Flamenco Quote of the Day

According to Lorca, the "ghazals" of Hafiz bear the most striking resemblance of all to Flamenco letras...

My heart has been ensnared
in your black tresses since childhood.
Not until death
will a bond so wonderful be undone.

Hafiz/Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"Everyone is crazy about the latest novelties in flamenco, without thinking about the treasure that makes flamenco different from every other type of music...FEELING! Looking for new and more complicated melodies has never been the way to more profundity and feeling."

Pedro Bacan/Guitarrista

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

I have a green dress,
green as an olive, 
and a flower for my hair,
white as the moon,
and lips for loving you
that taste of warm honey.

Tengo un vestido verde,
verde aceituna,
y una flor pa' mi pelo
blanca de luna,
y pa' quererte unos
labios que saben
a miel caliente.

Bulerias/Alba & Manuel Molina

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

With just a glance 
you will understand
how much I love you,
and you will also understand
how much I long to speak to
you but cannot.

Solamente con mirarte
comprenderas que yo a ti
te quiero,
y tambien comprenderas
que quiero hablarte y no puedo.

Solea por Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"It's not a question of being taught how to sing. Diego sang with tones before he spoke. Antonio, his eldest brother, played the guitar by the time he was five. My father never let us listen to what most people call flamenco, which is full of rumba and that kind of stuff. I think that's why he took us out of school. School teaches you a lot but it takes things away, too. They made Antonio stand against the wall because he was always tapping out rhythms. They tried to punish the compas out of him."

Dolores Agujetas/Cantaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

You are brown and poor,
even browner than
the cinnamon that the nobles eat.

Eres morenita y pobre,
mas morena que la canela
que la comen los señores.

Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"I think flamenco singing comes from the first man who fell down and cried "ouch" ("Ay"). Then came the Ay Ay Ay Ay...I believe it must have come from there."

"Yo pienso que el cante flamenco puede haber venido o viene de un llanto... del primer hombre que se cayo y dijo... Ay...y empezo ya.. Ay Ay Ay Ay. Yo creo que eso tiene que venir por ahi." 

El Chocolate/Cantaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

I don't much like blondes;
they don't know how to kiss.
What I like are dark-haired girls,
'cause from their mouths come kisses
that take away all sorrows.

A mi no me gustan las rubias
porque no saben besar.
A mi me gustan las morenas
porque de sus bocas salen besos
que quitan las penas.

Bulerias/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

I should have cut
my rose that day,
pure, passionate, 
sombre-hued,
while the two golden
logs burned.

Yo debi cortar
mi rosa aquel dia,
pura apasionada
de color sombria
al par que los troncos
dorados ardian.

Federico Garcia Lorca/Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

They say I don't speak to you
because I didn't have the guts
to break down the wall 
your mother raised against me.

Dicen que yo a ti no te hablo
porque no terelaba valor
pa' tomar esa murallita
que tu madre levanto.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Whenever I look at the place
where I used to meet you,
my poor eyes begin
crying drops of blood.

Cada vez que miro el sitio
donde te he solido hablar,
comienzan mis pobres ojos
gotas de sangre a llorar. 

Andalusian Poem from Lorca's 'In Search of Duende'

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

When I pass by your door,
I say a Hail Mary,
as if you were dead.

Cuando paso por tu puerta,
Me dicen el Ave María,
como si estuviera muerto.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"If you have a **picado that is hard for you, you have to spend sixteen days doing it backwards; then, later when you do it forward, you will do it in your own way and much easier."

Paco del Gastor/Guitarrista 1987

**Flamenco guitar technique which uses the index and middle fingers.

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

The fountains of Granada,
have you ever heard,
in the perfumed, starry night,
anything more sorrowful than their sad moan?
Everything rests, in idle enchantment
in the fluid silver of the moon.

Las fuentes de Granada,
habeis sentido en la noche
de estrellas perfumada
algo mas doloroso que su triste gemido?
Todo reposa en vago encantamiento
en la plata fluida de la luna.

from "El Alcazar de las Perlas" by Francisco Villaespesa/Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

" A gypsy wedding took place in a bodega or courtyard. The girls to be married would put on frills, and lots of flowers and lace. Half of the choir would be unmarried girls, virgins...not like the ones today who take seven pills a week and are always "virgins." In the old days, they were real virgins, all beautiful, and in white dresses. On the other side stood the boys, who would invite the girls to dance. Before the wedding, the girl's virginity was tested by older women (from the groom's family) who checked to see that things were intact with a handkerchief wrapped around a finger. This was given to the bridegroom to keep. A wedding would go on for days!"

Maria Solea/Cantaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

I am so filled with pleasure
when I have you by my side,
that even if I were to die,
I would still go on craving you
for a hundred years.

Tengo el gusto tan colmado
cuando te tengo a mi vera,
que si me diera la muerte,
cien años la apeteciera.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"You can't look for duende. If you try to find it, it will evade you and you won't find it even at the end of the world. You have to wait for it to come to you... when I find myself with duende, I am capable of taking on the world...my eyes shine. You notice the duende has arrived when you begin to sing slowly, relaxed, with deep emotion, with a glazed look and your mouth tasting of blood. For me, duende is the pure essence of flamenco."

Juan Moreno Maya "El Pele"/Cantaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Gossiping tongues are saying
that you do not love anyone,
when I know in my bones that
you are wasting away with
desire for me.

Malas lenguas van diciendo
que tu no camelas a nadie,
cuando se por mis huesos
tu andas perdiendo carnes.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Miners must be lions
since they're sent down in cages;
they work among the rock
and die buried by it,
to give the rich man millions.

Los mineros son leones
que los bajan enjaulados,
trabajan entre peñones
y alli mueren sepultados
dandole al rico milliones.

Mineras/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

If the mother of my soul
looked up and saw me
as I see myself
she would die of sorrow.

Si la momaita mia de mis entrañas
levantara su cabeza
y me viera como me veo
se moriria de tristeza.

Martinete/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"When my grandfather sang at night, my grandmother would open her arms...how she danced with her arms! If a payo (non-gypsy man) appeared in the doorway, my grandfather would say, "'close the door, girl, for I don't want the payos seeing my wife and children dance.'"

Maria Solea/Cantaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Your love is like the wind,
and mine like the stone
that never moves.

Es tu querer como el viento
y el mio como la piedra
que no tiene movimiento.

Solea por Buleria/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"So many young people come out playing and devour the guitar. It is frightening! What happens is they don't know when to slow down. They don't caress the guitar. The guitar is like a woman. You have to show her who is boss when she deserves it, but then you also have to say, 'how beautiful you are'..."

Juan Habichuela/Guitarrista 1988

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

To console me, my friends say,
visit your lover's tomb.
Has she a tomb, I ask,
other than in my breast?

Ibn Sa'id/Arab-Andalusian Poet

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

Much art, very little noise. Very little art, much noise. 

Mucho arte, poco ruido. Poco arte, mucho ruido.


A common saying  used  by gypsies to critique flamenco artists.

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"Of course there are differences between the non-gypsy and gypsy dance. The gypsy is not as well prepared as the non-gypsy, has less schooling, which causes the dance to develop in the moment, more from intuition. It is more "salvaje" (wild, primitive, savage) and more influenced by temperament than by studied postures. That is not to say that one is better than the other, just that they are different. However, the dance that dominates today is non-gypsy, that of much preparation and study. If we gypsies, who are a privileged race, worried as much as they do, it would be horrible. We would lose that wildness that appeals so much to the true aficionado."

Curro Fernandez/Cantaor 

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

For the man who is deeply in love,
even at night in his bed
love robs him of sleep.

Al hombre que esta queriendo,
hasta de noche en la cama
el querer le quita el sueño.

Solea/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"Gypsies can smell you, and if they don't like your scent there is nothing you can do!"

El Cabrero/Cantaor

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

I don't want her to know,
she who was once mine alone,
that in my deep sighs for her,
life is slipping away.

No quiero que se entere,
quien solo era mia,
que en mis profundos
suspiros por ella
se me va la vida.

Seguiriya/Traditional

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

"I was born on La Calle Feria where everything was flamenco. There was Chacon, La Niña de los Peines, La Malena, Pastora Imperio...I can't begin to tell you. So in that barrio I cut my teeth on flamenco. I don't want to criticize, but these flamencologists who write this and that about flamenco today don't know anything." " When I was thirteen, I was a ragged little girl, thin and pretty ugly, although I was like a wild animal, a young colt. Then, later they began to tell me how well the flamenco dress suited me. How elegant it looked."

Manuela Vargas/Bailaora

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Flamenco Quote of the Day

“I would just as easily play for Manuela Carrasco, the most flamenco 
artist in the world, as for a pop group.” "I think that to do flamenco, 
you don’t have to jump on a trampoline. You watch Manuela Carrasco 
dance... and that’s the flamenco I like, just like that. I dance por soleá, 
you accompany me and let’s go. Nowadays there are really complex, 
really heavily rehearsed shows, but everything’s a little more fictional.” 

“Lo mismo me iba con Manuela Carrasco, la más flamenca del mundo, 
que con un grupo de pop.” "Yo creo que para hacer flamenco no hay 
que tirarse de un trampolín. A Manuela Carrasco la ves bailar... y ese
es el flamenco que a mí me gusta, sin más. Bailo por soleá, tú me 
acompañas y pa’lante. Hoy en día hay obras muy complejas, muy
ensayadísimas, pero es un poco más ficticio todo.” 

Antonio Rey/Guitarrista

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