Adrian's thoughtful essay, Flamenco and Decadence, again raises the subject of duende. I begin here with a long quote from Claus Schreiner's introductory chapter to the book Flamenco: Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia, Amadeus Press,1990, p.26--

"Even so articulate a flamenco artist as Juan F. Talegas was only able to give his questioner this unsatisfying answer when queried about duende: 'Nonsense!' Where did you foreigners ever get this idea of duende? From Garcia Lorca maybe? Duende, it's like a fever, like malaria. I had the duende only twice in my life, but afterwards they had to carry me out.' (Flamenco Studio, July, 1972).
"Duende has been called the demon that puts flamencos in a trance. But the very nature of cante jondo contradicts all trance theories. We know, for instance, from trance states induced by mediums in Afro-American culture, that a stammered singsong may be possible, but certainly not the intellectual-emotional exertion of body and soul required by cante jondo.
".....Bernhard-Friedrich Schulze has advanced a theory about duende which I find extremely useful. Duende, he says, is the agreement between an inner hearing and external sound. When what the cantaor feels in his soul and has translated into song in his inner ear, is identical with what is actually sung, he is overwhelmed with a feeling of achievement akin to a state of ecstasy. The same can be said of baile and toque artists. Artists in other genres have described nearly identical experiences. Schulze's views closely parallel Donn E. Pohren's, namely that virtuosity alone does not make a flamenco artist: 'but it is imperative that he have the ability to identify with the duende, who is life-giving, and to impart this emotion or set of emotions to his public.' (Pohren, El Arte de Flamenco)."

Thus writes Schreiner. I ask, is there a danger that the term duende has served only to mystify, rather than to clarify, the reactions that people have to a particularly "moving" piece of music?? I think almost everyone understands the phenomenon of "chills; gooseflesh" upon hearing certain pieces of music, or upon reading particular passages in books (though it has been reported that only about 50% of the population experiences these reactions). Some of this reaction may be purely a response to what Adrian calls the "excitatory" content of music--an example from another music might be the chills some get (I do) when listening to the final, whirlwind conclusion of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.3.

Something beyond the purely excitatory might then combine powerful, doleful lyrics to already emotionally rich music, such that we combine both chills and pathos--Jefferson Airplane's version of Wooden Ships would fall into this category.

Another category would then combine chill-inducing music with powerful lyrics, and then add a voice that itself trembles or quivers or radiates powerful and only partially-contained emotion--the siguiriyas of Terremoto or of Manuel Torres, for example. Even if the lyrics are not accessible to the listener, the conviction of the singer is manifest, and the power of the phenomenon is expressed.

What I'm attempting to do here is to talk about the emotive power of certain types of music, or certain moments in music, without recourse to the term "duende" but rather to get to mutual understanding of emotional response to music through shared experiences discussed in plain language. We can all probably offer short lists of moments that, for each, are musically sublime, whether it be in cante, classical music, rock, folk, in order to illustrate our points.

Finally, let's not forget that Edmund Burke discussed much of this ground in his 1757 A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.

Carlos

Carlos, I simplify duende as being an experience conceived by the subconscious mind. Unfortunately this complicates the discussion, because the great minds of medical science still argue how and what is the subconscious mind. About 30 years ago I had my first experience understanding the power of the SC mind. I had a serious jaw and dental problem from grinding my teeth. All attempts at appliances to correct the problem failed. I was sent to a medical specialist both an MD, DDS, and highly skilled surgeon. He checked me out and then took me on his office to discuss the matter. After a lot of discussion on what the problem was, he made it clear my only hope was to see an MD that was an expert in clinical hypnosis. He said most patients walk out at this point and consider his treatment plan quackery. I said no problem I am open minded and willing to follow any treatment plan. After just the first session, where the doc made the suggestion that I would wake up when I started to clinch my jaw and grind my teeth, it worked ... I did not get much sleep for days and eventually I quit grinding my teeth and losing sleep. During the day the SC mind generally is at rest and the conscious mind rules. The C mind does not give the jaw much power and not enough to damage teeth if one grinds them. At night when sleep ocurs and the SC mind rules then the jaw can clinch so hard it is impossible to pry it open without breaking it. This "paranormal" power can wear away the teethes enamel.

Now with that in mind ... the power of the SC mind and the way of contacting it being by hypnosis, I understand duende as described by the most knowledgeable IMO as being a "spiritual" or "paranormal" experience. It goes beyond just being excited and getting the feeling that raises your neck hairs. It is a real experience howbeit one that is rarely experienced. If one studies the palos that are best known to evoke duende, the Soleares or Siguiriyas stand out. Why? Because they can be very hypnotic, especially the Siguiriyas. The singer can "call up the spirits" or in reality induce a hypnotic state thus inducing a strange paranormal feeling among those that are hypnotized.

Now the theory concerning the inner ear. I have an excellent understanding of the inner ear function after dealing with an inner ear disorder diagnosed 6 years ago. My Neuro-otologist is a world famous scientist and he inspired me to do study on the inner ear and understand why his controversial diagnosis was correct. I have read many medical text and discussed them with my doctor over the years. Let me simply a complicated mechanism ... the inner ear has two functions, balance and hearing. The inner ear's balance (vestibular) system controls our equilibrium. If it malfunctions because of trauma, virus, other disease, etc., then dizziness, vertigo, vomiting , etc can occur and with true vertigo one loses all control over balance. The hearing portion can also be effected since both the vestibular and auditory nerve lay side by side and also because hearing displaces endolymph fluid. If the endolymph fluid container is damaged resulting in hydrops, then hearing as well as balance issues may result. Now how does this apply to hearing music and conjuring up duende? It is difficult to explain but duende is experienced in another part of the brain, same place where the SC resides. The inner ear only serves as a medium in connecting the outer and middle ear to other parts of the brain. Music is routed to the conscious mind when we are awake and the subconscious when we are asleep or in a hypnotic state.

Many experiments have been conducted using hypnosis to learn music. The problem with this method is while the music maybe stored in the SC mind, when we go to perform it, we are using our C mind and unless one goes in to a hypnotic state and connects with the SC mind, the music is nonexistent unless a suggestion was placed in our SC under hypnosis that we would remember this music. At times while awake we may receive flashes of the music because we unknowing may briefly drift into a hypnotic state. Have you ever dreamed a brilliant piece of music and then woke and recorded it? Many have reported doing this. I have dreamed great music and got up and made notes to read in the morning, but when morning came I had no idea how to play it as I could no longer hear it. At times I have written down a dreamed falseta in tab, but the next morning my brilliant phrasing has eluded me. Had I been able to record it, then I could have heard what I dreamed.

Quote: Bernhard-Friedrich Schulze has advanced a theory about duende which I find extremely useful. Duende, he says, is the agreement between an inner hearing and external sound. When what the cantaor feels in his soul and has translated into song in his inner ear, is identical with what is actually sung, he is overwhelmed with a feeling of achievement akin to a state of ecstasy.

The problem with this theory is the inner ear doesn't translate the song, this is done in other parts of the brain. The function of the inner ear simplified: Sound, waves in the air reach the outer ear. The sound waves then reach the tympanic membrane (separates the outer and middle ear) and the membrane's vibrations are transmitted to the inner ear by three small bones, hammer, anvil and stirrup. The stirrup to acts as a piston which displaces the membrane on the oval window of the cochlea (auditory part of inner ear) which displaces the endolymphatic fluid in the cochlea duct. Then the membrane where hair cells (nerve sensors) reside, resting responds making the hair cells transduce the mechanical energy into nerve stimulation (electrical energy). From the hair cells of the inner ear, the nerve "electricity" is conducted by the cochlear nerve to the brain stem and finally to the cortex where speech and sound are decoded. This sound may then be stored in our brains memory, either the conscious or subconscious depending on our mental state.

I am convinced duende is an experience controlled by the subconscious mind.

This may be of related interest

When George Borrow wrote his book "Zincali" he first showed it to the sabio of Andalucian cultue and flamenco sabio -Richard Ford.

Ford advised Borrow to "spiff up" some of his stories -that is, to exaggerate or "lie' a bit. Borow followed his advice before publishing.

By the way, as before mentioned, you can download Borrow's books (including Zincali) for free at the www.gutenberg.org site
Unfortunately, I believe the Richard Ford main work-full of flamenco and Gypsy-related information from the 1830s -"A Traveler's Handbook to Spain" doesn't seem to be in reprint

Nice posts, gents:
I privately undertook not to bore anyone further on the topic(s) I wrote about, but this discussion re duende has me worried. It is getting dangerously close to sliding into romantic, hippie metaphysics, with mysticism and altered states of awareness looming over the horizon.

My initial understanding of duende came, three-plus decades ago and within the space of one month, from 3 flamencos: Antonio Sanlucar, Chocolate, and Manuel Mairena. Of the 3 explanations, Antonio's was the only picturesque, metaphorical one. The other two were business-like, matter-of-fact, and they nowhere alluded to ecstasy or special states of consciousness. Chocolate said that, for him, duende was how well a singer interpreted the cante and expressed it in his singing. Conditions had to be right (I interpreted this to mean 'good atmosphere'), and you had to feel comfortable, he said.

Now, my Spanish was fairly rotten at the time (and now barely exists), and I misheard the emphasis. I thought Chocolate said 'the cante', implying flamenco song generally. He quickly corrected me. He meant the cante, that is, the specific song, the specific lyrics, and for the cante grande this meant being able to genuinely interpret and express the appropriate emotion underlying the specific lyrics. Instantly I was minded of something George Burns said about acting. "The most important thing in acting," Burns said, "is sincerity. If you can fake that, you can fake anything." So I asked Chocolate: "Are you saying that flamenco singers simply act the emotion of a song?" "No," he replied, "because the gitanos have lived that emotion. They know all about it. They know what the song means." There was no hint in Chocolate's account that duende involved ecstasy, spirits, or other-worldly experiences.

That accorded with what Manuel Mairena told me at the 1971 gazpacho in Moron. His elder brother, Antonio, was on stage, with Francisco hovering nearby. I figured that if these brothers didn't understand duende, then nobody did. What did Manuel say? That duende was simply the gitano word for certain emotions inspired by "heavy" flamenco cante (or words to that effect). "You can't miss it when it happens," he added. Well, it didn't happen that night. In fact, I was appalled by the audience bedlam that endured from start to finish. Most everyone in the audience decided to chat. Two guys next to me argued about futbol, another kept yelling for the soup, and on stage, trying to be heard above this racket, were some giants of flamenco: Fernanda, Chocolate, the Mairena brothers, the two Gastors on guitars, others.

By this account they use, in different song styles, alternative words for duende. Who had great duende? Billy Holiday had it. She had it because she had lived the blues. She'd been desperately poor, physically abused (possibly raped as a child), later worked as a prostitue, used hard drugs, was swindled out of her earnings, and died broke. Despite the many conjectures and uncertainties concerning her life, there's no doubt that she could express pure misery in her singing. I assume that the gitanos of old would agree that she had--or could express--duende.

But now it gets interesting because, if I correctly interpreted Chocolate's account, some experience of the dark emotions is necessary before a singer can genuinely express duende. What does this imply for the current generation of the young for whom tragedy is a run-down battery in their IPod or mobile phone? This relates to my brief discussion of duende and increasing affluence. Is it possible that duende, as it relates to flamenco, is a vanishing vestige of a bygone age, wherein poverty and misery were the norm? Will future singers merely fake the emotions of the cante grande? The best actor wins our applause? And, as a case in point, who today sings the blues like they did in the 1930s?

Give me that old time religion, sorry, duende.

Cheers,
Adrian.

Adrian, I entirely share your somewhat skeptical empiricism in approaching certain mystical, quasi-mystical, pseudo-mystical explanations and definitions of duende. Juan Talegas' dismissal of duende, as quoted in the book Flamenco, came as a breath of fresh air to me after reading and hearing for years about what duende was supposed to be, and being worried that, somehow, I just didn't "get it". You have supplied additional supporting testimony that singing with duende is "simply" the ability to sing flamenco with palpably shared emotional richness. And that it surely helps to have experienced some measure of personal grief and loss in order to be believable.

Carlos

Hello Carlos.

I must be losing it. I must be in the early stages of the big A, because I completely forgot about Eduardo de la Malena. I recalled the other three because they were flukey, one-off opportunities. But I had 2 lessons per week over several months from Eduardo, in the Alameda de Hercules, where he lived. After several weeks Eduardo said, during a soleares lesson: "You should stop frowning when you play. You can't show duende when you frown." Instantly I interpreted 'duende' to mean 'emotional involvement.' I replied: "It's very hard to show duende when you're battling to learn a falseta." Eduardo nodded and smiled.

So there it is, my definition of duende: emotional involvement in the cante, baile and toque grande. Of course, this could be refined to include the ability to correctly interpret and appropriately express the particular cante, but it's a working notion that leads to some interesting observations:

1. It's decidedly more difficult to express emotional involvement in a soleares or siguiriyas than in a bulerias. Anyone can grin during a bulerias, but few can rival a soleares unleashed by Fernanda;
2. The guitarist is unlikely to enjoy emotional involvement until he has mastered the toque and the falsetas it includes. His play must become automatic and natural, without him avoiding bum notes or worrying about where to place his fingers;
3. Almost universally, guitarists when accompanying are relatively impassive compared with singers. Why? Because the guitar is their face and voice. The singer expresses emotional involvement via his/her voice and face; the guitarist expresses it through his guitar;
4. If this be correct, the guitarist should strive to find the poignant emotional point or notes in each falseta, and use this approach to develop his personal style;
5. Almost universally, audiences watch the player's guitar and hands; they rarely watch his face. They focus on the music's source, just as they focus on the singer's face;
6. If you are emotionally inhibited, you will have difficulty expressing emotional involvement. The same holds if you are anxious before an audience. Many people are terrified of giving a public address, of public speaking. This is a primal matter of being the object of attention for many eyes, made worse if they are concentrating upon one's performance. Great singers like Fernanda, Chocolate and Terremoto evidently had few if any problems with emotional inhibition;
7. I've rarely observed emotional involvement by orchestral musicians performing symphonies by the old masters. Their playing appears to be purely technical: watching the conductor, reading sheet music, keeping time, etc.

You know, if we keep working at this, we'll hammer out a Gospel of the Duende according to the Old Bastards.

Adrian.

Adrian, regarding your points #3 and #7: I'm sure you'll note the obvious exceptions of violin and piano soloists (to name the first two that pop into my brain), performing with or without supporting musicians. Their faces are often fascinating studies of a whole range of emotions. The orchestral musicians have an entirely different set of concerns as they play--to not stick out like a sore thumb by being out of tune or out of time, to execute their tasks like (paid) professionals or dedicated amateurs, to not become the objects of the disapproving attentions of the conductor or their fellow musicians. No time or place for expressions of emotional involvement.

Carlos

I sincerely believe that to "call" duende a performer must be expressing their emotions from real personal experiences. Their emotions are received by others subconsciously as I have discussed before. My Soleares has improved as my health gets worse. Singing or playing without thought or plan (spontaneous and improvisational) comes from the subconscious mind. Nothing super natural at all, just difficult to understand.

Some more random thoughts on duende
1.In spite of Lorca's semi-silly article on duende, Bach did not have duende, neither did Beethoven. They had at (many) times reached the "sublime" but sublime is not the same as duende. But "sublime" is nothing to laugh at.I don't mean it is less than duende. But duende is closer to orgasm and so irresistable. It is in part physical, (Though I think when Casanova describes coming to orgasm when he saw a performance of danced fandangos he was either on high doeses of Viagra, or else exagerating)
Their music, to repeat my Nietzshean claim, was more Apollonian than duende which is more Dyonisian.
Here are two brief descriptions of the distinction:(Not mine-they are quotes)
1
Apollonian and Dionysian, terms for the twin principles which the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche

detected in Greek civilization in his early work Die Geburt der Tragödie (The Birth of Tragedy, 1872).

Nietzsche was challenging the usual view of Greek culture as ordered and serene, emphasizing instead the

irrational element of frenzy found in the rites of Dionysus (the god of intoxication known to the Romans as

Bacchus). He associated the Apollonian tendency with the instinct for form, beauty, moderation, and

symmetry, best expressed in Greek sculpture, while the Dionysian (or Dionysiac) instinct was one of

irrationality, violence, and exuberance, found in music. This opposition has some resemblance to that between

classicism and Romanticism. In Nietzsche's theory of drama, the Apollonian (in dialogue) and the Dionysian

(in choric song) are combined in early Greek tragedy, but then split apart in the work of Euripides; he hoped

at first that Wagner's operas would reunite them.


2In his first published book, "The Birth of Tragedy, Out of the Spirit of Music, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) set forth a novel thesis, that Greek culture was not so measured, orderly, and lucid as had formerly been proposed. The god Apollo represents the sort of Greek sobriety that is best exhibited, thinks Nietzsche in the plastic arts - sculpture especially.

While Athens in particular exemplified this brand of optimism toward the world due to the world's being orderly and understandable, there were undercurrents of something else remaining in Greek culture - the dark, the murky, the chaotic. The god Dionysus represents this side in drunkenness, wanton lust, licentiousness, excess, suffering and in the art form of music, of song and dance.

While the Apollonian pertains to drawing distinctions, particularly between individual things and individual persons, the Dionysian speaks to the obliviation of the individual, its/his/her being immersed in the whole, the group - "losing oneself" or standing outside oneself or beside oneself in drunken ecstasy (ekstasis).

Ultimately, concludes Nietzsche, the early Greek/pre-Socratic tragedians such as Aeschylus and Sophocles had paid the Dionysian side its due along with the Apollonian. Their dramas recognized chaos, the dark, suffering - in a word, the tragic side of life. The dramatist Euripides and philosopher Socrates attempted, however, to hold the Dionysian at bay via intellectualizing, clarifying, rationalizing, "explaining away".


Of course flamenco has both elements-the formal, expressed in compas, in the rigorous definitions of various cantes, etc
But there are those few times when the Dyonisian "frenzy takes over.

AS much as I love Bach, Beethoven Wagner, etc, they don't present us with duende
Nor, I am afraid, do Blues or jazz singers-not even Billy Holliday

Nor does duende in flamenco have to be the product of a great singer. One of my very few experiences of duende involved an early morning Diego playing for a little girl dancing, and Joselero singing. It was the situtation -the ambiente-that allowed the duende to appear, but it emanated (sorry for thd mystical term) from teh little girl (Who, in retrospect, I think was a very very young Juana Amaya) And y he way, it was bulerias being done not siguiryas or solea or tonas

Did she have "life experience" that enabled her duende- No, she was just a kid.

Neurological explanations won't work- they are still at the phrenology stage- just because a ctscan shows something unusual in some area of the brain, we have a long time to go before we can even explain how we recognize objects and distinguish them from the setting they are in, or how we deal with language,- much less are we able to yet explain "love" and "jokes" and "duende"

Getting chills and goosebumps from a performance, approach, but are not instances of duende. (I can get chills from Bach cantatas, but not duende)

The only time I find an almost constant and regular approaching of duende is in the voice and singing of Manuel Torre

Very interesting points Jacinto. Whether the little girl had a life experience that guided her dance and led to duende is questionable and since you were there I will have to concede that point. I feel life experience has an impact on the emotion we put into our singing, dancing, or guitar playing, and while this is true for me, may not be for others and may have no bearing on duende at all.

I still believe duende isn't a conscious choice, but rather something that happens that triggers the subconscious mind to take over conscious mind. This explains why duende can be not only a mental state, but also cause uncontrollable physical actions.

Is it possible to have a meeting of subconscious minds? I believe it is and this is what duende is and why it is so rare.