In music theory

Music theory

Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...

, the flamenco mode (also Major-Phrygian) is a harmonized

Harmony

In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

 mode

Musical mode

In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...

 or scale

Musical scale

In music, a scale is a sequence of musical notes in ascending and descending order. Most commonly, especially in the context of the common practice period, the notes of a scale will belong to a single key, thus providing material for or being used to conveniently represent part or all of a musical...

 abstracted from its use in flamenco

Flamenco

Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....

 music. In other words the collection of pitches

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

 in ascending order accompanied by chords

Chord (music)

A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

 represents the pitches and chords used together in flamenco songs and pieces. The key signature is the same as that of the Phrygian mode, with the raised third being written in as necessary with accidentals

Accidental (music)

In music, an accidental is a note whose pitch is not a member of a scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the symbols used to mark such notes, sharps , flats , and naturals , may also be called accidentals...

. Its modal/tonal

Tonality

Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...

 characteristics are prominent in the Andalusian cadence

Andalusian cadence

The Andalusian cadence is a term adopted from flamenco music for a chord progression comprising four chords descending stepwise. It is otherwise known as the minor descending tetrachord...

.
The exact chords depend on the song form (palo

Palo (flamenco)

A palo is the name traditionally given in the flamenco environment for the different musical forms that constitute the traditional musical heritage of flamenco...

) and guitar chord

Guitar chord

In music, a guitar chord is a chord, or collection of tones usually sounded together at once, played on a guitar. It can be composed of notes played on adjacent or separate strings or all the strings together...

 positions since chord voicings in flamenco often include nontriadic pitches

Nonchord tone

A nonchord tone, nonharmonic tone, or non-harmony note is a note in a piece of music which is not a part of the implied harmony that is described by the other notes sounding at the time...

, especially open strings. It is characteristic that III, II, and I appear as dissonant

Consonance and dissonance

In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...

 chords with a minimum of four tones (for example seventh chord

Seventh chord

A seventh chord is a chord consisting of a triad plus a note forming an interval of a seventh above the chord's root. When not otherwise specified, a "seventh chord" usually means a major triad with an added minor seventh...

s or mixed third chord

Added tone chord

An added tone chord is a non-tertian chord composed of a tertian triad and an extra "added" note. The added note is not a seventh , but typically a non-tertian note, which cannot be defined by a sequence of thirds from the root, such as the added sixth or fourth...

). Since the tetrachord

Tetrachord

Traditionally, a tetrachord is a series of three intervals filling in the interval of a perfect fourth, a 4:3 frequency proportion. In modern usage a tetrachord is any four-note segment of a scale or tone row. The term tetrachord derives from ancient Greek music theory...

 beginning on the tonic may ascend or descend with either G-sharp or natural (Phrygian tetrachord) the mixed-thirds clash between the major third degree (G) in the melody and the minor third degree (G) in the accompaniment occurs frequently and is characteristic of the flamenco esthetic, as with the blues scale

Blues scale

The term blues scale is used to describe a few scales with differing numbers of pitches and related characteristics. See: blues.The hexatonic, or six note, blues scale consists of the minor pentatonic scale plus the 4th or 5th degree...

 on a major chord

Major chord

In music theory, a major chord is a chord having a root, a major third, and a perfect fifth. When a chord has these three notes alone, it is called a major triad...

.
This tetrachord may be copied in the second, producing a D and allowing an augmented sixth chord

Augmented sixth chord

In music theory, an augmented sixth chord contains the interval of an augmented sixth above its "root" or bass tone . This chord has its origins in the Renaissance, further developed in the Baroque, and became a distinctive part of the musical style of the Classical and Romantic periods.-Resolution...

on the second degree: B7(5)/F.