What is flamenco?

The history and development of flamenco music

Background introduction of Spain

Spain is located in the Iberian Peninsula in southwest Europe. This island lies between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Spain is bordered by the Pyrenees and France in the north and Africa in the south by the Strait of Gibraltar, which is 16 km wide.

As early as 10 million years ago, people lived in today's Spain. About 5000 years ago, a group of people called "Iberians" occupied many parts of Spain. Later, groups of conquerors, immigrants and businessmen entered Spain and merged with each other to form today's Spaniards. The Spanish believe in Roman Catholicism and the language used is Castilian Spanish. Catalans ruled Spain from the 5th century BC to the 3rd century BC, and Moors conquered most of Spain in the 8th century for hundreds of years. In ancient times, Celts and Greeks also immigrated to Spain and Rome and established provinces here. Spain expelled the Moors from its territory in the 1 1 century and won the final victory in 1492. In the same year, Columbus discovered the New World and Spain became a world power. The empire it established covered most parts of western South America and southern North America, and there were sporadic territorial roaming in Africa, Asia and Europe.

/kloc-After 0/6th century, Spain faced a series of civil wars, foreign invasions and economic blows, and its imperial possessions fell one after another. In 1930, Spain was plunged into a bloody civil war. Finally, dictator Franco came to power and practiced fascist dictatorship for 45 years. It was not until Franco's death that Spain resumed constitutional monarchy and became a real democratic country.

2. Music dictionary:

Flamengo music:

(1) historical evolution

It is generally believed that Flamengo originated from Gita Nelhas, an Italian slum in the15th century, and that16th century was a fusion of Arabic and Jewish music in Andalusian mountains. At that time, Jews, Muslims and gypsy pagans all fled to the mountains to escape the persecution of the Catholic king. So some people say that the word Flamengo is a combination of two Arabic words, Felag and Menga. The former refers to fugitives and the latter refers to farmers. In other words, flamenco music is the music of fleeing farmers. It is also said that the word Flamengo refers to people who followed Charles V in the16th century.

In any case, flamenco music is closely related to gypsies. Until now, the center of Flamengo art is still the place where traditional gypsies live, such as Cadiz, Alcala, outrat, Jerez, Seville and so on.

/kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, Flamengo has become a performance for entertaining guests, business travelers and prostitutes in bars and inns in Andalusia. At the beginning, the performers were poor gypsies and friends accompanying them (Pajus, as gypsies call non-gypsies), and they were amateurs. Slowly, some excellent performers became professional singers. At that time, Cantoulos, with his guitar and dancer, began to perform at private banquets and markets.

Around 1850, flamenco performed in cafes, and many outstanding artists performed in fashion cafes in Seville, Madrid and Andalusia. At this time, the sailors of the Spanish colonial fleet returned home and injected music from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Argentina into Flamengo. This kind of flamenco is called two-way song, which includes Milongas, Colombian Nas and Guajiras.

During the period of 1870- 1900, flamenco's performances became more and more popular. However, since 19 10, the cafe Flamengo has been declining and replaced by the so-called opera Flamengo, which is the organizer's means of tax evasion and has become a tax-free cultural performance. In response to the name of the opera Flamenco, Flamenco's performance gradually moved from a small cafe to a big theater. The change of stage space and the quantitative change of audience affected the qualitative change, and the purity of flamenco performance gradually weakened.

In view of the poor quality of Flamengo, Manuel de Falla, a classical composer, sought the support of artists and intellectuals and held a Canterbury Flamengo Competition in Granada on 1922. However, the revival movement of Flamengo was launched as late as 1950, with the joint efforts of countless artists, writers and intellectuals. Some people wrote books, others wrote monographs to explore the roots of Flamengo. Record companies also recorded the works of many great singers, and many pubs and clubs (penas flamenco) specializing in flamenco began to promote classical flamenco throughout Spain.

Now Flamengo is a world-famous performing art and song form, and the younger generation of singers are also involved in it, seeking the possibility of Flamengo's integration with other music.

(B) the music form of flamingos

In flamenco art, this form of music is called palos. How many Palos are there in Flamengo? According to most literature research, there are about 60 kinds of Flamengo's musical forms, most of which originated from Cadiz, Seville, Malaga, Granada and other provinces in Ontario, and some of them came from neighboring Estremadura and Muurikka. In terms of emotional expression, flamenco can be roughly divided into three categories, one is cante jondo (deep song), the other is intermedio (ordinary song), and the other is cante chico (relaxed song), which has a brisk rhythm and expresses happy feelings.

These more than 60 musical forms are divided into several families according to their similar melodies. The four most important families are Solears, Siguiriyas, Tangos and Fandangos, from which more than 30 songs have been developed. Each different palos represents a specific emotion, and the expression of this emotion must be accompanied by lyrics, such as fandango to express daily life, soleares to express solemn things, siguiriyas to express sad feelings and so on.

1 . solares

Soleaares is plural, sole is singular. Solea comes from the deformation of soledad, which means loneliness. Some people call solea musical form the cornerstone of flamenco music, which expresses tragic feelings and describes dark things. Among all the cante jondo music forms, soleares is the most prototype and the purest one. We often see that flamenco's songs use the plural soleares, which means that a song uses more than one coplas. Coplas usually refers to antithetical poems, four-line poems with eight syllables, and the second and fourth sentences rhyme.

Soleares, like most flamenco forms, takes 3/4 beats per bar 12, but it will be divided into 6/8. Guitar accompaniment is very fast, so it feels like 6/4 and 3/2 beats in hearing. In Franco's terminology, the pattern of rhythm is called rhythm. Usually, the lead singer can freely use some decorative sounds as the introduction of a new coplas when singing soleares, which is similar to the nature of the lead singer and is called salia or melisma in Franco's terminology. When changing coplas, guitarists can solo freely as an episode between two coplas. There are also strict rules for dancing with soleares. The first is the singer's warm-up. During this period, the dancers stepped out of Kangpas, and the singers sang the complete Kangpas in 6/8 and 3/4 beats, followed by the dancers' llamada (shouting) and solo performance of dance steps, and finally ended in a faster bulerias form.

2. Tango

The flamingo tango has nothing to do with Argentine tango music. This is the lightest of the ancient flamenco modes. Under the category of tango, there are three changes: tangos, tientos and tanquillo. According to textual research, tangos originated in the coastal area of Katiz, and the word tangos originated from an ancient local dance with a light style, which is reminiscent of the sound of horses' hooves in the caravan era.

According to Antonio Espana's analysis, tangos mode is characterized by using two compas modes. Compared with other modes, compas is relatively simple in structure, easy to hear and easy to bring a pleasant atmosphere. The singing features in some notes will last for several beats, and there is Melissa's performance. Because tangos is easy to understand and can even arouse the audience's harmony, it is often used as the finale of solo concerts, which makes the atmosphere tense to a climax.

Tiento, like tangos, is 2/4, 4/4 compas. However, although tiento's joyful atmosphere relative to tangos is also classified as cante chico, its speed is slow and its singing style is solemn, and it gradually becomes deep music. Special emphasis is placed on the cadence of weak beats.

According to the research, tiento is a young member of the tangos family, which was formed in the early 20th century and originated from Katiz. The local people tried to slow down the speed of tangos. The complicated decorative tone changes made the atmosphere tense and full, but usually the ending sometimes accelerated to tangos. In terms of guitar playing, although it belongs to the tangos family, Lasguido's way is closer to tanguillo.

Tanguillo is the most relaxed and joyful song and dance in the tangos family, and it also originated from Katiz. It is very popular with the public, because in Katiz's carnival activities, Murgas often sings Tangiro. The so-called Murgas is an amateur song and dance troupe that sings satirical songs.

3. Fandango

According to research, Dangos originated from the Arab invasion of Spain (about 7 1 1), which is a very old folk song and dance. It is generally believed that it originated from the jota duet by Argonne in northern Ontario. Almost every region in Ontario has its own fandangos. Basically, it can be divided into two forms, one is Da Fan Dan Ge (Da Fan Dan Ge) and the other is Xiao Fan Dan Ge (Xiao Fan Dan Ge). The tune we usually hear is lively, especially little Fandango.

Fandanguillo can be divided into several types, including Fandango de huelva, Fandango de Lucena and Fandango de almeria. There is also a verdiales, which originated in Malaga area and is also called fandango de malaga.

Generally speaking, fandango grande is not suitable for dance performance, but fandanguillo still maintains the early form of singing and dancing, adopting 3/4 or 6/8 compas to maintain strict rhythm rules.

According to Antonio espana's research, Fandango Grande was formed in the golden age of flamingos, namely 1920s. Some singers have experimented with fandangos, giving up compas, improvising freely and playing rhythm at will, thus strengthening the expression of decorative sound melisma. Although the guitar accompaniment part still uses 3/4 beats of fandangos, the singing part completely gives up the fixed rhythm, which makes the music structure very weak at first glance, and only the lead singer can control it freely, which makes fandango grande show its perfect strength. Therefore, its performance tends to be deep. Fandango itself belongs to cante chico in emotional expression, but fandango grande is cante jondo.

4. West Giria

Siguiriyas is a gypsy language, and its origin has not been confirmed. Some people think that the gypsies mispronounced seguidilla as siguiriyas. Seguidilla is an ancient folk dance in Castilla, and there is nothing between them. However, according to "Flamengo: Early Years" written by Paco Seville, the earliest Flamengo score appeared in an Italian opera in 1779, in which the mode used was siguiriyas.

Siguiriyas is cante jondo the deepest sad flamenco modes, and the lyrics mostly discuss death, loneliness of existence, desperate love, depression, despair and loneliness. At one time, siguiriyas was also called playeras, which means "professional grave sweeping", which shows the sadness of this model. Siguiriyas is the biggest challenge for flamenco singers, as well as for the audience. A flamenco scholar once said that when you listen to a live singer in Sigirias for the first time, you'd better not get too close to the singer, because your ears can't stand it.

Among the four modes of flamingos, Solears and siguiriyas are both cante jondo, Solears is called the mother of cante jondo, and siguiriyas was born in the golden age of flamingos. Its compas belong to 3/4 and 6/8 beats, and the rhythm rules are strict. Compas starts from the second beat of 3/4 beat and ends at the first beat of the second 3/4 beat. On 6/8, Compass starts from the third beat. However, some scholars hold different views. Blas Vega thinks that the compas of siguiriyas is actually 7/8 beats, divided into 2+2+3, or two consecutive quarter notes plus three eighth notes. Anyway, suguiriyas can shoot almost freely when singing, which is in opposition to compas accompanied by guitar. Generally speaking, siguiriyas rarely sings with dance, because it is too difficult, and few dancers can show the depth and strength of the singer. As for guitar accompaniment, Nino Ricardo is recognized as the best interpreter.

5. Brellias

This word is a combination of bulla (noise) and buria (ridicule), which means to mock and imitate noise, fully expressing the characteristics of this model. No one knows where Blerias originated, but most scholars believe that this model originated from the quick version of Allegrias in Jerez, which is full of fun and vitality. For dancers and guitarists, Blerias is the ultimate challenge. It is the most difficult rhythm in flamenco tunes, but it is also the essence of flamenco. No matter how many tunes a musician or singer knows and can't play Brerias, he can't be called a flamenco musician. Although it is also a structure of twelve beats and one cycle, the rhythm is very elastic and full of improvisation and melody changes. Because of its lively atmosphere, it is often regarded as the finale of a concert.

(C) Franco's singing art

1. Magic

In Franco's terminology, the male singer is Cantaor, the female singer is Cantaola, the male dancer is Bai Laor, and the female dancer is Bai Aola. Flamingo's various tunes are called palos, and its rhythm pattern is called Compass. Generally speaking, flamingos, like blues music, are all in a cycle of twelve beats. Singers can improvise at any time, for example, from 3/4 to 6/8, and then continue to divide them with decorative sounds and make various improvisations. So flamenco's rules seem strict on the surface, but there is a lot of room for improvisation. Juan Martin, the guitarist of Flamengo, once said that Flamengo is a microcosm of Spanish society, which sticks to tradition on the surface, but is anarchism in its bones.

There is a term in Franco's art called duende, which means the singer's touch and soul. It dominates the communication between the singer and the audience. Even when expressing happy emotions, singers can convey deep feelings and make people move. The Spanish poet Garcí a Rocca said that Duane can only be found in "the deepest part of exile, the last room where the soul is spattered with blood". Its strength comes from its transcendence of time, and Duane's performance moment itself is immortal. Mario Pacheco, the owner of the most important contemporary Flamengo record company, believes that Duane is the soul of a singer and a gift from heaven in the world. Some singers have duende, others just don't, which can't be compensated by training and skills. At the concert, both the singer and the audience were waiting for Duane's moment. When that moment appears, the singer is no longer himself, but the song it sings.

2. Haleo dance

In flamenco's performance, there is a special term called jaleo, which is a kind of tune and also represents the most passionate and fanatical state when singers, guitarists and dancers clap their hands (palmas), flick their fingers (palillos) and the audience shout drums. When the audience heard the intoxication, they stopped shouting! Ole means to shout "Long live the typewriter" or "water". The former means that dancers are as fast as typewriters, while the latter means that Andalusia is a place short of water, so "water" has become the most sacred praise.

(4) flamenco dance

1. Source and development

Fran Song Ming's dancer, male named Bai Laoer, female named Bai Laoer. Long Ming song and dance originated around 1750. In the19th century, it met private parties from the streets and entered professional performance venues. There, dancers can compete with each other and develop new dance steps. It was at this time that legendary dancers El Raspao and El Estampio began the dazzling steps and movements of contemporary flamenco dance, and the so-called hata de cola (long skirt with lace and slits in front) became the formal dress of female dancers around that time. 19 10, flamenco entered the theater and developed the so-called flamenco opera, which integrated dance, song, guitar solo and comedy. In, composer Manuel de Falla composed the first flamenco ballet. La Argentina established its first dance troupe in the1920s, and led a group to perform abroad, making flamenco dance an independent art. From 1930 to 1950, the most famous flamenco song and dance was Carmen Amaya, who toured all over the world, making flamenco a world-famous art.

2. Dance terminology

Different flamenco palos have different dance routines and the rules are very strict. Before discussing the expression of a complete dance work, we must first understand some terms of flamenco dance.

(1)llamada(yum-ah-da): It means calling, but it is not a verbal call, but the dancer uses a series of steps to remind the guitarist that she intends to end this piece or the whole dance code. (2)paseo: it means to step on. The dancers walked up and down the stage, posing in gorgeous postures. As a series of two paragraphs, they can't take a wrong step. (3) Desplant: The dance steps in the paragraph break out quickly, usually starting with llamada, which is the climax of the whole song. (4) Silence: It means silence. Between paragraphs, the guitarist stopped accompanying, and now the dancer's dance speed is gradually accelerated, pushing it to a climax. This kind of performance often appears in full-agree-us.

(5)taconeo: the change of footsteps, the change of flamenco dancers' footsteps, from toes to soles to heels. There is usually a solo that shows the steps in the complete dance music.

(6) Zapatero: It has two meanings, usually referring to the solo performance of toes, soles and heels, creating a complex rhythm. Another meaning refers to zapatedo, a dance form, whose feet are particularly complicated, and often start again after an emergency stop, accelerating constantly. Melody must match the rhythm completely, and it needs the perfect cooperation between guitarist and dancer.

(7)jaleos(hell-aye-os): It means cheering. Each dance company is accompanied by a special person, who is in charge of jaleos. The man's name is jaleador and the woman's name is jaleadora. They are also usually responsible for controlling the rhythm of Palmas and Pitos.

(8)ida: the meaning of leaving. The dancer indicated to the accompanist that she wanted to change from one form to another.

(5) Flamengo's guitar art

1. The evolution of flamenco guitar

In the development of Flamengo, until the second half of the19th century (the so-called golden age of Flamengo), Flamengo did not have its own guitar. At that time, it was either expensive Finas or lyre made of cheap materials. It was not until the AD 1900 that flamenco guitars were born.

Before the flamenco guitar was born, the classical guitar was made of either maple or rosewood, which was very heavy. The guitar panel has complicated decorations, and the strings are made of metal and are very heavy. The improved flamenco guitar uses lighter cypress, with wooden strings and cedar neck. Lighter materials reduce the burden on musicians and make flamenco guitars look brighter, similar to percussion instruments.

In modern times, many guitar soloists use a guitar between classical guitar and flamenco guitar to match the acoustic effect of the concert hall. This guitar is called flamenco Negra guitar. The word negra comes from its use of black rosewood. Thick wood, combined with special manufacturing, enables Flamengo Negra to make a deep voice with good * * * sound and clarity, which is especially suitable for concert hall performances.

Before the 1960 s, flamenco guitars were always played between the upper arm and thigh. After 1960, most musicians use Paco de Lucia to lower the position of the guitar to the thigh, so that the legs can bear the weight of the guitar and the arms are more free, so musicians can use heavier guitars.

2. Family pedigree of flamenco guitarists

Many researchers of flamenco music history believe that the trend of flamenco guitar soloists began in the 20th century. In fact, as early as1860s, Julian Arcas often performed solo. According to Paco Sevilla's "Flamenco the Years", in the era of so-called cafe flamenco, the guitar gradually became one of the highlights of the performance, and the musicians gradually played it out in the solo part, strengthening the melody of accompaniment, competing not only with other guitarists, but also with singers and dancers. Slowly, every cafe or club has its own guitar soloist, and some musicians will perform special effects, such as putting the guitar behind their backs, holding it on their heads and even playing with gloves, so as to attract the audience with different tricks.

(1) Extraordinary Flamengo School: Paco El Barbero-Nino de Ricardo-Paco de Lucia (Ma Nuoluo San rugal)

The contemporary flamenco guitar art can be traced back to the guitarist El Maestro patino. He often played solo when he was young, but his greatest contribution was to teach Paco El Barbero and Paco de Lucena, whose students had an absolute influence on the creation of contemporary flamenco guitar style.

Paco El Barbero coached Javier Molina (1868- 1956) and Molina coached El Nino Ricardo (1904- 1972). El Nino Ricardo is not only a great performer and innovator, but also his style directly influenced Serranito, Ma Nuoluo Sanluka and Paco de Lucia. This genre is called very flamenco because of its rough and tough playing style and deep emotion.

In the1970s, Nino de Ricardo's guitar playing, a tough style, took on a new look with the innovation of Paco de Lucia and Ma Nuoluo Sanluka. Paco de Lucia can be said to have changed Franco's playing trend. He not only inherited Nino de Ricardo's rough and strong emotional expression, but also integrated Ramon Montoya's "classical" musical concept and delicate skills. He took the lead in lowering the guitar position to the thigh, giving musicians more room to express themselves. He used amazing Picado (fast staccato), new and extremely fast al-za-pua and rasquaedo (brush string) techniques. In addition, he constantly added other musical elements (such as Latin American music, jazz scales and chord concepts) to Flamengo.

(2) Classicism: Paco de Lucena-Manolo de Huelva-Another student of Bicas El Maestro patino is Paco de Lucena, a descendant of Ramo Montoya and Sa Bicas, who established the so-called classicism.

Paco de Lucena studied classical guitar and studied scale playing and arpeggio skills with classical guitar masters. His greatest contribution to flamenco guitar is to create the so-called three-fingered vibrato, which is a kind of guitar technology. After playing a bass, playing three times in a row sounds like an ensemble of two guitars.

Paco de Lucina shocked the world with many solo performances at the end of19th century, but unfortunately he died young at the beginning of 20th century. One of his later great contributions was to teach students Ramon Montoya (1880- 1949). Ramon Montoya was called Don Muntoi (Sir) by the Spanish to respect his superb skills. He shocked the world with his fast playing speed, poetic sense of music when playing scales and ingenious chord fingering, and even created the four-fingered vibrato fingering. 1937, he recorded the first flamenco guitar solo album in history, which became a model that later musicians admired and surpassed. Ramon Montoya died in 1949.

At the same time as Ramon Montoya, there was a wizard named Ma Nuoluo de huelva, who invented the so-called alzapua technique, in which a string or a group of strings were plucked up and down with his thumb, and at the same time, a single-tone stop string was kneaded. It is said that Ma Nuoluo de huelva's playing skills are amazing, but he refused to record, so he left no recorded works after his death.

Augustine Geoffrey Castillion (1910-1991) truly inherited Ramon Montoya's classical route, and everyone called him Sa Bicas. This nickname stems from his liking for a green and white lentil, which is called Habicas in Spanish, so it is called Habicas. Somehow, it became Mr. Bicas.

(6) New Buddha Langming Pavilion

New Buddha Langmingge (6)

According to Ricardo Pachon, the most famous producer of the New Flamengo Movement, the so-called classical Flamengo was fully mature at the end of 1950, and then it was the world of New Flamengo. The so-called new flamenco refers to the classical flamenco, which is based on other types of musicians, including blues, jazz, Posanova, salsa and rock.

Paco de Lucia was the first musician who initiated the New Flamengo Movement, and he changed many traditional guitar playing skills. Then the singer and Manuel Molina cooperated with Seville's rock band Smash in 1969, and merged the musical forms of Bruges and Flamengo. Smash was dissolved in 1970, but in 1975, Manuel Molina released the album "New Dia" in cooperation with the singer Lorai Montoya, which finally attracted attention. They used the words written by the poet Juan Manuel, which broke the long tradition of Flamengo and finally gave birth to new words. Before that, every generation of flamenco musicians sang ancient words handed down from generation to generation. Nuevo Dia's album sales have exceeded one million, and Lole Y Monlina has also become the first hero of the new flamingo movement.

The late gypsy singer Cameron de Laila is regarded as the greatest flamenco singer in the past twenty-five years and the most classical musician. However, in 1979, he boldly took a step forward and released the album "Leyenda Del Tambo", boldly using the new words written by federico garcia lorca, with the double guitars of Raimundo Amador and Thomas Ti Tuo, and the rock bands of Alameda and dolores. This epoch-making experimental work was criticized as worthless by diehard fans at that time. In the record exchange market at that time, this was not a real Camaron de la Isla record at all. Ten years later, everyone finally recognized it as a classic work of Cameron, which broke the rigid performance of flamingos. A new generation of flamingos took this as a guide and followed its pace to explore. After this album, Camaron de la Isla tried many new materials, including combining classical flamenco and salsa music, and finally returned to traditional flamenco.