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I begin this series of four articles dedicated to those elements that make the flamenco sounds like that, flamenco and not to another genre of music. I will start with one of the qualities of sound: timbre, color. The other three are pitch, duration and intensity. Many musical genres have in timbre the perfect ally to make the difference with respect to other genres. This is the case in jazz, many believe that By adding a muted trumpet or a more or less elaborate and original saxophone riff, they are already making jazz., when in reality what they do is “shoot down” a very widespread tonal element among musicians. And they use it to give the appropriate “booster” and pass off as that genre a more or less commercial experiment that has little or nothing to do with that exceptional music that the African-American musicians of New Orleans bequeathed to us after managing to conveniently fuse elements of Ragtime with the Blues, from there to Chicago and from there to New York, roughly speaking.
In the field of “aflamencado” this practice is very widespread. For example, a strum, some palmas, a drawer!!! (Oh, how helpful is the Peruvian cajón), conveniently used in a recording and they are already pulling the wool over our eyes saying that their latest album is flamenco-like. And they say it in diminutive and with a ka because deep down they are aware of using the name of “God” in vain. We have all heard at some time how popular music groups, even from more academic genres and even from pure avant-garde, use the timbral atmosphere of the flamenco to roll around being very flamenco, swearing that their grandfather was a good gypsy.
El flamenco is built on a very specific aesthetic. It is easy to recognize it precisely because its timbre gives it away from the first bar. It has managed, in its long journey of centuries simmering the musical tradition of Andalusia, Spain and in general of the Hispanic world of both hemispheres, to grant a letter of nature to a large-scale artistic expression. And it was possible by combining, in a language with its own syntax and grammar, all the desires of the society it represents. Once the ideal sound was achieved, everything was a piece of cake, singing for any genre of music willing to adhere to the aesthetics, let's call it jonda, flamenco.
Let's see then what is the proper timbre of the flamenco, what timbral elements make it so recognizable. Parameters that are common to the entire genre and that make any traditional song the corresponding one Flamenco “version”. Whether Cuban, Guajira, Asturian, Pravian, Alosno or Perchel from Malaga. All the music from the immense Andalusian cultural environment was available to the artists. flamencoAnd with them they were creating a rich repertoire. Without trickery, simply adapting to the timbre of the flamenco aesthetics, music sung, played and danced in the appropriate way to integrate into the new genre, the flamencoThese parameters can be rhythmic, metric, harmonic, melodic, formal, but we will talk about these in other articles, in this one we refer only to to the timbres, to what sounds unfailingly like flamenco, to the aromas jondos, which were called “black sounds”.
«There are many timbral elements that color the sound atmosphere of the album in a very specific way. flamenco. Always, the moan of a voice, the ayeo that we immediately identify with what jondo It is a paradigm of these “sounds”, the complaint represents the flamenco aesthetic. The jipío or the art of linking the thirds of a breath. The strumming of a guitar, the nails pinching the strings in a picado, the thumb jumping over the drones in an alzapúa or singing a melody with bare strings.
There are many timbral elements that color the sound atmosphere of the piece in a very specific way. flamenco. Always, the moan of a voice, the ayeo that we immediately identify with what jondo It is a paradigm of these “sounds”, the complaint represents the flamenco aesthetics. The jipío or the art of linking the thirds of a breath. The strumming of a guitar, the nails pinching the strings in a picado, the thumb jumping over the drones in an alzapúa or singing a melody “with bare strings”, the tremolo that wants to lengthen the sounds of a plucked string instrument. The feet tapping with sole, toe and heel, another of the unmistakable sounds of what flamenco. Of course, the palmas, open or deaf, a necessary ingredient and the best ally of the beat in the flamenco.
For several decades, since 1977, the Peruvian box that floods the renewed sounds of percussion flamenco, the bass hitting the center of the biscuit or the highs snapping the upper zone have become essential. But also the sound of the fretless bass driven by the great Carlos Benavent, as well as the melody dreamed by the kingdom's chief windblower Jorge Pardo, both on the saxophone and the flute have become, for the sake of Big Chief Paco de Lucia (that is one), in the hallmark of a flamenco for the 21st century.
And the rich vocal timbres, the variety that enriches our music, from the delicious whisper of Cobitos to the sublime crack of Fernando Earthquake o Manuel Agujetas. Of the incredible agility of the master of masters Pepe Marchena to the deep sobriety of Antonio The Jacket. Of the ineffable creativity of the Pope Anthony Chacon to the black sounds of the bohemian Manuel Torres, from the incomparable encyclopedia of The Girl with the Combs to the brilliant musicality of his brother Thomas, from the titanic voice of Manuel Vallejo to the intimate purity of Dog from Utrera. From the inspiration of El Caracol to the laborious mission of Antonio MairenaFrom the dark skin of the Island's blonde to the Granada staff with English faces, our unforgettable hoarse voice.
The precious legacy of the touch, in immortal compositions for the sonanta, by Montoya a Melchor, You know a Ricardo, Manolo a Paco, Vicente a Rafael. The Miguel a Cepero. The Juan, Luis and Pepe, the precious pulsation of Granada. Masters of the guitar, squires and knights “tocantes” that mark the pace of the infinite evolution of the genre flamenco.
And how not to talk about the Antonios, Ruiz and Gades, of the brilliant Mercé and Embodies, of the unsurpassed mastery of Pillar and of that giant of one meter and fifty, Carmen amaya, farruco o Faico, Mario and Guito, of the most recent, of Carrasco a Channels, Sara, Grillo, Eva, Baron, Molina o Galvan. Dance, the first ambassador of art flamenco through those worlds of God. We owe them all the knowledge of transmitting how the flamenco, the real one.
