Flamenco Andalustani

“Flamenco Andalustani” … a new Flamenco composition for guitar and percussion.

Flamenco music is known worldwide. It originated in Southern Spain, specifically in Andalusia and originally came from the Romani people of that region of the Iberian Peninsula. The oldest known Flamenco is from 1774.

The guitar is the central instrument for Flamenco. However, even the Flamenco Guitar is specialized:

While it may look similar to an acoustic classical or folk guitar, it is not. Often Flamenco Guitars feature tuning pegs, like a violin, which will cause the tuning to drift slightly during a performance – which is completely acceptable. One other important difference: the Flamenco Guitar also forms part of the percussion section of a composition and its performance.

Not only are chords played aggressively with sharp, rhythmic strokes, but a Flamenco guitarist will also tap or hit his/her guitar to create rhythmic accents in the music. He/she will also snap the guitar’s strings against its body or fretboard. Flamenco Guitars are built to take such a beating!

In terms of melody, Flamenco is a modal form of music. It roughly follows a derivative of the Phrygian Mode (a scale based on the 3rd degree of a scale). The melody is also played with microtonal variations – in other words, it is not limited to the usual whole or half note intervals of western music. Notes are bent in microtones and microtonal ornamentation is added during a performance – which is also a part of the improvisational dimension of Flamenco.

While the above is a quick description of just a few of the dimensions that are important within Flamenco, there is another that is much harder to describe but quickly sensed during a performance: duende. This is the more mysterious and powerful way in which the music is felt by the performers, dancers, and audience – something that connects them all and comes from the music. It has been described as: “The mysterious power that everyone feels, and that no philosopher explains”.

This particular composition was written within the typical characteristics of Flamenco music. In this case, it features guitar and does not involve any singing. It also uses typical Flamenco percussion: hand claps, a Flamenco guitar, and also the cajón – a percussion box that can be struck in various ways to produce a prodigious number of different percussion sounds.

However, this composition also steps a bit into “Flamenco Fusion” – i.e. combining Flamenco with other musical genres and ideas. In this case, I chose to incorporate a few things from the music of Northern India – Hindustani Raga. Though one might not think so on first listening, there is actually an overlap between these two far flung musical genres. In particular, both feature micro tonality, modes that differ from the usual modes of “western music”, well defined structures, and extensive use of dramatic rhythms.

Hence the name, “Flamenco Andalustani”. It is up to the listener whether she or he is captured by its duende … that is something you will have to decide for yourself!


MUSIC INSIGHTS:

This composition uses a standard Flamenco mode which combines harmony in E major with harmony in A minor. The melody is written in a standard 12 beat Flamenco style (built out of 4 measures in ¾ time signature). It stays within the modified Phrygian mode and uses various forms of ornamentation to achieve some degree of micro-tonality.

The rhythm is provided by both the standard Flamenco percussion elements described above and also by the Northern Indian Tabla. The Tabla is played using standard Indian rhythmic patterns (called Talas) and synchronized into the overall Flamenco rhythm. This creates a complex pattern beneath the two guitars which are not only playing rhythmic chords in addition to melody, but also contributing their own percussive taps to the overall rhythm.


VIDEO INSIGHTS:

Of course, any Flamenco composition literally demands scenes of Flamenco dancing (known as Baile)! I’ve chosen scenes of traditional and more fusion oriented dancing for some variations.


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“Flamenco Andalustani” was arranged, performed, and recorded in Seattle in early November 2022 using Ableton Live 10 together with EastWest, UVI and Native Instruments sample libraries. The final post processing and master mix was done with iZotope Ozone 9.

At some time in the future, it will be released for streaming.

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