Mysteriosa
flamenco: elegant and mysterious
A flamenco dancer, lurking under a shadow, prepares for her wild and mysterious dance. Somebody has wounded her with words, alluding to the fact that she has no fire. When the music starts, she begins to dance, with ritual slowness. Then she stamps out the dampness from her soul. She takes on a fiery strange enchanted glow. Soon she is disintegrating, shouting and stamping and dissolving the boundaries of her body. Soon, she becomes a wild unknown force...
- Ben Okri, Birds of Heaven
About the Music
Although this tune is a hardly a fast fiery flamenco is the usual sense of the term, the castanets (and handclaps) play a key role in adding to the stylistic flair of a flamenco. Interestingly, a wood block is the main percussive instrument that drives the tune. Acoustic guitars dominate the arrangement and both the trombone and Native American Flute join in to keep it lively and soulful.
© Richard Coffey - All Rights Reserved
About Flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a complex art form incorporating poetry, singing (cante), guitar playing (toque), dance (baile), polyrhythmic hand-clapping (palmas), and finger snapping (pitos). It is based on the melding of various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain. Flamenco music is thought to have originated by the Roma (Gypsy) people when they migrated to Spain between the 9th and 14th centuries. Much of the style of singing can be attributed to Arabic influence.
Castanets
Castanets are a percussion instrument used in Spanish music. The instrument consists of a pair of concave shells joined on one edge by a string. They are held in the hand and used to produce clicks for rhythmic accents or a ripping or rattling sound consisting of a rapid series of clicks. In practice, a player usually uses two pairs of castanets.
Jaleo
A jaleo is a word or phrase shouted out during a flamenco performance to encourage the dancer or musician. You might for example hear: Olé or Que bailas bien! (‘you dance so well!’).
Palmas
Palmas is a handclapping style which plays an essential role in flamenco music. It used to help punctuate and accentuate the song and dance.