Travel Guide
The Spanish guitar
If one sound belongs to Andalusia, it is the guitar — the storm of the flamenco toque in a Sacromonte cave, or the singing clarity of a classical recital. Both traditions were shaped, in large part, here in the south, and both changed music around the world. For a cultural traveller staying near Cortijo Bujio, the guitar is a thread that runs through the whole region.
The guitar's deep roots reach back into Al-Andalus itself. The Moors brought the oud, the Arab lute, to Spain, where over centuries it mingled with European stringed instruments; out of that long meeting, in Andalusian workshops, the modern Spanish guitar eventually took shape. Whatever its exact genealogy, the guitar became, more than anywhere else, the voice of the Spanish south.
In flamenco, the guitar — the toque — is one of the three pillars, alongside the song (cante) and the dance (baile). Born in Andalusia from the fusion of Roma, Moorish, Jewish and local traditions, flamenco guitar is a world of its own: thunderous rasgueado strumming, dazzling runs, and a rhythmic drive (compás) that can lift a whole cave to its feet. Granada has its own flamenco flavour — the zambra of the Sacromonte — and to hear a great guitarist accompany a raw voice there is to understand the Andalusian soul. (See our guide to flamenco & the Sacromonte.)
The other great story is classical. Andrés Segovia was born in 1893 in Linares, in the neighbouring province of Jaén — an Andalusian, and, remarkably, entirely self-taught. Almost single-handedly, over a career spanning seven decades, he lifted the guitar from a salon curiosity to a respected instrument of the concert hall, developing a technique and tone that set the standard for the 20th century, commissioning new works, and transcribing Bach, Handel and Scarlatti for solo guitar. The father of the modern classical guitar was, fittingly, later made Marqués de Salobreña — after the white town on Granada's own coast. (See our guide to the Costa Tropical.)
It is a rare thing for one corner of the world to give music both the fire of flamenco and the founder of the modern classical guitar. Both grew from the same Andalusian soil — the same instrument, turned in one direction toward raw emotion and improvisation, in the other toward refinement and the concert stage. Listening to either, here, you are hearing the sound of the land around you.
Is the guitar really Andalusian? Its roots run deep here: the Moors brought the oud to Spain, and the modern Spanish guitar took shape in Andalusian workshops. Both flamenco and the modern classical guitar were shaped largely in the south.
Who was Andrés Segovia? The self-taught Andalusian guitarist (born 1893 in Linares, Jaén) who turned the classical guitar into a concert instrument in the 20th century — the father of the modern classical guitar, later Marqués de Salobreña.
What is the flamenco toque? The guitar-playing of flamenco — one of its three pillars alongside song and dance — full of driving rhythm, strumming and virtuoso runs, born in Andalusia.
Where can I hear guitar near Cortijo Bujio? In a Sacromonte cave in Granada (about 45 minutes) for flamenco, or at concerts in the city, especially in summer.
Cortijo Bujio is 45 minutes from the guitars of Granada. Read on about flamenco & the Sacromonte, Lorca's Granada and the Costa Tropical.
Sources: Encyclopædia Britannica, "Andrés Segovia"; on flamenco and the Sacromonte zambra; on the history of the Spanish guitar.