Fandango

Fandango is a lively couples dance, usually in triple metre, traditionally accompanied by guitars and castanets or hand-clapping ("palmas" in Spanish and Portuguese). Fandango can both be sung and danced. Sung fandango is usually bipartite: it has an instrumental introduction followed by "variaciones". Sung fandango usually follows the structure of "cante" that consist of four or five octosyllabic verses (coplas) or musical phrases (tercios). Occasionally, the first copla is repeated.

The meter of fandango is similar to that of the bolero and seguidilla. It was originally notated in 6/8 time, but later in 3/8 or 3/4.