History of Flamenco - Spanish Essay Flamenco music began with a voice and some hand clapping, and later the guitar was incorporated. It is only in this century that the zapateo was introduced. Today the three main instruments of flamenco are singing, guitar and dance. Almost all styles of flamenco or palos can be performed with or without dance, there are syncanti dances and purely vocal songs, "a cappela". Today flamenco has many faces and is performed in multiple ways. In modern flamenco there is the use of some more common instruments, such as the electric bass, normally fretless (just as Carlos Benavent began to use it) and the cajon. The cajon is a Peruvian percussion instrument that, with slight modifications, was introduced by Paco deLucía and his group, and consists of a wooden box with a loose front panel that is played sitting on top and which is very well suited to flamenco because they do not have a specific tuning and provide a sound without very dry harmonics. The new flamenco, a label in which young groups less attentive to purism and more interested in mixing music are grouped together. saxophones, flutes, cellos, violins or sitars and countless percussion instruments such as bongos, South American congas, Indian darbukas and djembes, etc. Less common is the use of drums, synthesizers and electric guitars. Flamenco is one of the most unique and recognizable types of music in Europe. The roots of flamenco were formed by gathering influences of very different origins: we can find contributions from Hindus and Indians in this music. Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Castilians, etc. How the contributions of so many cultures came together in flamenco is a long and interesting story full of legends and misinterpretations. The gypsies of southern Spain created this music day after day