Caracoles

Origin

Los Caracoles, are included in the group of Cantiñas (a flamenco style with a 12-beat compás that originated in Cádiz).

The Caracoles, have certain musical similarities with other flamenco styles such as: Las Alegrías and Mirabrás. They are a baroque cante, that is to say, with some “ornate” nuances that allow the singer to show off, whose origin dates back to the 19th century. But we cannot talk about Caracoles, without first talking a little about the Cantiñas.

The Cantiñas, a festive genre, extended their influence to couplés, national anthems and proclamations, as well as popular songs, which were incorporated into the Cafés Cantantes (it could be said that the singing cafés were the forerunners of what we know today as tablaos). in the XIX century. With the disappearance of these Cafés Cantantes, these palos had a tendency to disappear and fall into disuse, if it weren’t for the fact that singers like Antonio Chacón rescued some of those cantes, adding phrases and melodic embellishments to them and turning them into exhibition cantes, and giving rise to the Mirabrás and the Caracoles.

Some authors consider that the singer El Granaíno was the creator of the Caracoles, as well as the one who introduced them to Madrid’s singing cafes, but other flamencologists affirm that whoever really made them great gave them importance, fame, diffusion, flamenco character. and constituted them as a style, it was the cantaor Antonio Chacón,

Chacón arranged them, putting in the first part pilgrimage intonations and adding musical details and parts of other Cantiñas, pausing their rhythm and leaving them as cante to listen to, despite being a style created to be danced.

Style of cante and guitar

We could say that Los Caracoles received this name from the chorus with which the cante was finished off.

We find reference to the Caracoles, in a song printed in the album of Andalusian songs entitled “La Caracolera”.

The cante de los Caracoles has a couplet that consists of a series of stanzas, with verses of different lengths. They have the metric of the soleá (that is, 12-beat compás rhythms) being characteristic of this genre that the guitar accompanies with the chord of C major. On the other hand, the baroque style of its thirds stands out, as well as the use of variations in the harmonic cycle with respect to those of other cantiñas.

His lyrics are usually funny and, sometimes, spicy, and in them the word snails is introduced, between verses and as a chorus. The guitar playing is performed only in C major, and the measure is the same as that of soleares, alegrías and bulerías.

Currently, some singers have this style in their repertoire, Naranjito de Triana and Chano Lobato standing out among them, each with their own logical nuances and personal intonations.

Dance

They say that its origin is found, the so-called classic snails, belonging to the group of stick dances (known by the popular name of castanets).

It is a woman’s own dance, linked to the Alegrías and the Soleá, with “round” movements, with the characteristics of women’s dance, more sensual movements, in which the hips, as well as the hands and arms, play an important role, which makes some very clear differences be established, in relation to the male dance.

It is very common that the snails are danced with a Bata de Cola, a shawl and a fan, so despite looking like an easy stick, I assure you they have their difficulties, having to introduce several elements at the same time.