rasgueo

From Andalusian Spanish rasgueo, regional form of rasgueado, from the verb rasguear (“strum”). Attested in English from the 20th century (see quotations below).

rasgueo (countable and uncountable, plural rasgueos)

1. (music, uncountable) A strumming technique associated with flamenco guitar playing; rasgueado.
   • 1981, Robert Edwin Fogal, Traditional Music and the Middle Class: A Case Study of Mercedes, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dissertation, Indiana University, page 189:

     The prominent rhythm is ♩♫♩, with the first note receiving stress through an agogic or dynamic accent, by being arpeggiated rapidly, or with an upward movement of the rasgueo.

   • 2011 March 14, Ciaran Giles, “Spaniards eat up Cdn guitarist; Flamenco guitar traditionally an area dominated by men”, in Trail Times, Trail, British Columbia, page 8:

     There’s no denying that flamenco guitar with its machine-gun speed picking riffs and dizzying helicopter-like ‘rasgueo’ hand strums is physically punishing.

   • 2020, Fernando Rios, Panpipes and Ponchos : Musical Folklorization and the Rise of the Andean Conjunto Tradition in la Paz, Bolivia, page 157:

     His technique on the instrument mainly consists of medium-tempo strums and is somewhat rudimentary—compared to the virtuosic rasgueos of Los Sumac Huaynas’ Chocni López (briefly discussed in Chapter 3)

   • 2021, Robin Foggo, “Flamenco: Musical Structure and the Practice of Improvisation”, in Musicologist, volume 5, →DOI, page 54:

     There are several factors that contribute to the variety of options open to the guitar player when dealing with rasgueo. If a chord is held down by the left hand, the attack will sound differently depending on whether the fingers on the right hand thrust down, aided by gravity and the extension of the fingers, or are drawn up across the strings in a gripping action.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:rasgueo.
2. (music) A passage within a song featuring guitar played with the technique.
   • 2021, Robin Foggo, “Flamenco: Musical Structure and the Practice of Improvisation”, in Musicologist, volume 5, →DOI, page 57:

     On a larger structural level, there are semi-independent musical units or blocks, which, when placed within a compás and assembled, create a piece. These components include rasgueos (here I refer to the structural unit, which is comprised of the technique mentioned above), falsetas, llamadas (Eng. call), cierres and remates.

• IPA^(key): /rasˈɡeo/
• Rhymes: -eo
• Syllabification: ras‧gue‧o

Deverbal from rasguear.

rasgueo m (plural rasgueos)

1. (music) strum, strumming

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

rasgueo

1. first-person singular present indicative of rasguear

• “rasgueo”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10