Accents [1] 2 [3] 4 [5] 6 7 [8] 9 10 [11] 12
Learn first Lesson 10: Six-eight time
Seguiriya (also spelled siguiriya or siguiriyas) is one of the most solemn and tragic flamenco palos, older than the soleá and sung slowly, with a lot of freedom in the time. Underneath the song runs a 12-count compás that sounds quite different from the soleá family, because it is heard as five uneven beats.
The 12 counts are grouped 2 + 2 + 3 + 3 + 2, with an accent on the first count of each group: 1, 3, 5, 8 and 11. Counted in five, that is short, short, long, long, short. Some guitar methods write the cycle as one bar of 12/8 starting on 1, and this page does the same, with one click per count. Many other transcriptions alternate bars of 3/4 and 6/8; in that layout the bar line falls on the fifth beat, so the cycle starts in the middle of the 3/4 bar.
| Pattern | Count |
|---|---|
| Accents | [1] 2 [3] 4 [5] 6 7 [8] 9 10 [11] 12 |
| Five beats | 1 & 2 & 3 & a 4 & a 5 & |
| Soleá count | [8] 9 [10] 11 [12] 1 2 [3] 4 5 [6] 7 |
Teachers count seguiriya in at least three ways. The 1 to 12 count with accents on 1, 3, 5, 8 and 11 appears in the research literature and on teaching sites. The five-beat count, "1 and 2 and 3 and a 4 and a 5 and", is how many dancers and guitarists feel it, and Lola Fernández's piano method numbers the beats 1 to 5. Others count it as a soleá starting on 8 (8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7), which puts the accents on 8, 10, 12, 3 and 6, the soleá's own accents. Studio Flamenco writes its standard seguiriya palmas this way. Use the count that helps you feel the two long beats.
In the guitar's basic rhythm, which the authors Óscar Herrero and Claude Worms call the llamada (call), the chords fall on the beats and the phrase closes on beats 4 and 5. Exercise 3 claps this rhythm. Singers and dancers stretch and compress the time for effect, and a danced seguiriya usually speeds up in its final footwork section.
Because the time is elastic, tempo figures for seguiriya are rough. One commercial flamenco metronome offers 100 to 210 beats per minute. Cante y Toque points out that the counts go by faster than in soleá, even though the five long beats make the music feel slow.
Seguiriya is associated with the old Gitano singing families of Cádiz, Jerez and Triana in Seville. Learners often shorten the long beats until the pattern becomes five even beats. Count every number aloud while you clap the five beats until the 3 + 3 in the middle feels settled.