Spanish pronunciation [se-gui-ri-ya]
The siguiriya is a flamenco style, tragic, strong, dark and desolate song, interpreted in a slow and compassionate way. It is a phonetic deformation of the seguidilla and one of the most important Flamenco palos. The words of the stanza (couplets) are tragic, and painful and reflect the suffering of human relationships, love and death.
Origin
Although the origin of the cante of the seguiriyas is uncertain, it is believed that it derives from the mourners, women who were hired in the 19th century to sing at wakes. Since it was a song of mourning, the theme of death was recurrent and the main source of inspiration in the lyrics of the seguiriyas.
This widespread belief has not been confirmed by flamenco scholars, in fact, the composer Manuel de Falla in his study El Cante Jondo, affirms that the `siguiriya´ drinks from the primitive tonal modes of Byzantine singing, sung in liturgies.
What we do know for sure is that the metric of the seguiriya is the sum of two types of beats, three times four and six times eight.
Currently singing is accompanied by the flamenco guitar, despite the fact that its origin, like the tonás and primitive songs, was the so-called `dry sticks´, that is, without accompaniment.
Compas
The siguiriya also called seguiriya or gypsy seguidilla is one of the most important musical forms of flamenco related to cante jondo and is normally played in keys of La in the Phrygian mode and each measure (compass) consists of 12 strong beats its 1st, 3rd, 5th, 8th and 11th comes what I show:
[1] 2 [3] 4 [5] 6 7 [8] 9 10 [11] 12
This rhythm can be contrasted to give an alternative to the well-known solear , which also has 12 beats, but with different accents. Turning on the unusual accentuation in the rest of the rhythm, that can technically be seen as a 3/4 measurement (counted in eighths) starting from its “2”, a 6/8 measurement followed by the “1 and” of 3/4. It should be noted that each note is regularly spaced apart. For instance:
[2] and [3] and [1] 2 3 [4] 5 6 [1] and
In any case, this displacement presents difficulties in counting and it is much easier to count 5 beats, three short and two long:
[1] and [2] and [3] and uh [4] and uh [5] and
In this case, the 1st, 2nd, and 5th are short and the 3rd and 4th long.
Strutturally, it is composed of four versions of six syllabus the first, second and fourth, and hendecasyllabic the third one. The second and fourth remain in consonance or assonance. The structure, in this case, is not rigorous, prioritizing the sentiment over the form, and it is not rare to find the seguiriyas with other metric forms (7-7-11-7 and 8-5-11-6). A less aesthetic form is the 6-11-6 structure, in which the first verse rhymes with the third, and it usually repeats the second verse when singing. One of the most famous singers of the siguiriya cante was Antonio Mairena.
Dance
As for the dance, it was incorporated much later, already in the 20th century. It was Vicente Escudero in 1940 who included it for the first time in cante, following its line of solemnity. The exit stands out, which consists of a long paseoíllo combined with dotted and lunges. Later on, bailaora Pilar López did a version with “palillos”.
The dance of the seguiriyas is structurally composed of four six-syllable verses, except for the third, which is hendecasyllable (6-6-11-6). The rhyme can vary depending on the singer since feeling prevails over the norm.
The seguiriyas are one of the most difficult forms of flamenco to dance and this is due to the numerous variants that exist within its basic form.
Some are associated with a particular singer, who gives his quejío and duende to the way of interpreting it. We have, for example, the siguiriyas of the Planet, simple and solemn; those of Frasco El Colorao in Triana, with a lot of ornamentation; those of Manuel Molina and Antonio Chacón, in Jerez de la Frontera, etc.
Dancing Giglio 