What is Flamenco?

Flamenco is a particular kind of music and/or dance native to a small region in Southern Spain. Like American "blues" it probably has ancient antecedents, but as a distinct genre is only a couple centuries old. Not all folk music is flamenco.

Some classical guitarists view flamenco as a "style" of guitar playing emphasizing certain techniques above others and having a distinct sound. The misconception is that if you are working in Phyrygian scales and adding a lot of Am's, G's, and F's, it's flamenco. Though these progressions and scales are LIKE flamenco, that doesn't make them so.
Flamencos ( guitarists, dancers, singers, aficionados), whatever their own specialty, and for both formal and historical reasons, usually agree that what is fundamental to flamenco is "cante" (song),which is a body of several dozen forms with specific rhythms, melodies, and in some cases themes, performed in a certain way.

Flamenco guitar started as accompaniment for cante, and in Spain has largely remained that, no matter how technically refined it has become. The same is mostly true of flamenco dance, which started as an embellishment through movement of what the singer was doing.

Even the virtuosos like Paco de Lucia and the late Sabicas who are famous for solo work (and who play other music besides flamenco) would probably define flamenco in terms of cante rather than of guitar technique. Both started within the tradition as accompanists of cante, and were superb ones. To anyone familiar with cante, even their solos imply the cante from which they came.

Spaniards know this already. You say "flamenco" and they think "Camaron" (a popular singer who died in 1992) or "solea" (a song form), whether they like the music or not. Non-Spaniards rarely hear cante, and understandably have different associations. It's very important to emphasize for them that cante is central to flamenco.

Continue to : "What Makes a Flamenco Guitarist?"