Sometimes when listening to a Bach fugue, one of Chopin’s nocturnes, or one of Duke’s suites, it’s hard to imagine that these talented composers had ever bothered to sit down and write some dance music. Yet a large part of their repetoire was music made for dance.

Bach had the (German) allemande, (Spanish) sarabande, (French) courante, minuet and (English) gigue (jig). Beethoven had sonatas, string quartets, symphonies and the vigorous eccossaise. Chopin had the (Polish) mazurka, barcarolle, and polonaise. The music of Duke and Count Basie was meant to swing. There were dances like the fox-trot, slow waltz, jitterbug and variations of latin dances. Paco, of course, plays flamenco. The very word flamenco not only implies the song and the guitar, but the dance also.

It’s interesting to note how much all of these musicians have in common. It’s interesting to see how important dance was in the creation of their art. The dance is such a large part of the fabric of human society. Our perception of dance has evolved and today there are more styles of dance than ever.

Try to remember the next time you sit down to listen to some Baroque, or a classical symphony, or a Romantic piano piece, a jazz ballad, a spirited tango or a pumping house track, that they were all intended for much the same purpose. They were meant to move you…literally.

Flamenco is a lot like blues where the form uses a repeating form over and over and the musicians create variations on the basic form. Unlike blues where the form is often a number of bars (usually 12), flamenco is built around sequences of beats.These various sequences of beats are the basic element of rhythm in Flamenco and are referred to as ‘compas‘. Each compas is a recurring pattern of accented beats which gives the regular pulse of the rhythm its movement and form.

These compas make up the various styles or ‘toques‘ in Flamenco. Each toque has its own characteristic pattern of beats and accents (its compas) and it also has its own kinds of key and harmonic structures. The toques have different regional origins and their names reflect this. The toques of central importance are: Soleares, Seguiriyas, Alegrias, Bulerias, Tangos and Fandangos.

Here is a video showing you how to properly count a Bulerias; one of the more popular forms. The basic compas of Bulerias is made up of sequences of 12 beats with accents on 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

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