defining flamenco
Flamenco compás — and why it’s the key to understanding flamenco
I have a confession to make. As a kid, I had this odd pastime where I would look at my watch to see the seconds count down, then look away for a couple of minutes while counting the seconds in my head, and then look back at my watch to see whether I’d stayed in time. Sounds nuts? Maybe.
A couple of decades later, I discovered flamenco, and realised that my addiction to counting seconds was actually my love of rhythm. And you can’t beat flamenco when it comes to rhythm, which in the world of flamenco we call the compás. The flamenco compás is key. It’s flamenco’s underlying driving force, its metre, and it’s oh-so-important —and can be oh-so-difficult to master. (more…)