Flamenco Guitar Music

Flamenco music has undertaken even more research than the flamenco dance. Today, the dance and flamenco guitar music have achieved worldwide recognition. For a long time, accepted as a professional art form. Flamenco began in Andalucia, where middle eastern and Hispanic art forms have fused together, within the Arabic and Spanish communities.

Flamenco was, and still is to an extent, synonymous with the Spanish gypsies. For eight hundred years Spain was a part of the Islamic Empire. There was a time when the gypsies were forced into ghettos, until Charles III restored their dignity, in 1782. Once again, the music and the dance spread throughout the population. By the early nineteen hundreds, this extraordinary art form had captured the hearts of a worldwide audience.

Originally, flamenco was singing and dancing, the rhythm beat out by the sole of the feet. Others would join in, creating a percussive accompaniment by clapping their hands together "Palmas". The flamenco guitar was eventually incorporated around the nineteenth century. From the early nineteen hundreds, flamenco has played an important role within Spanish guitar music. In the past it was seen more as an accompaniment for the dancer, today the guitar can be played solo, enjoyed for it's sound and passion alone. Many people, when they hear the Spanish classical guitar , hear flamenco. Not surprising, the two are extremely similar. Both these instruments have evolved from the lute, the lute emerging from a similar evolutionary path as the Arabic 'Oud'. Historically, the lute has been a kind of 'musical chameleon'. It was common during the early renaissance and later, creating a variety of music throughout the baroque eras. Like the 'oud' it has a rounded soundboard, but the neck is longer.

The authentic, sharp sounds, essential to flamenco music, can only be produced by a flamenco guitar. Being smaller and lighter, and only made of Cyprus or Spruce. A musician also plays in a specific style, evolved within the evolution of flamenco music itself. Strumming the strings of a guitar aren't the only techniques used on a flamenco guitar. They also use their hands and fingers, tapping the guitar to create sound. Over time, the guitar music has become more involved, the flamenco guitar artists accepted as serious musicians. For a almost a hundred years these musicians have been playing the stage, to ever increasing crowds. Modern flamenco guitar music is a little different now, compared to what it was in the beginning. But not so much so. There have been no great changes in flamenco music's distinctive sound. Nor it's passion faded over time. Today, the audience is no longer watching, they too take part in one of the greatest music evolutions of all time. The Flamenco!