The Soleá's Compás

Twelve counts, five of them accented, grouped three, three, two, two, two — the cycle several other palos take their compás from, played in the flamenco mode on E.

The cycle, count by count

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3accent
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6accent
  7. 7
  8. 8accent
  9. 9
  10. 10accent
  11. 11
  12. 12accent

Twelve counts, printed from 1; five are accented: 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12. Laid out from 12, the accents group the cycle as 3+3+2+2+2.

The soleá's cycle read three ways, each laid out from count 12: where each reading's groups begin, and which of the five accents land there.
Reading Groups begin on Accents it explains
3+3+2+2+2, from the accents 12, 3, 6, 8 and 10 5 of 5
In twos (2+2+2+2+2+2) 12, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 4 of 5
In threes (3+3+3+3) 12, 3, 6 and 9 3 of 5

Only the count in twos puts a downbeat on 8 and 10; only the count in threes puts a downbeat on 3. Three of the four downbeats counted in threes carry an accent, against four of the six counted in twos: the accents favour the count in threes.

Every accent lands on a downbeat of one even count or the other.

Read from 12, the palo's own grouping is the count in threes for its first six counts and the count in twos for the last six.

The alegrías and the bulerías accent the same twelve counts. Started from count 8, this cycle becomes the seguiriya's.

Played in the flamenco mode, por arriba: the home chord's root on the sixth string, which on a guitar tuned EADGBE puts it on E.

Counts as printed in Flamenco (Wikipedia, § Compás or time signature): 1 2 [3] 4 5 [6] 7 [8] 9 [10] 11 [12], the bracketed counts accented. Tonality from Soleá (Wikipedia, § Harmony): "Phrygian mode 'por arriba' (fundamental on the 6th string)".

The cadence, in E

  1. Am
  2. G
  3. F
  4. E

Four chords, ending on E. This is the key the por arriba position plays in with no capo; any other key is the same shapes with the capo moved.

As printed in Soleá (Wikipedia, § Harmony): Am G F E in E (iv III II I).

The soleá is sung slowly and gravely, usually to one guitar, and its compás is the one many flamenco players learn to count first. Several other palos take their cycle from it — the alegrías and the bulerías on this site among them — which is why it is sometimes called the mother of the palos, though it is not the oldest of them.

Reading the cycle

The grid above is the cycle in the order its source prints it, from 1 to 12, with the five accented counts marked. Printed that way, each accent closes a group: the counts run three, three, two, two, two, with the strong count at the end of each group. Laid out from 12 instead, the same accents open the groups, and the table reads them from there. Nothing about the cycle changes between the two; only where you start saying the numbers.

The table then sets the soleá’s own grouping beside the two even ways of counting twelve. Counted in threes, the cycle puts downbeats on 12, 3 and 6, and misses 8 and 10. Counted in twos, it catches 12 and every accent in the second half, and misses the one on 3. Neither even count explains every accent on its own, but between them they explain all five: the first half of the cycle is counted in threes and the second half in twos. That is what the sources mean when they describe the soleá as a mixture of triple and duple bars, and it is why clapping it as two even bars of six loses the accents that make it itself.

The cadence

The soleá sits in the flamenco mode, and its source places it por arriba: the home chord’s root on the open sixth string, so the page opens in E. The cadence below the cycle is the four-chord fall its source prints for the soleá, landing on the home chord. Singers do not all sit in E, and guitarists move the capo to meet them; pick another key and the same four chords are realised there. The cycle does not move at all when the key does, which is the whole point of counting it separately.