Originally posted by chris mood
Flamenco is based off a 12 beat cycle with accents falling on different beats...usually 3, 6, 8, 10, & 12. The accented beats would be simuliar to the down beat of 1 in European music. The beats are not always consistant, sometimes the 1/4 will get the beat, sometimes each 8th note of the triplet will be counted as a beat. Imagine 2 measures of 6/8 followed by 2 measures of 3/4...that would be one type of 12 beat cycle you might find in Flamenco. Now within those 4 measures approach beats 3 6 8 10 & 12 as down beats...sort of get the idea. Flamenco is much more exotic sounding then most latin forms.

Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. :) I have experimented with alot of latin (dance) rhythms by translated them into a classical meter sense. Like the rhythm you meantioned 2 6/8 plus 2 3/8's, combined to make 12/4. I didn't know it was flamenco or anything like your doing, but I would develop my own (I thought they were my own) like 3/8 + 2/8 + 3/8 + 2/8 = 10/8. Compositionally, I would write a piece in 10/8 but find different combinations that add up to such. Maybe a variation like 6/8 + 2/8 + 2/8. Even stranger time signatures like 15/16 and 14/8. The reason behind the subdivison was I had a hard time developing harmonic rhythm to complex time signatures. So I would break it up into smaller simple and compound time sig. and make a harmonic rhythm on each strong beat. So one could be...


10/8 = 3/8 + 2/8 + 3/8 + 2/8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 ...
e:--0-----1---0-----------------
b:--1-----1---1-----3----1------
g:--0---------0-----4----0------
d:--------3---------5----2------
a:--3-----0--------------3------
e:------------3-----3-----------


That's just a simple I-IV-I-V-I in a major key. But many variations can spawn from that, like a refrain from the chord progression or time signature. Maybe a variation in 5/8 or 7/8. Even retrograde on the preceding measure is quite interesting. The sysmetrically idea can either be predictable or extremely dramatic, since there are tons of different combinations of a time sig you create. I first came up with the idea when reading something on Jazz, I wish I knew where I read it cause I don't think I finished. If that's flamenco, then that's crazy because I had not been aware of the term until I came here. I came up with this years before that, although I had a feeling it wasn't completely original.

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 02-11-2004 at 10:00 PM]