The Melody Web what each genre heard, and what it passed on

heard passed on Click or tap a node to recenter. Use a connecting line, or Influence, for the story.

Heard

Vihuela practice · 1500–1600

Sixteenth-century vihuela books teach Spain how a guitar-shaped instrument carries polyphony, diferencias, and song.

Influence

Spanish baroque guitar

practice · 1600–1760

Also called five-course guitar, rasgueado guitar

The five-course Spanish guitar of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries: rasgueado (strummed) dance music alongside punteado (plucked) figures, written by Sanz, Guerau, Murcia, and others. It hears Vihuela for the Iberian plucked-polyphony job it recodes as rasgueado dance. It is a practice, not the later six-string café toque and not Tárrega’s concert guitar. Rasgueado as a drum-like attack is the gift to Andalusian popular guitar (Tyler and Sparks). Italian five-course guitar leftover as a sibling book circuit, not a second parent. French baroque guitar leftover as an export. Dance types (jácara, canario, folía) leftover as titled strains on this node.

Listen

  1. Canarios Gaspar Sanz (1674) YouTube
  2. Jácaras Gaspar Sanz (1674) YouTube
  3. Españoletas Gaspar Sanz (1674) YouTube
  4. Folías Gaspar Sanz (1674) YouTube
  5. Marionas Gaspar Sanz (1674) YouTube
  6. Passacalles Gaspar Sanz (1674) YouTube
  7. Fandango Santiago de Murcia (1730s) YouTube
  8. Jácaras (Murcia) Santiago de Murcia (1732) YouTube
  9. Canarios (Murcia) Santiago de Murcia (1732) YouTube
  10. Preludio y Allegro Francisco Guerau (1694)

Passed on

Andalusian popular guitar practice · 1780–

The popular six-string inherits how to use the guitar as a drum: rasgueado blocks, dance accent, chordal strum under a singer or dancer.

Influence

Vihuela → Spanish baroque guitar

instrumentationperformance practiceform and structurestrength: highscholarly consensus1580–1650notationpedagogyoral

Mechanism

Sixteenth-century vihuela books teach Spain how a guitar-shaped instrument carries polyphony, diferencias, and song. Around 1600 the five-course guitar takes the popular and theatrical job and adds rasgueado as a drum. Strength high for the instrument family and the print habit. Rasgueado itself is the guitar’s new accent, not Narváez’s fantasía texture.

Evidence

Milán–Narváez–Mudarra prints; Sanz (1674) as the guitar-school object in the same country. Tyler and Sparks on the succession of Iberian plucked practice.

Debate

Italian five-course guitar (Corbetta and others) is a sibling stream. This edge is the Spanish court-and-print parent. Do not treat the vihuela as a flamenco ancestor.

Mediators

community: Spanish court and urban plucked-string players

Spanish baroque guitar → Andalusian popular guitar

instrumentationperformance practicemeter and groovephrase and lickstrength: mediumwell documented1760–1850oralnotationdance

Mechanism

The popular six-string inherits how to use the guitar as a drum: rasgueado blocks, dance accent, chordal strum under a singer or dancer. Sanz- and Murcia-type books already treat the guitar as a rasgueado dance instrument. The café toque keeps that attack and changes the instrument, the song types, and later the falseta. Strength medium: the technique is real; the palo positions are not in Sanz.

Evidence

Seventeenth-century rasgueado notation and dance titles (jácaras, canarios, already fandango in Murcia); Tyler and Sparks on the five-course Spanish school; continuity of strum-as-percussion into nineteenth-century popular guitar.

Debate

A gap sits between Murcia and the café. Oral popular playing is poorly notated. This is not Tárrega, and it is not Andalusi oud technique. Do not read Canarios as a soleá.

Mediators

community: Andalusian and Spanish popular guitarists