C add9 on the Flamenco Guitar

Every C add9 shape a guitar tuned EADGBE can reach, and what the toque does with it while the cycle of counts goes round.

C add9 spells C – D – E – G. In flamenco a chord lives inside a compás, a fixed cycle of counts: it is struck on the counts the palo accents and carried through the counts between, so the question a player asks of a grip is how long it can hold and where it lands.

The guitar is the toque: the toque: it states the compás, marks the accents with the strumming hand, and closes each cycle on the chord the palo comes home to. A grip below is held for a run of counts rather than a bar — the strumming hand sounds it harder on the accented counts and lighter between them, so one shape can carry most of a cycle.

Drawn for EADGBE across 6 strings, the tuning a nylon-strung guitar shares with a steel-strung one: open grips first, movable ones up the neck, a play button under each.