How flamenco started
Once the seeds of flamenco were planted in Andalusia, it grew as a
separate subculture, first centers in the provinces of Seville, Cadiz and
part of Malaga--the area known as Baja Andalucia (Lower Andalusia)--
but soon spreading to the rest of Andalusia, incorporating and
transforming local folk music forms. As the popularity of flamenco
extended to other areas, other local Spanish musical traditions (i.e. the
Castilian traditional music) would also influence, and be influenced by,
the traditional flamenco styles.









Most of the people think of flamenco principally as a flamboyant form
of dance, in reality it comprises three elements, the song (el cante), the
dance (el baile) and the guitar (el toque), which serves either as an
accompaniment to the song and dance or, more recently, as an art form
in it.

Over several centuries, flamenco probably achieved a concrete form
around the end of the 17th century as an unaccompanied song, which,
much like the blues, was an expression of personal grief. The music
incorporated many elements offered by the disparate peoples who had
gravitated to the fertile and gentle region of Andalusia whose name
derives from the Moorish term for the area, Al-Andalus.