Bulerias

Hello friends! I´m glad to see you again. Today we have a toque that never can missing in a concert or in a flamenco party: bulerías. Bulerías is may be the toque more rhythmic, with more accent variations and energy of flamenco repertoire.

It is a festive and happy palo (form). It can be distinguished for its fast rhythm and its double-quick meter that makes it better suited to the jaleo (encouragement and loud expressions of admiration, through shouting interjections or gestures) and palmas (hand-clapping) than other styles. When this is the case the entire company gets together in a semi-circle in the center of the scene and, one by one, the performers come out to dance a section of the piece. It is often used to finish off songs in other styles, mainly the soleá, although it also tends to be the dance that finishes off any flamenco get-together.

Bulerías derives from soleá, and originally was born when the soleá accelerated its final parts to give emphasis to the toque. In this acceleration of tempo happened that the twelve beat of soleá became the first of bulería, because beat twelve is the closest accent to beat 1 (that hasn't any accent). So appeared a new style. In soleá we have:


1 2 3 - 4 5 6 - 7 8 - 9 10 - 11 12 (accents in beats 3,6,8,10,12)

and with change in beat 12, it converted in


12 1 2 - 3 4 5 - 67 - 8 9 - 10 11 (accents in beats 12,3,6,8,10)

However, the first structure not disappeared, so we have two main formulas in bulerías: which starts in beat 1 (bulerías al 1) and which starts in beat 12 (bulerías al 12).

In this particular bulería, the variation within bars 5 and 8 is bulería al 1 (starts in beat 1) and the rest of variations are in the second structure, and starts in beat 12.

I write the beats at the top of the score; I hope it can help you.
See you soon!