Gut to Guttural: El Cante Flamenco

Throughout my flamenco education, my maestras, (particularly one very special one), have often described pure gypsy flamenco as being "earthy." They made references by saying, for example, "this tango piece is danced close to the ground, more earthy", or, "Listen to the way he sings, it's got a very earthy feel to it." But, as with any didactic material, the information would tuck itself into a corner of my mind in favor of the urgency I felt to learn the next fancy footstep, palmas, or pellisco. But then I would go home and listen to more flamenco music or watch youtube videos intently, asking myself, what exactly does she mean by earthy? Does she mean organic-sounding, since flamenco music is made up of basic elements (cante, baile, palmas)? or does 'earthy' refer to various flamenco dances which convey a range from playful to angry, to sensual, to earthy? Or perhaps she meant to say flamenco music is earthy simply because of its birthplace, la tierra de Andalucia.

Then it dawned on me one day as I watched a flamenco singer up close pour it straight out from his gut: Of course! There it was. In the depths of his pink, trembling throat, the sheer guttural force of his emotions called out. There, in the bulging neck veins pumping the blood of his ancestors. There the earth spoke. Primal. Primordial. Primeval. All that was pure, raw essence of human expression. Unleashed. Uncensored. It was no longer just a wailing call of the gypsy artist. It was the heavy grunt of a caveman beating his chest, demanding to be heard. It was the lusty cry of a newborn baby after being excavated from the womb. The deep trenches where struggle was given a voice. It was, in essence, the absolute right to be heard. Song born of the earth, fertile soil.

Raspy, throaty, guttural.

From the ravines down by the Sacromonte to the River Guadalquivir in Sevilla, the echos of the flamenco singers are carried to and from the earth. To hear the cante is to connect with the duende. You see, to be a good student of flamenco, one must understand the song. As my favorite maestra always reminds me: "Listening to the cante is as equally, if not more, important as your dancing."