Soleá

What it means

The soleá (plural: soleares) is one of the fundamental song forms of flamenco, a serious, stately “palo” with a deep, often melancholy expression. The name is usually traced back to the Spanish “soledad” (“solitude”).

It belongs to the serious core repertoire of flamenco and is sometimes called the “mother” of many other forms.

Musical use

The soleá’s rhythm follows a fixed twelve-beat cycle, the compás, with accents roughly on beats 3, 6, 8, 10, and 12. The performance may sound rhythmically free and expressive, yet this basic cycle remains binding for guitar, hand clapping (palmas), and dance. It is sung in short verses, the coplas, alternating with guitar interludes.

Musically, Phrygian-colored cadences and the influence of Andalusian folk music mark the soleá, to which a legacy of Arabic music is often also ascribed. Its roots lie in Andalusia, especially in cities such as Jerez, Cádiz, and Seville.

The soleá should be distinguished from the seguidilla, which as a folk song and dance in triple meter forms a form of its own, and from the bulerías, which use the same twelve-beat cycle but are played much faster and more exuberantly.

Performance practice

First learn to count and clap the twelve-beat cycle with its accents securely before you play guitar or sing. Listen to many recordings, since the soleá lives on expression and phrasing that can hardly be learned from notation.