The coletilla is the short letra the cantaor/a will sing to you as you dance the final off stage at the end of your pataíta.
There are usually 2 sung lines in a coletilla, and the cantaor/a will repeat the sung lines to suit the moment (improvisation!).
If you want a refresher on the structure of a coletilla, click the following link to go to my previous post on this topic, 'What does a coletilla for Bulerías Por Fiesta look like?'.
In the previous post I linked to just above, I used a sample letra to help explain the structure.
In this post we're going to listen to that same coletilla letra being sung in a live situation 🎤 Hopefully this will help you make more sense of the sung lines..
The sample letra looks like this:
Son los toreros (first sung line)
Los que se ponen
cintas en el pelo (second sung line)
The video below starts off with the cantaor singing a main letra before moving on to sing the coletilla.
Listen carefully to the tone and melody of the letra, and then compare it to the tone and melody of the coletilla.
Can you get a feel for the shorter phrasing and the more upbeat melody in the coletilla?
To give you a heads up on the structure of the coletilla in this clip, the cantaor sings the first sung line 4 times – 'Son los toreros', and the second sung line 1 time – 'Los que se ponen cintas en el pelo'.
Written out it would look like this:
Son toreros, Son los toreros (first sung line x2)
Son toreros, Son los toreros (first sung line x2)
Los que se ponen
cintas en el pelo (second sung line x1)
Watch and listen 👇 😍
I share my step-by-step framework teaching flamenco dancers how to pull off the perfect pataíta and dance 'in the middle' (aka improvise!) without feeling terrified, not hearing the cues or knowing the parts of the dance!
You can find out more about Belinda at http://www.theflamencocoach.com/about
