears historically others made the same error. There are no triplets as you describe. They are simply being beamed in a group of 3 but are called "straight 8th notes". 7/8 does not have any triplet but you are defining accentuations by beaming the notes in a certain way. 6/8 is a convention for feeling TWO beats subdivided as "triplets" but technically they are not triplets either. If you write 2/4 then specific triplets, the sound is the same as 6/8. The 6/8 is a COMPOUND meter for this reason. It is a convention for ease of reading. People want to mix compound meters and simple meters and this is not really how it should be done. IN the past it was not done. It is a modern convention devised by the rhythmically challenged.
The simple thing to understand with the 6/4, and the single module others are pointing towards, is nobody has the "right" to claim it is something different than what it mathematically is. Like you can pretend it is not 6/4, but this is simple math here. Like everyone is suddenly Terrance Howard trying to reinvent 1x1 etc. Call me a "guiri" or nerdy, I don't care, it is what it freaking is. 4 out of 5 accents are expressed by a simple quarter note pulse and its subdivisions. The issue, the "hemiola" etc. is simply due to the count 4 accent. It is the fly in the ointment of otherwise simple rhythmic phrasing.
People are so far ignoring my Sevillanas connection because the simple 3/4 metric used there can't possibly relate to the deep complexity of siguiryas right? Well, Diego is simply doing it. The count 4 accent is not a strong beat it is the same as an up beat chord change as in fandango and Sevillanas. IN fact when we play por medio fandango (and I have that paco tutorial explaining this) and you do the resolution phrase, they are basically playing siguiriyas right there. The thing is, is that this count 4 issue is not expressed EXACTLY the same way. But all the "history" and the confusion of translation, etc., is right there, it is not as complex as people want to believe.
D,D C,C,Bb,Bb, G,G,A,A. That is ten notes. Two more makes the "remate". Siguiriyas is simply this: D,D,C,C,Bb,Bb, G,A,A,A. The A comes half a beat early on "count 4". That is ALL that is different. There is no NEED to change the metric for that simple thing. But they do and it is now convention that we see various "confused" methods.
Now if people don't play fandango or sevillanas much they won't get this simple thing I guess, which is fine. It is not a big deal. Like if we are translating a language there are 3 types. 1. It is literal missing nuance. 2. It is plain wrong. 3. It is exactly the meaning meant to be conveyed. That is all music transcription is as well.
About the 12/8 it is also a method already explored as well. Notice one meter captures the hemiola thing just fine, however, in modern terms it still looks funny because we use the compound meter just like 6/8, as "triplets" in 4 beats.
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Like you can pretend it is not 6/4, but this is simple math here. Like everyone is suddenly Terrance Howard trying to reinvent 1x1 etc.
You often recommend tapping your foot in the different ways possible for whatever palo one is playing. No one is going to tap 6/4 unless they are including it as part of 6/4-3/2 which just an analytical choice to avoid the messiness of 64th notes in 6/8-3/4.
RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
The problem I have with the time signature 6/4 is the number 6. That seems to be far removed from feeling 5 beats and although the total time span of these 5 beats equal the length of 6 quarter notes it isn't just a matter of mathematics/adding up the numbers.
Many tried to capture seguiriyas in a 3/4 6/8 time signature which as a whole mathematically equals 6/4 as well. But as said it's not about mathematics but about rhythmic pulses.
In the 3/4 6/8 metrum 3/4 obviously represents a different metric pulse as the 6/8 part which is felt like 1and 2 and 3 and versus 1and a 2 and a.
Being unfamiliar with 6/4 I googled it and although it probably is way more versatile than that, i saw various claims that orinaly 6/4 was used for music that is felt as 2 groups of 3 (1 and a, 2 and a), in other words the same rhythmic pulse as above 6/8 part.
So despite matching mathematics I'm not so sure I would call it 6/4 although obviously a drummer won't find it difficult to execute the ritmic score/variations of seguiriyas instandly when that is the way the 6/4 circle is used/shaped for the occasion but the interesting question is will he feel 6 beats doing so or 5?
Many computer generated transcriptions of flamenco tend to add up the total length of a note and give it that length. So if in a 12/4 beat Compas a note is 1 beat (1/4) long but is played syncopated 1/8 is added and if it continues in the next beat another 1/8 is added making a total of 1/2. The timing and total length are correct and the computer or a drummer will play it correctly but no one (but the flamenco trained ear) can tell where the note starts and ends within the compas. My father would write that note 3 times and connect them with a binding so you can see at all times where exactly a note starts and ends in relation to the Compas.
In Serranas some variations by Paco Serrano have syncopated overbindings like
1111, 2222, 333334~444445~5555 and I'm verry glad my father made it a habit to show the Compas relation verry clear at all times so one can see in 1 second that the 4 and the 5 are dropped syncopated.
With Bulerias, soleares. etc he didn't give a time signature either although using 12/4. For Peteneras he used 6/8 3/4
In his 10 year career as a performing artist he worked with numerous artist from all corners of the world (including flamencodansers) playing all kinds of music from paper instandly (in the 50ties flamencodancers touring the world didn't bring their own company but a stag of partitures being played by local orquestras like my father's although sometimes dancers used selected classical guitar music if the locals were able to play it). Aside of playing every style of music of his time he also played early music and could write and read all tabsystems that came with it (various times and countries had various tab systems).
Fun story. In the 50ties my father's orquestra had to accompany a female flamenco dancer using the partitures she handed. The rehearsal went well but when the actual performance started unlike the rehearsals she wear a long dress. And with the first turn she made her long dress swept away all the music standards with partitures ending all over the floor.
One day one of my father's wounded string broke but only the inner fiber and not the metal windings. So a colleague grabbed the string and walked away with it making the windings to open up/give in. He managed to walk various meters with the strings still attached at the guitar.
In the orquestra my father covered drums, percussion, guitar, flute and one of the voices. To practice his drum he once joined the rehearsals of a jazzband without having any jazz experience at all but it was a nice change for him to practice/upgrade his drum skills. Funny enough when 50 years later a taperecording of it was played to a verry talented youngster without telling him what he was listening to he said that it all sounded verry old fashioned, with the exception of the drummer who did some interesting lines :-).
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
quote:
But as said it's not about mathematics but about rhythmic pulses.
Which can be communicated with the combination of cells [through beaming], time signatures, and solid and dotted barlines.
The point that Ricardo and Estebanana made was that the practice of transmitting info face-to-face and the practice of notating are very different. We do not agree on how and why one notation might be better than another. This is what I have opted for when teaching and tyranscribing for myself. It is also the form I am using in explaining the evolution of the the metric/rhythmic cycle in other writing.
quote:
Being unfamiliar with 6/4 I googled it and although it probably is way more versatile than that, i saw various claims that orinaly 6/4 was used for music that is felt as 2 groups of 3 (1 and a, 2 and a), in other words the same rhythmic pulse as above 6/8 part.
I have mentioned this several times including my above post. hepta and octo-syllabic poetry fit nicely over two measures as an antecedent phrase that then can be decorated by nematic or melismatic ornamentation on two mor measures of thre four (or, hypermetrically tereated as 3/2).
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Romerito
quote:
But as said it's not about mathematics but about rhythmic pulses.
Which can be communicated with the combination of cells [through beaming], time signatures, and solid and dotted barlines.
The example in 3/4 6/8 you give to me is not at all how I would like to see/communicate seguiriyas. My father's choice not to add a time signature and only at a bar between 5 th and 1th beat is way more clear. And yes, his partitures are written for professional flamenco performers but in a way are also way more informative for non players then the 3/4 6/8 system.
Tried to upload some of his pages but even less as half a page is rejected for file is to large. So all I can show is some smal bits and pieces.
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
That is a pretty transcription and very clear. However, Morante's point is well-taken. When you start adding 64th notes, syncopated durations, and as he noted, "ad libitum," I am not sure that that works. Do you have any transcriptions that deal with that? Are you working on any transcriptions with any notation programs? If I had penmanship like your father's, I'd write my transcriptions out.
Edit: Now this I can't abide. I wish everyone would adjust compases but keep them intact to fit staves. To me, you can't complain about barlines or time signatures but be ok with breaking up compases across staves. That is one thing that I do that no other transcriber does...keep compases together (maybe allowing for an occasional half-compas or an extra measure if Sabicas or someone had one).
RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Romerito
That is a pretty transcription and very clear. However, Morante's point is well-taken. When you start adding 64th notes, syncopated durations, and as he noted, "ad libitum," I am not sure that that works. Do you have any transcriptions that deal with that? Are you working on any transcriptions with any notation programs? If I had penmanship like your father's, I'd write my transcriptions out.
Edit: Now this I can't abide. I wish everyone would adjust compases but keep them intact to fit staves. To me, you can't complain about barlines or time signatures but be ok with breaking up compases across staves. That is one thing that I do that no other transcriber does...keep compases together (maybe allowing for an occasional half-compas or an extra measure if Sabicas or someone had one).
Now you try to handwrite 1400 pages of flamenco multiple times and keep 1 Compas a stave. Dispite covering various staves I can spot in a second where beat 1 is (after the bar) or wherever I am because all the notes making a beat are grouped extremely informative. He just took the amound of space needed to annotate things as clear as possible, both compaswise, rhythmically and qua finger management. You'll won't find a more detailed and clear transcription. Even if he breaks up a beat continuing on a next stave his rhythm and grouping of notes is so clear you shouldn't get lost.
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
quote:
Now you try to handwrite 1400 pages of flamenco multiple times and keep 1 Compas a stave. Dispite covering various staves I can spot in a second where beat 1 is (after the bar) or wherever I am because all the notes making a beat are grouped extremely informative. He just took the amound of space needed to annotate things as clear as possible, both compaswise, rhythmically and qua finger management. You'll won't find a more detailed and clear transcription. Even if he breaks up a beat continuing on a next stave his rhythm and grouping of notes is so clear you shouldn't get lost.
Not to be a contrarian but I have hundreds of pages of transcriptions in Finale and Dorico nicely notating one compas per staff. It's a matter of personal preference I guess. Maestros don't ever end the lesson in the middle of a compas, so why would one end a staff in the middle of a compas?
Estebanana was not clear on who he thinks settled the matter, but Herrero, Trotter, Worms, Faucher, Granados, Batista...you name 'em, most ways work and most ways can be read by anyone with a bit of experience. So I guess they are all practical.
RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Romerito
That is a pretty transcription and very clear. However, Morante's point is well-taken. When you start adding 64th notes, syncopated durations, and as he noted, "ad libitum," I am not sure that that works. Do you have any transcriptions that deal with that? Are you working on any transcriptions with any notation programs? If I had penmanship like your father's, I'd write my transcriptions out.
Running through my father's transcripts I hardly ever encountered 64th notes in seguiriyas/serranas . How he dealed with it depends on the musical context. My father had the habit he would preferably annotate events in such a way it represented the musical function/intends of the notes. When for instance it's just a bunch of notes played in front of a beat/note/chord to give it color in such a way its just added on top/inbetween the normal events he would just add it like that, mostly in smaller print and adding a bow showing to which main event it is linked/timed (the extra notes themself don't count up with the rythm) so it's a multy layerd way of writing a bit like telling a story within the story.
When it is a more profound part of the story he'll include it in he main events rather than as a side note.
I'll tried to include some samples but most bounched for "file to big" so I had to spit them again and again. Hope it answers part of your question.
As far as the last 2 examples are concerned how the hell can one make them fit on 1 stave in a hand written score without giving in on clearaty of writing :-).
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
This chart attempts to explain how I feel Siguiriya compas. It’s what I arrived listening to dancers clicking their tongues or snapping their fingers to keep compas in situations where there is non elastic compas por baile.
I feel an over all 6 beat structure, but it has five accents. I feel the 6 beat cycles as units you park next up each other to create bigger statements. Some of the statements are marking compas straightforward and some are falsetas. Other units have to do with chord sequences that fit the dance with rasgueado that supports the footwork.
I’m reminded of the character Efren in The Flamencos of Cadiz Bay, the passage where he takes a piece of chalk from the bartender and hash marks out the beats on the table with slashes of chalk and the others in the story tell him there are 12 beats. When Efren tries to count it out he always ended up with 13 beats.
I can play this palo for dancers, but it’s by pure internalized tactus of my own mixed up making. This chart is what Siguiriya looks like visually in my mind, and like Efren who can also play, but not write it, I’m sure it looks nutty to everyone else.
But this talking has got me encouraged to learn a couple new falsetas, maybe make it into a solo.
Chan chan chan chanity chan chan ….
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
Is that your dad’s hand written notation? That’s quite elegant ‘lead sheet’ writing.
It is but he changed his handwriting various times over time. When he started he used a more artistic kind of handwriting with lots of curved lines. Later he adapted a more industrialized way of writing like in these examples. Personally I favor his free style writing. Tino van der Sman who had lessons from him since childhood grew up with his more artistic writings and ones wrote a column about my father stating that his handwritten scores were "as beautiful as the sunflowers of Vincent van Goch" which funny enough he misspelled as Goch rather than Gogh while normally the opposite happens :-).
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
When I first entered the Foro in 2012 I immediately ended up having a dispute with Ricardo about how to count seguiriyas. It was an already existing debat of how to count it and if I remember well Ricardo embraced thinking it in 12 beats were I advocated it was 5 beats claiming it would be wrong to think of it as a 12 beat circle starting on 8 (which resembles above setup). ..
{8-10-12--3--6-}
If I remember well Ricardo's respons was that I was totally wrong picturing the 12 beat approach as being a (Bulerias) cycle starting at beat 8 (although many saw it that way) adding the correct way was to think of it as....
{1-3-5--8--11-}
But that's how I remember my first encounter with Ricardo from over 12 years ago so I might be wrong :-).
Fact is above subject isn't new but probably as old as seguiriyas itself :-).
PS, your 6th beat seems to be the 5 AND part so the AND preceding the next cycle which is ok as an inner feld tool to keep track. In the beginning I often added suportive beats to all 5 beats to keep track like 1 and 2 and 3 and a 4 and a 5 and..... so 12 beats after all? :-).
Well no because the difference between feeling every beat in Bulerias inbetween the pulse 3,6,8,10,12 and adding some suportive beats in seguiriyas like 1-2-3--4--5- is that in Bulerias they are the actual beats while in seguiriyas these supportive "extra beats" are not.
12-1-2-/3-4-5-/6-7-/8-9/10-11- etc versus 1 and 2 and 3 and a 4 and a 5 and.
When practicing/studying soleares or Bulerias slowly I often added suportive "beats" like that as wel...
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 etc.
One of my former classmates even had the habit of tapping the beat with one foot and tapping the in between AND part with his other foot making sure every note was in it's place.
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
quote:
Being unfamiliar with 6/4 I googled it and although it probably is way more versatile than that, i saw various claims that orinaly 6/4 was used for music that is felt as 2 groups of 3 (1 and a, 2 and a), in other words the same rhythmic pulse as above 6/8 part.
Yes, this is a common misconception IMO, by people that wrongly believe that the only difference between 3/8 and 3/4 is TEMPO. These same people will claim the only "correct" way to write what I did (and your dad to be honest) is to use 3/2. But this is misleading. Perhaps some composers use them that way and that is not "wrong" but, trying to get at a SIMPLE, universal concept for everybody, imagine a snare drum.
It is more typical to use the snare for WEAK beats, and a bass drum on STRONG beats. I am saying basic, typical etc. A drummer or composer can have a drummer do as they think a song requires. But in simplest terms, if you hear a regular steady snare hit, those are WEAK QUATER NOTES. Perhaps a crash symbol helps to understand where a bar line might go if all you hear is strong/weak alternations. But in that sense, a 3/4 you would hear TWO snare hits and one bass kick (or the snare chooses one of the two weak beats and does something else for the other). If you put a crash every two bars, those above are claiming that is THE MEANING of a 6/4 bar. However, I am saying, that is as redundant as using 8/8 meter instead of 4/4. Or pretending that two bars of 2/4 are actually 4/4, and that is ALL 4/4 really ever is, and if you meant something different for 4/4 you really should use 2/2 (ridiculous but that is what those people are advocating for that claim MY 6/4 MUST be 3/2).
The reality is 6/4 would have the snare on 2,4, and 6, just as a normal 4/4 has the snare on 2 and 4. It is NO MORE complex than that. Luckily there are SOME smart musicians that get the simplicity here. So I hope everybody watches and learns:
People that would claim full stop at :48 sec is actually "3/2" are what I call "rhythmically challenged".
RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
Being unfamiliar with 6/4 I googled it and although it probably is way more versatile than that, i saw various claims that orinaly 6/4 was used for music that is felt as 2 groups of 3 (1 and a, 2 and a), in other words the same rhythmic pulse as above 6/8 part.
Yes, this is a common misconception IMO, by people that wrongly believe that the only difference between 3/8 and 3/4 is TEMPO.
Luckily there are SOME smart musicians that get the simplicity here. So I hope everybody watches and learns:
I encounterd/saw that video yesterday when googling 6/4 and that video was the actual reason I added the words "and although it probably is way more versatile than that" before quoting the ones seeing it as a kind of slowed down 6/8 :-).
I haven't been able to grasp your comparisment with parts of Sevillanas yet.
It took my father quite some time to grasp the structure of Sevillanas. Obviously during his performing years in the late 50ties and 60ties he had to play it regularly for flamencodansers touring the Netherlands who didn't bring their own companies but a stag of partitures being played by local orquestras like my father's (in Madrid there was a shop offering orquestret partitures for various if not all Palos). But the partitures the dancers gave him had no concensus as far as structure was concerned and were all annotated in different ways.
So when my father went to Cordoba in 1984 to prepair for his future flamenco academy. He tried to grasp the Sevillanas danced by Paco's Little children in his Patio. He couldn't grasp it until he was told it starts on beat 5 (we had a dispute on that one also once with you claiming it started on 4). I was thinking about the first chord but your "it starts on beat 4 with a golpe" closed the deal :-).
Gerardo Núñez was one of the teachers of the 1984 summer course of Paco my father attended. After the lessons he used to play at Paco's patio every night for hours and hours. My father obviously took the opportunity to study his technique in great detail. For some reason non of the other attenders showed any interest in him playing there but my father closely watched every second of Gerardo playing there for hours and hours and highly admired his technical skills which he regarded as equal to Paco de Lucia. Mind this was the first (random) Spanish player my father encountered when visiting Spain for the first time. Oh my god my father thought are all flamenco guitarists over here this good :-).
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Romerito
quote:
Like you can pretend it is not 6/4, but this is simple math here. Like everyone is suddenly Terrance Howard trying to reinvent 1x1 etc.
You often recommend tapping your foot in the different ways possible for whatever palo one is playing. No one is going to tap 6/4 unless they are including it as part of 6/4-3/2 which just an analytical choice to avoid the messiness of 64th notes in 6/8-3/4.
not exactly. What I advocate is to tap your foot to some sort of quarter note. Either a normal one, or a dotted one, but don't do both in one compas. It is convention to do that for siguiriyas, but when it gets fast and syncopated my foot keeps 6 quarters per compas. Yes that means the count4 accent lands BETWEEN two of my foot taps and the 6th foot tap lands on the 5th accent. This is not complex, and the groove is more solid that way. To claim a 3/2 bar is the same as when people erroneously tap their foot to what they want to believe or envision is a half note pulse. It is not really "wrong" but again, what I am advocating for simplicity is the foot is always some version of a quarter note pulse. I give some leeway with 3/4 meter because often the tempo is in a range where a dotted half note is less tiring. But I also notice that people find the slow pulse more challenging AS IF it were 3/8 meter where the dotted quarter is a super slow metronome click. That IS in fact is what is going on IMO, and the reason slow tempos are more challenging than medium....because you have to control more subdivisions per beat reference.
And with that...the Diego thing and being "historically informed", means, if you tap your foot as per sevillanas, that lines up ONLY to counts 3 and 5 of the siguiriyas, and if you play fast enough to feel that phrasing, then you have your answer to how and why and when the siguiriyas changed feeling (basically it slows down to such a degree you can't track those slow accents anymore).
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
quote:
If I remember well Ricardo's respons was that I was totally wrong picturing the 12 beat approach as being a (Bulerias) cycle starting at beat 8 (although many saw it that way) adding the correct way was to think of it as....
{1-3-5--8--11-}
"more correct" is all. The idea is to decouple from the solea accent because the remate won't line up correctly. The issue in general is that compas is like an animal with head, body and tail. By trying to align compas by accents rather than down beat and closing beats, it is like putting the head of one animal where the body should go of another, etc.
Again, your dad has it correct, but it is simply called "6/4", like it or not. At least the way he is beaming it etc. (as opposed to 12/8 and other variants. I guess 3/2 is not wrong, but 6/4 is the most simply correct explanation of what your dad wrote. Ask any drummer you know that has no clue about flamenco, what is that time signature).
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
quote:
I haven't been able to grasp your comparisment with parts of Sevillanas yet.
ok, it is a bit counter intuitive. If you understand Sevillanas and Fandango have guitar/compas relationship, it should be easy to see clearly with these examples:
basic sevillanas/fandango pattern at 2:36:
So how that maps to siguiryas counts, is in the middle of your dad's score, the third beat grouping or count 3 accent is the E chord. The moment I change chords to A minor (I change to Am BETWEEN beats 2 and 3 in anticipation of the rasgueado that accents the third beat), is the count 4 accent (the start of your dad's 4th beat grouping).
That "syncopation" in the otherwise 3/4 meter, changing chords on the weak spot between beat 2 and 3, is the REASON modern transcribers want to switch to a 6/8 metric, such that the 4th 8th note gets a BEAT expression on that spot. The rasgueado I am doing would not look nice in that meter, hence we normally don't need to change meter for Fandango/sevillanas. Simply put, the two glopes are count 3 and 5 of siguiriyas respectively.
So assuming you got that, you can count to 6 with this phrasing since the "accent" is beat two of the next measure, as expressed by the ragueado again. So now we have 5th beat accent that is important. That accent is where, in sevillanas, the dancers begin moving their bodies (4&ah-5, in other words, as they hear that melody conclude). That starting place is exactly the "5&ah-1" counts of siguiriyas.
Shifting to fandango, which has the same metric as sevillanas, we see two halves expressed by the descending cadence Am-Am-G-F-E, from that spot we left off, or 5,6, 1,2,3...then a remate on the E chord and the cycle begins again. Sevillanas is like doing only the first half over and over. If you transpose to por medio, then that descent is Dm-Dm-C-Bb-A. However, it is typical to lead into the cante with Dm-C-Gm-(Gm)-A, instead. That right there maps exactly to the siguiriyas, with the only difference being the A chord comes half a beat earlier in siguiriyas, as I explained earlier (between beats 2 and 3 again suggesting the 6/8). See at 1:10, 2:02, 2:23, 3:48:
RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
If I remember well Ricardo's respons was that I was totally wrong picturing the 12 beat approach as being a (Bulerias) cycle starting at beat 8 (although many saw it that way) adding the correct way was to think of it as....
{1-3-5--8--11-}
"more correct" is all. The idea is to decouple from the solea accent because the remate won't line up correctly. The issue in general is that compas is like an animal with head, body and tail. By trying to align compas by accents rather than down beat and closing beats, it is like putting the head of one animal where the body should go of another, etc.
I once made an extreme long treat explaining the structure of seguiriyas stating the most recognizable part of seguiriyas in case of being lost while listening was probably it's 4-5 part
-------------- -------------- ----2-----/2-- -------2------ /0------------ -------------- 4 and the /5
Since many cycle end with that line or a variation on it I joked that if one could play that part right one already could play 2/5 of seguiriyas. Function wise I actualy compared it with the standard 10-11-12 tail (variations) played in Soleares.
RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to Erik van Goch)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Erik van Goch
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
When I first entered the Foro in 2012 I immediately ended up having a dispute with Ricardo about how to count seguiriyas. It was an already existing debat of how to count it and if I remember well Ricardo embraced thinking it in 12 beats were I advocated it was 5 beats claiming it would be wrong to think of it as a 12 beat circle starting on 8 (which resembles above setup). ..
{8-10-12--3--6-}
If I remember well Ricardo's respons was that I was totally wrong picturing the 12 beat approach as being a (Bulerias) cycle starting at beat 8 (although many saw it that way) adding the correct way was to think of it as....
{1-3-5--8--11-}
But that's how I remember my first encounter with Ricardo from over 12 years ago so I might be wrong :-).
Fact is above subject isn't new but probably as old as seguiriyas itself :-).
PS, your 6th beat seems to be the 5 AND part so the AND preceding the next cycle which is ok as an inner feld tool to keep track. In the beginning I often added suportive beats to all 5 beats to keep track like 1 and 2 and 3 and a 4 and a 5 and..... so 12 beats after all? :-).
Well no because the difference between feeling every beat in Bulerias inbetween the pulse 3,6,8,10,12 and adding some suportive beats in seguiriyas like 1-2-3--4--5- is that in Bulerias they are the actual beats while in seguiriyas these supportive "extra beats" are not.
12-1-2-/3-4-5-/6-7-/8-9/10-11- etc versus 1 and 2 and 3 and a 4 and a 5 and.
When practicing/studying soleares or Bulerias slowly I often added suportive "beats" like that as wel...
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 etc.
One of my former classmates even had the habit of tapping the beat with one foot and tapping the in between AND part with his other foot making sure every note was in it's place.
To be honest this chart thing might be totally off. But here’s how I arrived at it, listening to guitar teachers dancers and singers doing nudos on a table top. And David Serva and Keni Parker tapping knuckles on a table of bar. And I heard five accents locked into 6 beats. My way might not make sense, but for some reason Jason McGuire and others around town says my Siguiriya grove was good.
Right now I’m trying to wrap my head around Sevillanas and Siguiriya similarity. I was thinking about for a bit tonight and I think I can put it together. I have to practice it a bit. I see, I think, what Ricardo is saying.
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RE: Seguiriya /Siguiriya Metric Notation (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
I see, I think, what Ricardo is saying.
to be clear what I am demonstrating earlier is that those specific phrasings help to connect our view of siguiriyas TODAY, with how it USED to be "seguidilla sevillana" in the early/mid 18th century, and the "seguidilla gitana", and expressed by Piriñaca as an antiquated cante minus guitar (since all guitar players were playing siguiriyas slow, and sevillanas and fandango are different form). Relative to her own palmas she feels the downbeat like we feel fandango or sevillanas, but normally the singing doesn't fit there, they sing off of count 5. She is pointing to the older tradtion (I assume) long extinct when they likely sang siguiriyas amongst a selection of seguidillas due to the similar or same poetic meter of the letras. Castro Buendia claimed some Preciso letras 1799 match to demofilio reinforcing this idea. The sevillanas we do today musically hints at the old practice via the phrygian themes mixing with normal major and minor.
Diego himself just wanted to express siguiryas as fast as she was doing palmas...and the result magically sounds like sevillanas basic compas. I am just thinking he reinvented the wheel right there...but this explains Romerito's question as to how/why the expression changed. It simply slowed WAY down and the feeling morphed. Not unlike buleria and solea super lento that are related.
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