2023-06-24 07:57:25
Soon two great events will be held in our Region in which flamenco is the main protagonist: the XLIII edition of the Lo Ferro Flamenco Festival and the LXII edition of the International Festival of Cante de las Minas de la Unión. In addition, this Saturday a dramatized poetry and flamenco show takes place in Murcia, in which the collection of poems ‘Romancero gitano’ by García Lorca is represented, accompanied by voice, guitar and dance.
Flamenco, declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010, is no longer just a matter of tablaos but also of many research centers, where this musical genre is studied from multidisciplinary perspectives such as computer science, psychology, sports and even mathematics. . Next, I will show the curious relationship of flamenco with four scientific disciplines.
Flamenco and computational methods
Most musical compositions have their own characteristics that serve to identify them from the rest, such as their rhythm, their melody, the timbre of the instruments or the harmony they form together. From the point of view of science they are easy to analyze. But this does not happen with flamenco. A cantaor exercises his cante in the morning, but if you ask him to repeat it at noon, he doesn’t do it the same anymore, which makes it difficult to classify him. Flamenco is sung with a bang, with quejío, with intuition. This makes it difficult to find similar patterns between some cantes and others.
To solve this gap a few years ago, the COFLA (Computation and Flamenco) project was launched, whose objective is to focus the study of flamenco music from a technological perspective. The research, which is approached with multidisciplinary approaches that include algorithmics, mathematics, psychology or audio signal processing, analyzes how mathematical and computational models can help to study and synthesize flamenco music.
The COFLA project also offers tools for the automatic description of flamenco pieces in harmonic, melodic or rhythmic terms. In addition, it delves into a new discipline, Computational Ethnomusicology, which tries to analyze the music of oral tradition linked to culture, having flamenco as a fundamental object of study.
Flamenco and cinematic resonance
Rocío Márquez, a singer from Huelva recognized throughout the country for her groundbreaking version of flamenco, is also a scientist. A few years ago she defended her Doctoral Thesis ‘Vocal technique in flamenco: physiognomy and typologies’, in the Department of Language and Literature Didactics and Integrated Philologies of the University of Seville.
This thesis is based on kinematic resonance. People are like instruments and, depending on how the holes we have inside are, the sounds that are obtained from us vary in one way or another. The cantaora-scientist studied how human physiology affects cante, demonstrating how a cantaor’s body defines the way she sings flamenco. This is one of the factors that explains why the most outstanding singers in the history of flamenco have different sounds.
The tear of Camarón de la Isla against the round sound of Naranjito de Triana or the speed and precision of Pastora Galván against the strength and volume of La Paquera de Jerez are clear examples. Each of the possible ways of executing cante responds to the use of different vocal resources. But there is a common point: it is important to have correct breathing and the consequent activation of the abdominal belt. Both make it possible for the vocal apparatus to function properly, but until the air passes through the vocal cords and resonates in the head, the color of sound is not fully defined.
Flamenco and physical education
In the thesis ‘Flamenco dancing: a descriptive, biomechanical study and physical condition’ published by Alfonso Vargas at the University of Cádiz, it is shown that the physical demands of a bailaor are similar to those of an elite athlete. Using biomechanical techniques, he studied more than 150,000 frames, analyzing the arm movement, the turn of the heel, the stomping or the marking of the feet of a bailaor. His results not only serve to improve flamenco technique, but also to prevent injuries. Analyzing the footprint of a bailaor during tapping, it is possible to know if the foot gestures are correct and thus avoid bone complications, overloads, ailments and injuries caused by the repetition of gestures typical of a dance.
Flamingo and the thermal footprint
«Tener duende» is a well-known expression in the world of flamenco. It refers to that person who has a special talent, whether in singing, dancing, playing or playing the box. The expression “investigating the duende” is not very scientific, but what has been analyzed using thermography is the body temperature of flamenco dancers, observing that the flamenco thermal footprint is related to the activation of various brain areas, technical skills and empathic stress.
Scientists belonging to the University of Granada have used the thermal footprint of the flamenco ‘duende’, to differentiate which bailaoras “feel” and which do not. Using a state-of-the-art thermograph, the scientists measured the basal temperature at rest and the temperature of various parts of the body of a group of dancers while they danced flamenco and also while they watched videos in which other people did it.
The bailaoras experienced a significant drop in the temperature of their nose and buttocks (an average of 2.1°C) while they danced, something that also occurred, to a lesser extent (an average of 1°C), when they watched a flamenco recording. The results show how the thermal footprint of the flamingo is related to the activation of various brain areas.
Dear readers of LA VERDAD, the importance of science lies not only in the great discoveries, but also in understanding and improving our customs, traditions and hobbies. I hope that from today flamenco fans will admire this wonderful artistic expression through the eyes of a scientist… they will enjoy it even more.
#science #flamingo