Here we begin the last leg of our journey. A tour of our land, our culture and our people, a tour of the so-called Old Continent.

Today, we visit Europe.

The variety of rhythms we can find in European folk music is astonishing; we only have to look at its geography to discover how imposing its musical diversity is.

It's true that classical music was forged and developed in Europe but, apart from this cultivated genre, styles more deeply rooted in popular tradition were born and flourished, and they undoubtedly enrich the varied culture of the peoples of this territory.

The music of the Balkans, our flamenco, Celtic music, fado, the polska, the music of the Tyrol and the traditional singing of the Sami are just a few of the examples that coexist in these lands.

The various styles transcend borders, and it is hard to classify rhythms by location or based solely on the geographic makeup of a continent.

Different Peoples, Different Music
The musics of the European cultures are very different from one another, but they usually share certain general characteristics. Their form is relatively simple and is usually structured in songs built from stanzas. Although some repetition is more common, the most usual stanza type has four lines or verses, sometimes all different.

As for melody, seven-note scales, pentatonic scales, or the simpler scales of only three or four notes used in children's tunes or in the songs of pre-Christian rituals are all very common.

The rhythm is sometimes related to the structure of poetic texts, while accompanying melodies usually fall into 4/4, 6/8 or 3/2 time. In Eastern Europe, you can find complex rhythms, such as those of 2+2+2+3 beats, as well as meters of five, seven, eleven or thirteen beats, especially in the Balkan countries. The traditional instrumental music of other continents tends to be repetitive in its rhythms, a trait that can also be found in Central Europe, where complex structures are used, such as the irregular alternation of four and three beats in Bavarian dances.

Most of this kind of music is monophonic, that is, melodies without accompaniment. However, where there is accompaniment, we can say, instrumentally speaking, that it sticks to simple chords or, often, a drone.

Nordic Traditional Music
Minuets, the halling, the springar and the gangar are some of the most common styles of these areas but, without a doubt, the most representative is the polska, which should not be confused with the Central European polka written in 2/4. The basic characteristics of the polska are its mostly ternary rhythm and the accent on the first and third beats. In some cases, the rhythm is extraordinarily complex, similar to what can be found in the dances of the Balkan countries.
There are many local versions of the polska rhythm and many different dances of this typical genre. There is also a legend of the devil's polska, which I'll tell you now:

Legend has it that, long ago, on special dates or on the occasion of some celebration, all the young people of the village would gather to dance to the tunes played by the local fiddler. One time, in the midst of the commotion and laughter, the door opened and a strange figure dressed entirely in black came in, asked for the fiddle and began to play a very special dance, a polska. The melody and the way he played it were so marvelous that everyone began to dance without stopping, even after seeing the figure's strange goat hooves and discovering that it was the devil himself in disguise. The accursed creature kept playing that hypnotic melody for hours, without a break, until all the dancers dropped dead on the ground. Their lifeless bodies went on dancing until they turned into skeletons, and these tumbled down the mountainside...

The most widely used instrument, as the legend makes clear, is the fiddle. In most cases, ordinary violins are used. However, there are exceptions, such as the hardingfele, used in some parts of Norway, which has a set of sympathetic strings in addition to the four normal strings. Another unique instrument is the nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle). At some point in history they probably existed across a large part of Europe, but only in Sweden did they manage to survive into modern times. Other instruments that are also used are clarinets and accordions.

The Sami
Sami music is a consequence of a very harsh climate and a long history. The Sami have been a nomadic people for thousands of years, and that means traveling with only the essentials, so they have hardly any instruments but a great oral tradition. The only traditional instruments are the fadno flute and drums. Purely instrumental music is unknown.

The joik is the traditional Sami song but it is also something more; the joik is a way of remembering and invoking people, animals and things. The songs are mostly improvised, do not usually rhyme and have no defined structure.

In many cases, they are a mark of cultural identity through which the Sami people have rediscovered themselves after centuries of Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Russian colonization.

Some performers and groups of this genre are Angelit, Wimme Saari, Ánde Somby, Sofía Jannok and Mari Boine. Other non-Sami artists have also used this tradition in their music, such as Rinneradio, Xymox and Jan Garbarek.

The Celts
Celtic music is the name given to the traditional music of the Isle of Man, Galicia, Cornwall, Asturias, French Brittany, Scotland, Wales and Ireland; regions where the legacy of an ancient people survived who were decisive for the cultural, social and spiritual development of pre-Christian Europe: the Celts.

It is hard to know what the music of the ancient Celts really sounded like. What is known in our time as Celtic music is actually the traditional music developed in various regions and countries of Atlantic Europe that were inhabited by Celtic tribes 2,000 years ago. This shared heritage, together with centuries of trade and interaction, has created strong ties among the Atlantic peoples of Europe.

Although each Celtic country has achieved its own personal and recognizable sound, they all tend to share certain characteristics: a passionate love of traditional dance music, a marked preference for unison structures and modal tunings that lend a touch of melancholy. The most commonly used meter in this genre, though not as a rule, is the one with ternary subdivision. They also have a type of song cloaked in an unsettling slow air, performed by a single a cappella singer or in various instrumental combinations. Most songs tend to be about love, drink, patriotism or a combination of the three.

The basic instruments used are the bagpipe, the bodhrán, the fiddle, the flute, the harp, the hurdy-gurdy, bouzoukis and traditional drums.

Some of the most representative groups of the genre are Milladoiro, Clannad, The Chieftains, Dervish, Gwendal , Felpeyu, Tejedor, Filska, Llan de cubel, Luar Na Lubre, Tanahill Weavers and La Bandina.

Among the most outstanding soloists, we find Tomy Peoples, Alan Stivell, Liz Carrol, Alasdair Fracer, Kepa Junkera, Hevia, Carlos Núñez, Michael Flatley and Patrick Street, among others.

Balkan Music
The music of southeastern Europe, also called Balkan music, is a distinct genre from those of the rest of the continent.
The Balkans are a region that has lived steeped in war since time immemorial. Always marked by a harsh fate that placed it at the raw intersection where East and West intertwine, these lands have been the epicenter of ethnic conflict through almost all of their history. This area of our continent is a melting pot of peoples and ancient cultures. No one explains it better than Goran Gregovic:

My country is like a big Frankenstein, made up of many different elements that never quite managed to fit together well. And the same goes for the music of the former Yugoslavia; it's made of pieces... I've always been surrounded by very rich, ancient traditions: Greek, Italian, Bulgarian, Romanian, and I was born in a place that was right in the middle of all that, Sarajevo, the center where all those cultures converge... wedding music, funeral music...

We could say that the music is characterized by complex rhythms and intricate melodies. The melodic forms, the modes and the singular arrangements are very specific and different in each region. There is a great musical richness; the instruments are very old and yet still in active use, deeply rooted in their people. The rhythmic foundations are very special; it's a region very rich in rhythms, from 2x4, with its variants in accent and syncopation, to the most complex combinations of irregular rhythms, such as 7x16, 11, 15, combinations of 5 with 9 that are even asymmetrical in terms of the number of bars within a single song. You have to understand that this music was not composed on paper by academically trained musicians but by shepherds while they tended their goats in the middle of the mountains, and they didn't stop to think about what time signature, what key or what arrangement... Natural vocal and instrumental polyphony, with no prior musical arrangements, is another atypical characteristic of these regions. The shepherds can sometimes sing in perfect five-part polyphony.

There are many types of instruments in this genre, traditional and non-traditional:
horns, trumpets, lutes, psalteries, drums, cymbals, bagpipes, diple, zurla, kaval, ocarina, sargija, lyra, tamburitza and gusle.

Among the influential artists and groups, we should highlight Fanfare Ciocarlia, Maleshevski Melos, Boban Markovic Orkestar, Taraf de Haïdouks, Goran Bregović, Vlado Kremlin, Kočani orkestar, Gothart and Esma Red?epova.

Our Flamenco
What can I say about flamenco at the point this art form has reached right now?
Never before was flamenco so adored, loved, recognized, revered and imitated. It is, without a doubt, the most international genre of this country, and we owe it a great deal for its great work in spreading our culture.

Who doesn't know Morente, Paco, the one and only Camarón, the Sordera and Habichuela families, Manolo Caracol, la Paquera de Jerez, Niño Ricardo, Vicente Amigo, Los Agujetas, Gerardo Nuñez, Carmen Linares and countless old, new and emerging artists of this fabulous art.

We know there are a great many palos in this musical form. I can name a good number of them: romances, corridos, carretillas, tonás, martinetes, carceleras, deblas, siguiriyas, liviana, serrana, soleares, alboreás, polo, caña, peteneras, bulerías, romances, tangos, tientos, tanguillos, mariana, cantiñas, alegrías, caracoles, romeras, cantiñas, rondeña, jabera, verdiales, fandangos, malagueñas, granaína, taranto, cartagenera, minera, sevillanas, saetas, campanilleros, villancicos, bamberas, pregones, farrucas, garrotín, guajiras, milongas, colombianas, rumbas.

Each of these styles or musical forms has its history, its way of being performed, its approach and its heritage in some corner of southern Spain.

I would need an article to explain each palo of flamenco, and that, unfortunately, is not possible. I would like to say that a large part of them are usually written in meters with ternary subdivision, such as the famous bulería, the siguiriya, sevillanas, fandangos or alegrías. Others, such as the tango, garrotín, tientos or tarantos, are binary in structure. There are also many others in free form, where the performer is not guided by a clearly defined tempo or pattern.

The Spanish guitar and the cante (singing) are the fundamental pillars of this music, although in recent years all kinds of instruments have been incorporated, fusing styles,
movements and cultures in this form of expression that is enriching music.

I hope this series of articles has been interesting and enjoyable for you. I also trust that we have all learned a little more about the cultures and ways of understanding life that surround us.

When no one is watching me, like now, I sometimes like to imagine whether music might not be the only possible answer to some questions.
Antonio Buero Vallejo


A hug, and until next time.