The Sardana and The Cobla

The most popular folk music in Catalonia, Spain are "The Sardana" and "The Cobla".

The Sardana is the typical dance of Catalonia. We dance it holding our hands in a circle. It's an "open dance" because everybody can enter in it if he or she dances it with respect and wants to learn it.
Every sardana has two melodies: "els curts" (the short passes) and "els llargs" (the long ones). This is the structure of the sardana:

1.- The introduction (a short melody, always the same, played by the "flabiol" and the "tamborí")
2.- The melody "curts"
3.- The melody "llargs"
4.- The melody "curts"
5.- The melody "llargs"
6.- Contrapunt (a melody, shortest than the introduction, always the same, played by the "flabiol" and the "tamborí")
7.- The melody "llargs"
8.- The melody "llargs"

In every circle there's one person who counts the compasses of the "curts" and the "llargs" and distributes them to end the "sardana" with the correct foot (normally the left foot).

Many villages and cities in Catalonia organize one time per year, in spring or in Summer, a big concentration of sardana dancers. In Olot, my birthplace, it's always on the 2nd sunday of July. There are usually 3 "cobla" playing without stopping all the morning, the afternoon and the evening.

The Cobla is the particular orchestra that executes popular dances and specially the sardana. It's composed by 11 musicians who play the next instruments:

- the "flabiol", a kind of short flute made in wood.
- the "tamborí" a small drum.

Those two instruments are played by the same musician: the "flabiol" with his/her left hand; the "tamborí" with the right one.

- two "tible" (a wood instrument, similar to the clarinet)
- two "tenora" (a wood instrument, similar to the clarinet or the oboe)
- two trumpets
- one trombon
- two "fiscorn" (similar to a small tuba)
- one contrebass.

On the Internet there are some "Cobles". This is the address of one of them: the "Cobla la Principal de Berga". 

http://www.xtec.es/~rbadia/sardana.htm