The Lowdown on Granada, Spain.

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April 13th, 2003 | The lowdown by Jeffrey Goodkind

Gypsy Juergas in Barrio Sacromonte.

After all the tourists have gone to sleep, the real flamenco begins in the barrio Sacromonte. If you are willing to sacrifice your morning, head out there at around 3 am on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night. There are a slew of places around in the area, and the one I hit up was "La Buleria," where a large group of gypsies participated in a juerga ? a flamenco jam session.

An old man on a guitar accompanied those facing him, who alternated lines of sung poetry. A young boy on my right beat out the time on his darabukka, while the others kept time by handclap, called palmas. All of the songs they did that night were a flamenco song style called tangos, a four beat pattern with accents clapped out on beats 2 3 and 4. Try it for yourself, soak in the lyrical verses, and sleep later?

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