Flamenco Palmas - Two Hands Clapping

In flamenco, your hands are an instrument, just as much as the guitar or the cajon. As a dancer, you should never sit passively while others are performing - your palmas (hand clapping) and jaleo (shouts of encouragement) are important to energize the dancers.

Palmas is also an excellent tool for all new flamencos, because practising palmas is the best way to get to grips with flamenco rhythms.

But before you can learn the rhythms, you must learn correct clapping technique.

Palmas Technique

In palmas, only one hand does the work. The other is almost stationery. It doesn't matter which hand you use.

The palm of the stationery hand is slightly cupped. The cupping creates a sound chamber so you get a strong, clear sound.

The video above concentrates on palmas fuertes, used to create a strong beat. You'll often hear it used by several palmeros, all playing different variations, as in the clip on the right.

Technique:

• Hold your hands at a comfortable angle to each other in front of you.
• Keep the fingers of your working hand together and strike them on the cupped palm of your working hand.
• The top of your middle finger should land at the base of your index finger

It takes practice to strike a clear note consistently, so be patient. Practice slowly without music first.

Palmas usually continues all the way through a performance. When you want the palmas to fade into the background, you'll use the quieter palmas sordas.

For sordas, your hands are at more of an angle - almost 90 degrees.

• Keep both thumbs out away from your hands.
• Both palms are cupped.
• Bring the two palms together. The fingers don't make contact - let them fold naturally around your hands - so in the closed position, you're clasping your hands together.

Sordas is generally slower, so you often have time to slide your hands apart. You can use this "washing" action to fill out beats, so you don't race the music.

Once you're able to clap to the basic rhythms, you can start to play with them. You don't have to clap in time to the basic accents forever!

The clip below is a good discussion on this point.

If you like this article, read more at my flamenco website, Dress for Flamenco.

Text copyright Marisa Wright. Top photo by soylentgreen23. Orange dancer by kx0101. Singer and guitarist by PhillipC.

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