Toná
The tonás are primitive cantes, among the oldest known within flamenco. They are performed without guitar, accompanied only by the rhythm of the chumbé and the hammer, and were linked to the labour and atmosphere of the forges where the Gitanos sang them. From this common root of the toná derive other forge cantes such as the martinete or the carceleras.
Origin and history
The tonás go back to the very origins of flamenco cante, in the 18th century and the early 19th century, when the Gitano communities settled in Andalusia — especially in Triana, Jerez and other centres of the Lower Guadalquivir — developed a repertoire of solo-voice cantes, without instrumental accompaniment, linked to daily life, work and family gatherings. They are, together with the martinetes and the carceleras, the purest expression of what is known as primitive Gitano-Andalusian cante.
Their transmission was oral and familial for generations, and they reached theatrical flamenco and the café cantante already in the 19th century thanks to pioneering figures who compiled and spread them. With the arrival of the cafés cantantes, some tonás were gradually transformed or gave rise to variants with guitar accompaniment, although the oldest core of the style always kept its a palo seco character.
Musical characteristics and compás
The toná is a free-compás cante, without guitar or any other harmonic instrument, which places it among the so-called cantes “a palo seco”. When it is linked to forge work, the only rhythmic accompaniment comes from the blow of the hammer on the anvil, marking an irregular pulse that sustains the voice without subjecting it to a fixed compás.
Musically it is characterised by a melody of narrow range, highly ornamented and of great expressive intensity, with a tone reminiscent of the liturgical and Semitic-rooted cantes that influenced primitive flamenco. The absence of accompaniment places the whole technical demand on the performer’s voice.
Representative cantaores and performers
The consulted source does not mention specific performers associated with this style, although flamenco tradition attributes to the Gitano cantaores of the late 18th and 19th centuries, active in the earliest centres of cante jondo, the preservation and transmission of this repertoire.
Relationship with other palos
The toná is the matrix of an entire family of a palo seco cantes known as forge cantes, among which are the martinete, the carcelera and the old saeta. Its melodic structure and its absence of compás and instrumentation also relate it to the oldest primitive cantes of the jondo repertoire, from which in turn other styles already accompanied by guitar derive.