Palos of flamenco part 1: Bulería
Bulería in its native environment is festive, improvised and spontaneous, and often features a large group of guitarists, dancers and singers taking turns. A bit like this:
That clip is partly staged as it forms part of Carlos Saura’s film Flamenco, but it gives you some idea. At a real juerga a bulería can go for several hours.
For flamenco guitarists bulería is always the go-to form for a jam, and what they will usual play if they want to show they know what they are doing. Every flamenco guitar album will have at least 1 bulería, more often 2.
The rhythm of bulería is tricky to describe - many books will tell you it’s in a cycle 12 beats with the following accents (bolded):
12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
However that is only part of the story - the palmeros (people clapping) tend to mark the following rhythm (slight accent italic, stronger accent bolded, no clap but a foot stamp underlined):
12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
If there is a cajón player they will often accent every 1.5 beats (thus dividing the 12 beat cycle into 8 equal parts). Guitarists will usually mark every second or every third beat, depending on the section of music and also where they are from (players from Jerez will often tap there foot every 2nd beat even if the music has a 3s feel). Another common pattern for guitarists is to tap the following beats (bolded):
12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
All of this, with variations and improvisation, combines to give a bulería its characteristic groove. Here is some buleria with Camarón accompanied by Paco de Lucía back in the early 70s:
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