History Of Flamenco Guitar
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The Origins Of Flamenco
The origins of flamenco are complex and obscure. For many years, the music was associated with Andalucia in the south of Spain, and the first noted flameco performers were gypsies living in the region bounded by the cities of Cadiz, Jerez, and Seville.
Flamenco has three aspects: singing (cante), dancing (baile) and playing (toque).The flamenco tradition is the musical result of unique circumstances of geography and history. In AD 711, Moors from North Africa invaded southern Spain and established an advanced Islamic society and culture in the region they named Al-Andalus, modern Andalucia. An important part of this culture was a canon of sophisticated vocal and instrumental music. After seven centuries, the Moors were swept out of Spain by the combined might of the Christian kingdoms of northern Spain — Navarre, Aragon, and Castile — leaving a large population with an Arabic identity to be gradually assimilated into Christian society. This population shared a region with gypsies, for whom music was and is a major aspect of life. Gypsy music, with its eastern influences, intermingled with the Arabic tradition, and ideas were absorbed from Jewish and early European classical and folk music, producing a unique style and repertoire now known as flamenco. The word flamenco is variously thought to derive from the Arabic felamengu, meaning fugitive peasant, or the Spanish flamencos, used to describe the Flemish courtiers, including soldiers and musicians, who formed part of the international court of the Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (1500-58), in the 16th century.
Early singers & guitarists
A flamenco singer is mentioned in Jerezc.1750, and drawings from the beginning of the 18th century show gypsies using guitars as the main instrument to accompany song and dance. The guitar had been established in Spain for a number of centuries throughout all levels of society, and written music existed that used ideas occurring in flamenco, such as the rhythmic and melodic verse form called seguidilla, and rasgueado strumming, with unfurled fingers. Among early guitarists to be mentioned by name are Paquirri El Guante, born c. 1780 in Cadiz, who played, sang and danced, and Francisco Rodriguez “El Murciano” (1795 1848).
The rapidly developing Seville, with its thriving gypsy quarter in the suburb of Triana, became a center for flamenco. A new type of venue appeared the cafe cantante, a bar with an area for performing. Seville had a cafe cantante as early as 1842, and this type of environment encouraged artists to develop. Among the players who could be heard in the cafes of Seville in the 1850s was a gypsy from Cadiz, Jose Gonzalez Patino (1829—1902), who was an accompanist. During the 19th century, guitars were used primarily for accompaniment to the voice and as rhythmic support for dancers. Gradually, players developed short instrumental melodic interludes with variations called falsetas.
During this period published tutors, such as Rubio’s Metodo Elemental en Cifra (1860), included material in a flamenco style, and the renowned classical guitarist Julian Areas (1832—82) published based on soleares and a rondena.
Patino influenced Paco El Barbero (1840 1910) from Cadiz, who was one of the first flamenco guitarists to give solo performances. He played classical pieces by Areas and adapted and incorporated ideas for flamenco guitar. In turn, he influenced Javier Molina (1868-956), the “sorcerer and wizard of the guitar.”
Another important early figure, Paco Lucena (1855-1930), helped to establish picado techniques, three-finger arpeggiation, and the use of tremolo.
Ramon montoya
The great figure who brought flamenco guitar to the world was Ramon Montoya (1880-1949). He came from a flamenco-playing gypsy family and started at a young age. He admired Javier Molina and was influenced by Rafael Marin, who had studied with Paco Lucena and Francisco Tarrega(1852 1909) and published one of the early books on flamenco, Metodo de Guitarra por Musica y Ci/ra (1902).
Sophisticated arpeggiation, tremolo, and scalar vocabulary were well established by the time Montoya began his career, and he soon became acquainted with the playing of the outstanding classical guitarist Miguel Llobert, who inspired him to develop an imaginative approach to the guitar.
Montoya built on traditions and added new ideas, enriching the vocabulary of flamenco, and became one of the first virtuosos of the 20th century. Early in his career he accompanied many of the major singers and dancers in the Cafe de La Marina in Madrid, performing regularly with the singer Antonio Chacon until the late 1920s, and making recordings with him as early as 1922. Montoya had a thorough knowledge of the el cante flamenco singing repertoire. His sensitivity refinement, smooth, surging rasgueados and rhythmic suppleness can be heard on many early recordings from the 1920s with singer La Nina de Los Peines, on which he adds imaginative Jalsetas. His playing within the confines of the strict, rhythmically cyclical compas was exceptional, and at the time considered ornate and sophisticated. Montaya’s most important contribution to the genre was to break free of the role as accompanist and express himself as a solo instrumentalist, using tremendous scalar and harmonic invention, a wide range of textures, and the full scope of the fingerboard. He took the song-based melodic material and reharmonized it, developing flowing pieces with passages in open rhythm conveying a rich musicality. He can also be heard in guitar duets from the 1930s playing with a precise control, using shimmering arpeggios, burring strumming and graceful liquid lines. His passionate intensity and voluble individuality enabled him to break into the concert world, where he met with great acclaim in Paris in 1936.
Other key figures
Some of the earliest recordings of flamenco around the turn of the century were made by Barcelona-based Miguel Borrull (c. 1880 1940), who added harmonic sophistication to chord progressions and whose work influenced Montoya. A number of leading players were not gypsies; known as payos, they included Manolo de Huelva (1892—1976), who was established as a young virtuoso in Seville by the age of 18. Paradoxically, in relation to Montoya he was seen as having a hard, driving, rhythmic “gypsy” style as an accompanist. He enjoyed a legendary reputation as a soloist and was referred to by Segovia as “the greatest flamenco player,” but he was introverted and secretive, and did not produce many recordings.
Flamenco playing
In flamenco, the phrygian mode and harmonic minor scale are used as a framework around open strings, and function as a melodic and harmonic outline. The chants and lyrical songs that form the roots of the genre often have regional names, such as malaguena and rondena. Over time, these forms were harmonized by chords that fall within the flamenco framework to give unusual progressions and unique voicings. Rhythmically, many pieces are based on a cyclical twelve-beat compas form with accents in different places. For example, solea was traditionally counted with an emphasis on certain beats and groups of beats. This eventually became more definitive, with accents on beats 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12, or 3, 7, 8, 10 and 12. Siguirija traditionally has five beats and other pieces, such as tarantas, are in free time. Guitarists work within these structures, adding falsetas and improvising.
Rasgueado strumming, in which the fingers are unfurled across the strings, is a major part of the sound of flamenco. There is often brilliantly fast arpeggiation and tremolo highlights, and melodies played with the thumb. The thumb and fingers are used for up-and-down strokes and single lines. Golpe, percussive tapping on the body of the guitar, is also part of the sound.
Nino ricardo
Born in Seville, Nino Ricardo (1904-1972), a non-gypsy and so known as a payo, was one of the most important figures in the evolution of modern flamenco guitar styles. His first major public performance took place in Seville in 1917, when he accompanied figures including the singer La Maccarona. Ricardo worked with Javier Molina at the Cafe Novedades in Seville and as a teenager played with Ramon Montoya and was able to learn from him at close quarters. He started recording in 1927 and worked with many famous singers throughout his career.
From the mid 1950s, Ricardo made regular solo performances. His playing has a dark, earthy quality, and his unfettered spontaneity and fertile imagination make him one of the most gifted of improvisers. His rich and complex falsetas, characterized by interesting lines and beautiful voicings, broadened the harmonic scope of flamenco.
The many sides of Ricardo’s playing range from the passionate and rhythmically abrasive to the dark and ruminative, creating spellbinding atmospheres on pieces such as tarantas, where he plays with an introspective dissonance using altered scales with an Arabic flavor that evokes mystery and inspires contemplation.
Sabicas
Born Agustin Castellon Campos in Pamplona in the north of Spain, the gypsy prodigy Sabicas (1912-90) became a virtuoso whose style would define modern flamenco. He left Spain in 1937 for Mexico, where he teamed up with the great flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya to lead a successful company that toured the world and started to make remarkable recordings. In the mid 1950s, he moved to New York, where he was able to concentrate on a solo career as a concert and recording artist. Sabicas’ style is a dramatic extension of the traditional framework with a clean, polished, concise focus sharpened by brilliant all-around technical skill and panache. He displays an astonishing linear technique, faultlessly executed, and plays arpeggios across all strings, using his thumb with great flexibility. Many of his recordings, such as Flamenco Puro (1961) and The Fantastic Guitars of Sabicas and Escudero, a selection of duets with Mario Escudero (b.-1928), became blueprints for succeeding generations of players.
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