Compás: Four Palos, Counted

Four palos, each laid out as the cycle of counts its sources print: where the accents fall, how the cycle groups, which palos share one, and the cadence each comes home on.

The four palos, counted

Each declared palo, counted: its accents, the grouping they make read from count 12, how many accents each even count explains, and the key its position opens in.
Palo Accented counts Grouping In twos In threes Neither explains Opens in
Soleá 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12 3+3+2+2+2 4 of 5 3 of 5 none E, por arriba
Alegrías 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12 3+3+2+2+2 4 of 5 3 of 5 none E, por arriba
Bulerías 12, 3, 6, 8 and 10 3+3+2+2+2 4 of 5 3 of 5 none A, por medio
Seguiriya 12, 2, 4, 7 and 10 2+2+3+3+2 4 of 5 1 of 5 7 A, por medio

Which palos share a cycle

The soleá, the alegrías and the bulerías accent the same twelve counts, and differ in where their sources start counting, in mode and in position.

The seguiriya's accents are those of the soleá, the alegrías and the bulerías, started from their count 8.

Read one palo

The Soleá's Compás

Twelve counts, five accents, the flamenco mode on E: the cycle the alegrías and the bulerías share.

12 counts · 3+3+2+2+2 · E

The Alegrías' Compás

The soleá's cycle, accent for accent, in a major key: the cadence moves between tonic and dominant.

12 counts · 3+3+2+2+2 · E

The Bulerías' Compás

The soleá's accents counted from 12, in the flamenco mode on A — with a second printed form that moves one accent.

12 counts · 3+3+2+2+2 · A

The Seguiriya's Compás

Twelve counts in five uneven beats, in the flamenco mode on A: the soleá's accents, started from its count 8.

12 counts · 2+2+3+3+2 · A

A palo is one of flamenco’s forms, and every palo runs on a compás: a cycle of counts that repeats under the whole performance, with a handful of those counts accented. Singer, guitarist, clappers and dancer all keep the same cycle, and knowing which counts are accented is most of what it means to know where you are in it. This page lays out the four palos this site declares, each exactly as a published source prints it, and reads each cycle the same way.

How a cycle is read here

Every cycle on these pages has twelve counts, and every one of them is laid out from its count 12 — the count several sources say a palo starts on, and a count all four of these palos accent. Read from there, the accents divide the cycle into groups, and the groups are the palo’s own way of counting it: three, three, two, two, two for some palos, two, two, three, three, two for another. That grouping is then set beside the two even ways of counting twelve — in twos, as six groups of two, and in threes, as four groups of three — to see which accents each even count explains, which it misses, and whether any accent is left that neither explains.

None of that is typed by hand. Each palo declares only what its source prints: how many counts, the count its source starts from, which counts are accented, the mode and the position it is played in, and its cadence as steps of the scale. Everything else on these pages — the grouping, the readings, which palos share a cycle, the key a palo opens in and the chords of its cadence in any key — is worked out from those declarations and checked again by an independent test before the site can ship.

What is not here, and why

The tangos is not declared. It is one of the most played palos of all, but the sources checked for this site disagree about which of its four counts carry the accent, and a page that picked one without a source to stand on would be inventing the thing it claims to report. The same rule keeps every other palo off this page until its cycle can be read from a published source.

Nothing here teaches the strumming hand, and nothing explains why the flamenco mode or its falling cadence sounds the way it does — that belongs to the network’s theory and instrument sites. This page is about the count: where the cycle starts, where it is accented, and where it comes home.