So, I'll assume that we all know by now about Henry Worrall's Spanish Fandango, and how this tune is widely credited with giving Spanish tuning its name.
I can't help wondering, though, what made Worrall give his tune that title, given the rarity of Open-G type tunings in the Spanish guitar repertoire.
After acquiring a Portuguese cavaquinho and learning of the relative abundance of open chord tunings in Portuguese chordophone music, I began to suspect that some C19th Portuguese immigrants to North America may have been mistakenly identified as Spaniards and that this might provide a potential avenue of explanation.
It turns out that there are other possibilities. I just read a very interesting article from Early Music , Vol. xxxv, No. 1, 2007, Black guitar-players and early African-Iberian music in Portugal and Brazil, by Rog?rio Budasz. Budasz proposes that African musicians from the Portuguese colonies had imprinted their musical influences onto Pan-Iberian chordophone musical styles strongly by as early as the late 16th century, with these influences rapidly affecting the musics of other regions. So, although not common in modern Spanish music, it is possible that open tunings were known and used in Spain (having spread there via the Portuguese colonies and trade routes) at a very early date.
If you have JSTOR access, you can find the article easily, using the author, title and journal information given above. If you don't have JSTOR access and would like to read it, pm me your email address and I'll send you a pdf.
All this is probably old news to many of you, but it's been a fascinating trail for me so far.
I can't help wondering, though, what made Worrall give his tune that title, given the rarity of Open-G type tunings in the Spanish guitar repertoire.
After acquiring a Portuguese cavaquinho and learning of the relative abundance of open chord tunings in Portuguese chordophone music, I began to suspect that some C19th Portuguese immigrants to North America may have been mistakenly identified as Spaniards and that this might provide a potential avenue of explanation.
It turns out that there are other possibilities. I just read a very interesting article from Early Music , Vol. xxxv, No. 1, 2007, Black guitar-players and early African-Iberian music in Portugal and Brazil, by Rog?rio Budasz. Budasz proposes that African musicians from the Portuguese colonies had imprinted their musical influences onto Pan-Iberian chordophone musical styles strongly by as early as the late 16th century, with these influences rapidly affecting the musics of other regions. So, although not common in modern Spanish music, it is possible that open tunings were known and used in Spain (having spread there via the Portuguese colonies and trade routes) at a very early date.
If you have JSTOR access, you can find the article easily, using the author, title and journal information given above. If you don't have JSTOR access and would like to read it, pm me your email address and I'll send you a pdf.
All this is probably old news to many of you, but it's been a fascinating trail for me so far.