Music is created by people; territories don't know how to sing. People with names and surnames. Streets and squares don't even know how to tune a guitar. Talented women and men who, drawing from the cultural wellsprings of their surroundings, forged the cantes, touches and dances that make up the repertoire jondoNo one has ever seen a village, hamlet, town, city, or province perform a flamenco dance. However, territory has always been the best excuse for many scholars of traditional flamenco to grant legal status to... cantes, Drawing on local traditions to give styles their names: tangos from Málaga, soleá from Triana, fandangos from Huelva, taranta from Linares, rondeña, levanticaTo use geography as a catch-all term to refer to the birthplace of a specific melody, of a canteAs if music sprang from the earth by spontaneous generation. Some people are thrilled by the certificate of ownership of a melody, issuing a title deed, the sacred scriptures of the repertoire. flamencoThe Bible in verse, indeed. And all because of the irrepressible desire to draw the line at the cantes. That is why it is so common for artists to adopt the corresponding nationality: Lebrijano, from La Isla, Linares, from Badajoz, Sanlúcar or MarchenaAlthough there are also those who prefer the patronymic, From LuciaIn my opinion, that's more appropriate. Even more suitable, in my view, are those that refer to the profession: The Blacksmith, the Shoemaker, the Shoelace Maker, the Carpenter, from the Forge.
It is very common to give styles surnames, in common parlance palosBecause of the location, which leads to multiple misunderstandings that are now very difficult to correct, especially regarding soleares, seguiriyas, bulerías, alegrías, and tangos—that's it. For example, someone decided that all the apolás soleares were from TrianaEven though their creators generally came from elsewhere, or that the variants created by La Serneta should be classified as from Utrera, Mercé being a native of Jerez. An impossible blunder to rectify, an irresolvable mess; let's see who's brave enough to unravel this tangle. However, the Malagueñas, since they have the demonym in the style's name, like the Granaínas, are usually named after the author, since Malagueña del Mellizo sounds better than Malagueña de Cádiz, to be honest..
Even so, on my platform flamencopolis.com I have dedicated a section to the geography aware of all this I'm saying. However, if you visit it, you can read how, in an attempt to map the territoriality of canteThe touch and the dance, I insist that it is important to keep in mind that There were singers from Jerez who created canteLevantine styles, or that there are Malaga styles of pure Cadiz lineageThis is precisely because it is the artists-creators, regardless of their origin, who imprinted a local accent on certain styles, even without ever having set foot on the land whose music, let's call it native, served as their inspiration.
"However much some scholars have tried to view certain musical features from a geographical perspective, not everything in music can be attributed to geographical principles. Music knows no territories; music simply is music, sounds interwoven in time."
The geography of flamenco It is, therefore, a thorny issue. flamenco It is not Andalusian folklore nor is it its popular music. From a creative standpoint, it is a folk art, a kind of art music, since those who create and cultivate it are artists—that is, musicians (singers and guitarists) and dancers. From a territorial perspective, a cante A particular musical style, and more specifically its creator, doesn't always correspond to a specific place. While some scholars have attempted to interpret certain musical characteristics from a geographical perspective, not everything in music can be attributed to geographical principles. Music transcends territories; music simply is music, sounds interwoven through time. Like that student who one day blurted out to me, "When I enter a mine, I hear the sound of a tarantella," and whom I advised to quit smoking marijuana. For example, with regard to bulerías, there has always been an attempt to link the accompaniment and melodies in major mode with Cádiz, probably because it is the mode typical of alegrías and other cantiñas, while the mode flamenco It's associated with Jerez, as if bulerías weren't sung in Cádiz. It's true that bulerías in major keys have a prominent place in Cádiz, but that doesn't mean they aren't sung in Jerez. canten, like the classic My lover is a birdwatcher.or that in Cádiz they are not interpreted in the mode flamenco (let us remember the Pearl and Camarón).
Luis y Ramon SolerEven while classifying seguiriyas and soleares geographically, they made the titanic effort to give each one its due, as far as possible, putting names and surnames to the creators of the most important repertoire jondo, and Chaves and Kliman they did with the cantes miners, Martín Salazar with the styles of Malaga, and recently FHernández Borrero and Romero Jara with the more than ninety variations of fandangos from Huelva. And they have all done so in an attempt to give each one its due. Redressing the injustice committed by the fans, and that Manuel Machado He was able to see in those prophetic verses: "Until the people sing them, the songs are not songs, and when the people sing them, nobody knows the author anymore." El flamenco It's singer-songwriter music. Mellizo, Frijones, Andonda, and El Tonto de Linares are true singer-songwriters. Credit where credit is due. We should abandon this nonsense about the seguiriya from Jerez, which is so popular with fans, and which politicians and journalists adore. Like that reporter from the newspaper who once called me to ask my opinion about the soleá from Cádiz, and I replied, "Which one?" Paquirri three are attributed to him (the quarter The variant is Apolá and is classified as being from Triana, the poretico Guanter, who in his twenty-six years of life, as far as we know, never settled in the blessed Sevillian suburb), Mellizo has three variants, etc. The journalist was clearly referring to what we call, following the Soler family, Twin 1But it was necessary to alert people to the injustice and, why not, teach those who don't know.
All of this is better understood if we refer, for example, to Antonio ChacóN, a renowned flamenco singer from Jerez who established his flamenco style primarily in non-Jerez styles, such as malagueñas, granaínas, cartageneras, and cantiñas. The Lame Man from Malaga, teacher canteas those from Murcia and Levante. Those who, in an early era, best mastered the bulerías with a Cadiz flavor, with their tongue twisters and virtuosic melodies, with their devilish rhythm, were Pastora and Vallejo, both from Seville. However, and this must be said, it is undeniable that if you are born in the Jerez neighborhood of Santiago you are baptized with the holy water of the compass, and not because there is a special air under the Arch, but because there is always Diego Carrasco placeholder image, guru of the catchy tune. It's clear that the way he sings Grapefruit The fandangos of his native Alosno are hard to surpass, and everyone knows that the cante by bulerías as he said La Perla Nobody in their lifetime will say it.
