Toque means flamenco guitar playing, and it does two jobs: accompanying cante and baile, and — since the 1970s — solo concert work. The instrument is lighter than a classical guitar with a thinner top, a percussion tap-plate (golpeador) glued to the face, and nylon strings. Core techniques are the fanned rasgueado (multiple fingers flicked outward in rapid succession), picado (rest-stroke scale runs), golpe (tapping the tap-plate as a hand-percussion accent), alzapúa (thumb-and-index alternation), and two-hand tremolo. Harmony is modal rather than functional; the Andalusian cadence Am-G-F-E over an E-Phrygian tonic is flamenco's signature progression.

Ramón Montoya (1879-1949) in Madrid organised the solo vocabulary in the early twentieth century, doing for flamenco guitar what Segovia was doing for classical guitar. The next generation of Niño Ricardo (1904-72) and Sabicas (1912-90, in New York exile) internationalised the tradition. The decisive turn came with Paco de Lucía (1947-2014), whose 1973 'Entre Dos Aguas' from Fuente y Caudal turned an instrumental rumba into a global radio hit and proved flamenco guitar could headline concert halls. In 1977 he purchased a Peruvian cajón (a wooden-box drum) from Peruvian musician Caitro Soto in Lima and added it to his sextet — rewriting the standard flamenco ensemble worldwide. His 1981 acoustic-guitar summit with John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola (Friday Night in San Francisco) and his 1991 recording of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez placed flamenco guitar next to Latin jazz and Spanish classical repertoire on equal terms. He died of a heart attack on a beach in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, in February 2014.

In 'Entre Dos Aguas,' notice the metallic edge of the nylon strings — flamenco guitars are voiced for high overtone content and cut through unamplified in a hall. Then follow Paco's picado runs: right-hand rest-stroke alternating middle and index fingers at speeds most classical guitarists cannot match. In Vicente Amigo's 'Poeta' (1997), Leo Brouwer's orchestration lets the guitar and full symphony orchestra share the melodic foreground. Manolo Sanlúcar's Tauromagia (1988) is more scholastic — it treats each ritual stage of a bullfight as a movement of a concept work. Tomatito's Aguadulce shows the warmer southern side of the toque tradition inherited from Camarón's last accompanist.

One track: Paco de Lucía, 'Entre Dos Aguas' (1973) — the moment flamenco guitar went global. One album: Fuente y Caudal (1973), on which traditional palo interpretations sit next to that instrumental rumba. Then Friday Night in San Francisco (1981) if you want the Latin-jazz crossover, Vicente Amigo's Poeta (1997) for the orchestral concerto direction, Manolo Sanlúcar's Tauromagia (1988) for the scholarly wing, and Tomatito's Aguadulce (2004) for the southern warmth. Play on a good speaker at night; the nylon-string overtones need physical air to breathe.

Paco de Lucía's stage name — 'Paco of Lucía' — comes from his mother's first name, Lucía Gomes, and his brothers (including cantaor Pepe de Lucía) all took the same matronymic. His introduction of the cajón to flamenco in 1977 was almost accidental — he heard Caitro Soto play at a Lima soundcheck and bought a box on the spot. It is one of the rare cases of a Peruvian folk instrument crossing into the standard ensemble of a European tradition. Vicente Amigo's Ciudad de las Ideas (2000) won the 2001 Latin Grammy for Best Flamenco Album, and remains the internationally most-decorated recording by a contemporary toque master.