ABSTRACT
Anyone who has seen flamenco dancing, or heard classical music favorites such as Georges Bizet’s Carmen, Claude Debussy’s Iberia Suite, or Carl Or’s Carmina Burana has surely been enchanted by the marked, fresh, high-pitched sound of castanets, such as those pictured in Figure 35.1. Castanets are clam-shaped clappers traditionally made of hard woods such as olive trees, which are hung on the thumbs of each hand to allow the ngers to create rhythms by causing the two halves to strike against each other. Although the castanets are visually and aurally compelling, and add spice to the music and dance, the rhythms produced on the castanets play a decorative rather than a central structuring role. e most important rhythm in nearly all amenco music is the underlying metric pattern used, or compás as it is called in Spain, which is o en played by hand clapping, and is always felt in an embodied manner by the musician or dancer, even when
it is not sounded. ese metric patterns play a similar role in amenco music as timelines do in sub-Saharan African music, and talas play in Indian music.
