Castanets
The castanets, or sticks, are a percussion musical instrument, made up of two pieces of wood joined by a cord. They were already known to the Phoenicians three thousand years ago.
Other peoples, such as the Egyptians, used them together with the sistrums and the rattles, a similar percussion instrument, in funeral and religious rituals such as the Sed Festival. Castanets were also used as magical instruments for protection against evil spirits during birth. Originally they could be elongated, straight or curved in wooden or ivory material and with some figurative motif.
Thanks to trade, they spread to the Mediterranean countries, such as present-day Croatia, or southern Italy; although Spain is the country that has best preserved castanets, developing their use, being one of the national instruments, like the Spanish, classical or flamenco guitar. Other countries where castanets have traditionally been important are Portugal and Persia.
Features
Traditionally, the castanet is attached to the thumb with the cord that joins its two halves, which are suspended between the palm of the hand and the fingers. To make it sound, both halves are clicked together with the movement of the fingers and a twist of the wrist. They also exist in the shape of two castanets attached at their ends to a handle that must be shaken or hit.
The tones of the pairs are different. The shortest is called male and the tallest female. The high castanet is placed in the right hand and the low one in the left hand. If you don't know how to differentiate the sound, you can tell it because the right castanet has a notch in the ear (top).
Castanets in classical music
The Spanish guitarist and composer Santiago de Murcia, from the Baroque era, composed variations for castanets on his jácaras, which were satirical intermissions. Variations are a compositional technique in which a theme is repeated with changes throughout a piece. He also composed fandangos for guitar and castanets, around 1730.
Around 1798, Luigi Boccherini, an Italian composer and cellist living in Spain, created a work in which the castanets are included, as they clearly sound in one of the movements of the quintet for crossbows originally performed by the author before his patron the Infante Luis de Borbón y Farnesio, son of Felipe V of Spain.
Wagner, in 1845, included —briefly— castanets in the music of Venusberg from his opera Tannhauser.
In the XX century, maestro Joaquín Rodrigo composed two pieces for castanets for Lucero Tena. Two Spanish Dances, for castanets and orchestra, premiered in 1966 at the Pérez Galdós Theater in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
19th century bolero dancers
The bolero school of dance has distinguished itself by the use of castanets and the movement of the arms. In the middle of the XIX century, the best bolero dancers triumphed in Spanish and traveled to Paris. According to José Blas Vega, a researcher at the flamenco art, one of these dancers was daguerreotyped around the year 1850. It seems to be the French dancer Marie Guy-Stéphan, who performed at the Teatro del Circo in Madrid between 1843 and 1851. In Spain she learned the bolero dance, and competed with the best Spanish dancers.
Castanets in the cinema
After the initial stage of silent films (1895-1929), the sound of castanets could be heard in the 1930s XX. Carmen Amaya, the most universal flamenco dancer, appeared playing the castanets in a memorable sequence from the film La hija de Juan Simón, from the year 1935. Dancing for three minutes, on a wooden table, in a strange place with Gothic arches, Carmen Amaya played the role of a malevolent dancer, who crosses the path of the protagonist Angelillo.
In 1936, Carmen Amaya was the protagonist of the Spanish feature film María de la O; dancing with castanets in one of the outstanding sequences, immediately before hearing the famous copla: María de la O, what a wretched gypsy you are having everything.
In the Cuban short film El embrujo del fandango, from 1939, Carmen Amaya danced with great energy. Wearing a bullfighter-style outfit, she began to stamp her feet briskly and play the castanets. At the end, a sign indicated that it was a Spanish film shot in Cuba. In 1945, she repeated her performance of the enchantment of the fandango, with another suit of lights, in the film Los amores de un torero , in Mexico. At one point during the dance, Carmen Amaya approaches the camera with her arms raised, in the style of a banderillero, but with castanets.
Currently
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Castanets are used for both flamenco and traditional Spanish folklore dances. In many Latin American countries they are also used in their folklore.
There are local variants of the castanets in Asturias, Galicia, Cantabria (Tarrañuilas), Aragón, Ibiza (Balearic Islands) and in La Gomera and El Hierro (Canary Islands), receiving in these last two cases the name of chácaras. In the Region of Murcia, the Valencian Community, in the province of Almería and some areas of Castilla-La Mancha, castanets are called "postizas" ("postisses" in Valencian) and are used for folk dances such as the parranda and the jota, among others.
José de Udaeta (1919-2009) was an internationally known Spanish soloist, as was his disciple José Luis Landry. Other notable names are Lucero Tena, Emma Maleras, Carmen de Vicente, Inma González, Consol Grau Melet, Montserrat Carles, Belén Cabanes, Teresa Laiz, Mar Bezana, Amparo de Triana, Gaby Herzog and Nina Corti.
Learning technique
Currently there are many professional castanets soloists. Six courses may be necessary to achieve mastery of this instrument and practice rhythmic and sensitive touch daily for an average of 7 to 8 hours.
Pollopas are inexpensive plastic castanets, designed for beginners or children. The best quality castanets for concerts are made exclusively for each client. An important fact is that there are different sizes, appropriate to the size of the hands of each performer. For example, an adult with very large hands will need larger castanets.
The first thing to check is that, of the two castanets, each one has a different sound (one higher and the other lower).
The high castanets are placed in the right hand and the low castanets in the left hand (if you can't tell the difference between the sounds, you can tell because the right castanets have a line built into the top, where the castanets separate). They should be placed on the thumbs of each hand, first the end that has the knot and then the other. It is essential that the castanets be well adjusted to the thumbs, but without excessively tightening the shell, otherwise the resonances would not occur.
In order to handle the castanets well, it is very important to place your fingers correctly. The proper position is with the tips of the fingers facing each other and the palms facing the body.
The castanet of the right hand is played with the fingers: little and ring fingers, middle and index fingers. The castanet of the left hand must be pressed with the middle and ring fingers at the same time.
The rhythm must be started with the right hand, cutting the last note with the sound of the left castanet. To get a good rhythm it is useful to know that the castanets are based on the various combinations of five independent elements:
- RI: This touch is used only with the right hand. Trying to move the wrist as little as possible, there must be four strokes: the first one with the small finger; the second one, with the ring finger; the third one, with the heart finger; and the fourth, with the index finger. The original touch should be executed in a single time, although beginners usually do it in four until internalizing the movement.
- A: This is called the blow that should give the left hand after RI. It is given with the ring fingers and heart simultaneously and is usually given a little stronger. RI-A is made up of two times: during the first the four strokes of the RI must be executed and in the second time, the A is executed. Another typical touch is A-RI-Awhich consists of three times
- PI: This touch occurs by hitting the ring fingers and heart of the right hand, simultaneously. It usually appears in combinations like A-RI-A-PI-A
- TA: It occurs when touch A and the PI sound together. That is, the index fingers and heart of both hands strike the castanets simultaneously. Usual combinations can be A-RI-A-TA, typical Jota touch in waltz time (3/4). The first A is played in the first time, then RI and A were going in the second and last, the TA is played.
- CHI: This touch consists of the shock of the two castanets. To do this, you have to take your right hand to the left and fold the two castanets. Following this, the TA is usually executed.
Examples of more complex combinations can be:
- RI-A-RI-A-TA-TA
- A-RI-A-TAA-RI-A-TAA-RI-A-TA-TA-TA-TA
- A-RI-A, CHI- A-RI-A-PI-A
- A-RI-A-PI-A-RI-A-RI-A-PI-A
(Accents are marked in bold)