The zortziko is a dance rhythm that originates in the Basque Country. It is also used as an accompaniment rhythm for vocal melodies.

The zortziko has a distinctive 5/8 time signature

Time signature

The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....

, consisting of three subdivisions of 1, 2, and 2 beats. Some theories hold that the zortziko rhythm evolved from a 3/4 time signature that was deformed to more closely follow the beat structure of traditional Basque dance music.

The instrumentation typically used to execute the zortziko rhythm are the txistu

Txistu

The txistu or chistu is a kind of fipple flute that became a symbol for the Basque folk revival. The name may stem from the general Basque word ziztu "to whistle" with palatalisation of the z...

 and the tamboril

Tamboril

Tamboril may refer to:*Lophius piscatorius, a fish.*Tamboril, Dominican Republic*Tamboril, Ceará in Brazil*Tamboril do Piauí in Brazil...

.

Despite the zortziko's origins and continued popularity in folk music,
some composers (including
Aita Donostia

Aita Donostia

José Gonzalo Zulaica , better known by his pen name Aita Donostia , was a Basque musicologist and composer.From 1936 to 1943 he was in exile in France.His most popular work is the Basque Preludes, a set of fifteen piano...

,
Jesús Guridi

Jesús Guridi

Jesús Guridi Bidaola was a Spanish Basque composer, and is a key player in the Spanish and Basque music of the twentieth century. His style fits into what we might call the late romantic stamp, directly inherited from Wagner, and with a strong influence from the Basque culture...

,
Pablo Sorozábal

Pablo Sorozábal

Pablo Sorozábal Mariezcurrena was a Basque-Spanish composer.Trained in San Sebastián, Madrid and Leipzig; then in Berlin, where he preferred Friedrich Koch as composition teacher to Arnold Schönberg, whose theories he disliked. It was in Germany that he made his conducting debut, and the rostrum...

,
José María Usandizaga

Jose Maria Usandizaga

José María Usandizaga was a Spanish Basque composer.A native of San Sebastián, Usandizaga began his musical studies in his hometown before moving to the Schola Cantorum in Paris. There, he was a composition pupil of Vincent d'Indy, and he took piano lessons from Gabriel Grovlez...

 have also used it in symphonic works.

Further reading

• Ansorena Miner, José Ignacio. 1993. "El zortziko: La frase de ocho compases y el compás de cinco por ocho". Txistulari, no. 155 (July–September).
• Cronshaw, Andrew. 1990. "Trikitixa!". Folk Roots 11, no. 10:82 (April): 28–29, 31.
• Laborde, Denis. 2001. "Basque Music". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
  
   and John Tyrrell
  John Tyrrell (professor of music)
  John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
  
  . London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Sánchez Ekiza, Carlos. 1991a. "En torno al zortziko". Txistulari, no. 146 (July):44–53.
• Sánchez Ekiza, Carlos. 1991b. "En torno al zortziko". Cuadernos de etnología y etnografía de Navarra 23, no. 57 (January–June): 89–103.