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J. F. Lewis. Fiesta española

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First access to the field: research on oral improvisation. The poets in the Subbeticas (Genil River Valley)

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Manuel Blasco. Los verdiales

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Singing fandangos in a Peña

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The Fandangos of Southern Spain in the Context of other Spanish and American Fandangos

!!!!!1. Southern Fandangos !!• Series of verses (octosyllabic quatrains and limericks) • Usually according to the dance • Instrumental accompaniment:

A) Fandangos VERDIALES: guitars and other stringed and percussion

instruments

B) Fandangos de HUELVA: flute and tambourine • Phrygian scale (more on this later). • Ternary rhythm, always integrated in 12 beat cycles

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KNOWN AS:

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Verdiales in oriental Andalucía

Fandangos in Huelva

Malagueñas in the area of Murcia

Rondeñas, fandangos and malagueñas in Castilia (even

Gredos),

Malagueñas in the Canary Islands

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!!!!!!!Its popularity was what motivated musicians like Albéniz, Ernesto Lecuona Sarasate and so on, to compose their artistic malagueñas !!And also, that popularity motivated the emergence of many flamenco malagueñas and other songs of the same type or family, such as granadinas, tarantas, fandangos, and rondeñas. !!

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!2. The “other fandangos”. !But, there were other types of music called fandangos, that did not follow the characteristic musical form of the South’s fandangos. e.g. in Spain, México, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Panama… !Why does the same word, fandangos, designate diverse musical realities? Looking at musical features alone does not provide the answer (although there do exist some common musical features). !There always appears a common element in which all fandangos coincide. This may not be in the musical form alone, but in the fact that all these songs are linked, maybe in the past, to a specific type of dance, danced in specific kinds of festive gatherings. Almost always involving dancing couples.

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First Conclusion: !Although fandangos colloquially referred to the type of gathering (dance parties), through a process of semantic reduction - a metonymic type of reduction - it ended up referring to the musical component of the gathering. !The process of metonymy seems to be ancient, and would have begun even when these parties started to lose popularity, even in the first half of XIX century, if not before, (according to place).

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!!So what is the best way to investigate the connections between fandango music in Spain and fandango music in America? !The way I follow and propose here is: !Expand the comparative frame to something more that the South’s fandangos. !Thus, in Spain, the three most typical generic designations for traditional couple dances are fandangos, jotas and seguidillas, and any of these could have influenced fandango music in America

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Jotas, seguidillas, and fandangos as “fandango music”. Common traits

• They are sung in couplets, a solo + orchestral accompaniments, for dances with couples.

!• A “popular orchestra”, with string predominance, highlighting the

strummed guitar family; percussion instruments like tambourine, castanets, and other home instruments.

!• A similar structure: Instrumental introduction/ couplet /

instrumental interlude/ couplet/ instrumental interlude… sung and danced in sessions with an undetermined number of couplets. Predominance of instrumental choruses (interludes), rarely sung.

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Jotas, seguidillas, and fandangos as “fandangos music”. Common traits

• Ternary rhythm, integrated almost invariably in harmonic rhythmic cycles of 6 or 12 times, this is an idiomatic constant in this whole repertoire of dances. Not so frequent the alternating cycle of 12 times 3+3+2+2+2, although the prosody of the octosyllabic verse -very common in this type of music - contains in itself the tendency to that rhythmic structuring.

• Our hypothesis is: this trend merged historically in America, maybe by the interaction with the arrived rhythms from African musical culture. And this evolutionary process influenced Spain since the beginning of colonial times, and it could be traced in the musical pieces of dance since the end of 16th century: Canarios, Zarabands Chaconas…

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Jotas, seguidillas, and fandangos as “fandangos music”. Common traits

• • Sung in octosyllabic quatrains and limericks, the seguidillas are sung in the seguidilla's quatrain.

!• The predominant musical modes: !• Mi mode or Phrygian sonority in southern fandangos; • lonic mode (or the C mode, or major scale) and the • Eolian mode (or the A mode or minor scale). !(Almost no presence of the Mixolydian mode, or G mode, nowadays

hardly any is present in the Spanish traditional music). !!

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Recreation of the festive contexts of those parties, according to testimonials of old partiers. The customs nowadays: partly disappeared or very evolved, but his ritual continued (more or less) popular, in rural zones in the south of Spain, until the sixties of 20th century. !!That ritual coincides in its main traces with the ritual described in the ancient texts about the dances of candil in the 19th century (Afán de Ribera, Estébanez Calderón and a long etcetera). And even in the late 18th (José Blanco White, José Cadalso and others). !!

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Social conventions !!

On weekends –Saturdays in the afternoon/night-, or on special specific dates of every community. In this case, with a ritual more complex.

The place: private houses or in common places: small squares, courtyards...

They were the main occasions to initiate or reinforce the relationships between young women and men. They, men and women used to be located in separated areas. Some specific ways through which men asked women for a dance.

Many couplets: improvised, depending on events of the parties. Frequently, ending the dance, parties tended to continue with clashes of improvised couplets.

Always, some sorts of symbolic authority for every occasion, according to the traditions of every place. However, fights were frequent, mainly prompted by jealousies.

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These parties were one of the main environments, along with the theatrical ones, where flamenco emerged, particularly in some cities of the southern of Spain. !So, flamenco, especially in its early stages, inherited from fandangos not only the music, but some sort of ritual conventions taking place in old flamenco parties. As the 19th century progressed, those environments were becoming more theatrical, conquering new scenarios

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3. The American fandango !Which of these musical and ritual characteristics – that we have just outlined here - have I found in American fandangos? !As shown in the preliminary program: What are some of the shared formal features—musical, choreographic, or lyric—that can be discerned in the diverse constituents of the fandango family in Spain and the Americas? What is the genealogy of the fandango’s rhythm, verse, melodic structures, and improvisational syntax? !We cannot solve, of course, all these questions, but some issues may be illuminated through the linking of some musical, historical and ethnographic data.

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JácaraEl fandanguito

Joropo

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Guárdame… Aguilandos Polo

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Zarabanda Galerón Jarabe loco

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CONCLUSIONS

Spanish and American fandangos, although presenting significant differences, maintain many commonalities, both music and ritual. !Both: are linked, directly or indirectly, to the dance. !Many Americans Fandangos are based in rhythmic-harmonic structures similar to some dance variations of Spanish Baroque dance. !Over a ternary rhythmic base integrated in cycles of 6 or 12, soloists sing a free line “modal melody type”, guided by the underlying harmonic rhythm. The 12 hemiolas are very common in American fandango, which demonstrates a greater rhythmic complexity.

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CONCLUSIONSMany Americans fandangos: interesting similarities with Dance Music Spanish Baroque. Two idiosyncratic sonorities stand out: !Ambivalence / minor and Phrygian (Guárdame las vacas in late 15th and 16th century, 17th century Jácaras, 18th century Fandangos) !Ambivalence major / mixolydian (zarabandas, chaconas, zarambeques, cumbés, canarios, jácaras de la costa). This is very abundant in the American fandango. In Spain, it practically does not appear in any traditional popular music except in some romances, dance tunes such as fandango parao in Alosno, Huelva and some others. Also in the medieval music of the Cantigas de Santa María (Cantigas 29 and 383 for ex.). !Hypothesis about mixolydian mode: in Spain has been subsumed in the major sonoritie, whereas their American relatives have developed, perhaps due to the influence of African and American sounds. .

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CONCLUSIONS

Other continuities between Spanish and American fandango: not between the Southern Spanish and American fandango (we only know the case of the Malagueña from Margaret Island), but between the traditional music of dancing couples from both sides of the Atlantic. !The introduction/lyric/interlude/lyric/interlude structure, !The strophic forms of the songs, !The importance of the little orchestra filled with plucked and strummed strings (and harp in some American regions)… !All stand out as similarities.

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CONCLUSIONS

Also the performances include the same importance of lyrical improvisation. This characteristic has remained prevalent in American countries, most prevalent within the décima. !Notable differences: the increased presence of the floorboards, the footwork, the outfits and scarves ... in American dances, but this deserves its own distinct detailed study.

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CONCLUSIONSRitual: interesting connections between fandangos from both sides of Atlantic: !Certain commonalities between the ritual of Spanish and American fandangos also show the interesting cultural continuities in the general festive ethos. Paraphrasing Gessica Gottfried (2009), we recognize that both are - or were - a festive ritual of integration. This statement would demand, logically, a more in-depth analysis, but it still highlights certain continuities from readings or particular chronic parties. !Personally, from the prior knowledge we had of the fandango in southern Spain, we have seen it in the case of Mexico, and specifically the jarochos fandangos, of which we have had munch more opportunity to read. !