Vallenato
The vallenato (in Wayuunaiki: Szlager) is an autochthonous musical genre of the Caribbean Region of Colombia (geographical region that includes the Colombian departments of La Guajira, Cesar, Magdalena, Atlántico, Bolívar, Sucre and Córdoba) originating in the province of Padilla, formerly Magdalena Grande, today the center and south of the department of La Guajira, declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2015. It has the influence of European immigration, since the accordion was brought by German immigrants to Riohacha, La Guajira, at the end of the 19th century, and both the strophic organization and the metric use the Spanish tradition; on the other hand, the component of the Afro-Colombian slaves makes a presence with the caja vallenata, a kind of drum that to a large extent gives the rhythm to the accordion melody, and finally the indigenous is evident with the guacharaca. extended to all regions of Colombia (all other Colombian departments after the Caribbean region, which are: Antioquia, Boyacá, Caldas, Cundinamarca, Huila, Norte de Santander, Quindío, Risaralda, Santander, Tolima, Cauca, Chocó, Nariño, Valle del Cauca, Arauca, Casanare, Meta, Vichada, Amazonas, Caquetá, Guainía, Guaviare, Putumayo, Vaupés, San Andrés and Providencia and the city of Bogotá D.C.), to neighboring countries such as Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Venezuela, to other Latin American countries such as Argentina (only in the cities of northeastern Argentina, which are: Formosa, Resistencia, Corrientes and Posadas), Bolivia (mainly in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra), Mexico (mainly in the city de Monterrey), Paraguay, and even countries in Europe. It is traditionally interpreted with three instruments: the diatonic accordion, the guacharaca and the vallenata box. The rhythms or musical airs of vallenato are the paseo, the merengue, the puya, the son and the tambora. The vallenato can also be interpreted with guitar and with the instrumentation of cumbia in cumbiambas and millo groups.
On November 29, 2013, the traditional vallenato was declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Nation by the National Heritage Council of the Ministry of Culture. On December 1, 2015, it was included in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, on the list of urgent safeguarding by Unesco.
Etymology
It is not known exactly where the word "vallenato" comes from, despite the many hypotheses that have been put forward. However, at the beginning of the XX century, it had a derogatory connotation and the inhabitants of Valledupar themselves did not like it. For this reason, in 1915 Don Miguel Vence, a primary school educator, founded an Academy of the Language of Valledupar, which met only once and determined that the name of those born in Valledupar was "valduparense".
Vallenato is generally defined as a musical genre from the Colombian Caribbean Coast, more precisely from the area of influence of Valledupar, capital of the department of Cesar. It is argued that the name comes from the previous adjective of those born in the city where this genre is most deeply rooted. According to some, it is a neologism that was born with the native travelers on mules, who when asked in other lands where they were from, in their peasant saying they answered "I am born from the Valley", which is like saying "I am born from the Valley".
Although the term "vallenato" can refer to those born or to things that originate in Valledupar (Valle de Upar, El Valle del Cacique Upar, legendary indigenous cacique of the region), there are other versions of the name: according to Barrameda Morán, the word " calf" It went on to designate all the people who suffered from blood contamination caused by midges, whether or not they were from Valledupar and says: "The popular tendency to confuse V with B in its pronunciation ended up generating the new word: Vallenato& #34;.
Similarly, another unsubstantiated version holds that in the rural areas on the banks of the Cesar River, many of the extremely poor inhabitants suffered from a mosquito-borne disease that left their skin dry and scaly, with patches discolored. People associated the disease with newborn whales (ballenatos), also called "pintaos," which have a blotchy white and pink color, resembling the skin disease carate or jovero, which is why those who suffered from it were identified as caratejos or ballenatos. In such a way that "vallenatos" it became a name to put down the poor people of the river.
Instruments
The melodies of these songs were first interpreted with the flute made of caña de millo or reed, open at both ends with four holes along its length and a reed that forms the mouthpiece and treads on a thread, held by the teeth, to modulate the sound; to it were added the caja, a small drum made by hand from the hollow trunk of dry trees and sealed at one end with a piece of tempered leather, and the guacharaca, an ancestral indigenous instrument that is made using a piece of cañabrava to which successive small grooves are made to produce a rasping sound when rubbed with a bone (originally).
At the end of the XIX century, decades after its invention, the accordion arrived in Colombia through the port of Riohacha; the cowboys and peasants incorporated it into their musical expressions, and it gradually replaced the reed until it became the main instrument of the typical vallenato ensemble.
In addition to these three instruments, caja, guacharaca and accordion, which represent the triethnic group that gave rise to the race and culture of the Colombian Caribbean Coast, the typical vallenato group presents a fourth basic element that is the singer, of more or less a less recent addition as a result of the vallenatos festivals, since until the 1960s the custom was that the accordion player had the singing voice and interpreted the lyrics of the songs he played himself.
Diatonic accordion
Caja vallenata
Guacharaca
- Diatonic accordion: Instrument of Austrian origin, invented in Vienna in its current form by Cyrill Demian in 1829, smuggled into Colombia by German immigrants from Curacao by Riohacha (on the coasts of La Guajira) in 1885. Those who interpret it modify it themselves or send it to modify with musical experts to produce its characteristic sound.
- Caja vallenata: Instrument of percussion of African origin. This is a small drum whose patch it was made of cayman buche, after black marimonda skin and, currently, chivo leather, deer or ram. The glass. is made from a hollow tree trunk of 40 cm high and 30 cm in diameter. The tree must be made of fibrous trunk like macurutú, cane, or killraton.
- Guacharaca: Concavo instrument of indigenous friction of the Colombian indigenous 40 cm long, elaborated with the stem of the can. Its name comes from the columbian or wild pave orchard, a mountain bird whose song is similar to the sound produced by the instrument. Also used instead guache.
Since the 1990s, when the romantic vallenato began to be popular in Colombia, the acoustic guitar became, unofficially, a fourth fundamental instrument of the Vallenato music, despite not being used in Vallenato festivals. The electric bass has become an important part, although not fundamental, to interpret vallenato in parrandas and concerts.
Features
Vallenato or vallenata music is part of the folk music of the Colombian Caribbean Coast. It is by far the Colombian musical rhythm that has achieved the most popularity, both nationally and internationally.
What makes traditional vallenato characteristic is that it is played only with three instruments that do not require any amplification: two percussion instruments (the caja and the guacharaca), which set the rhythm, and the diatonic accordion (of European origin) with which the melody is played. However, on some occasions the songs are composed or performed with other instruments: the guitar, the flute, the bagpipes, the chromatic accordion and the harmonica. On the other hand, for commercial vallenato it is common not only to incorporate these instruments, but also electric bass and other percussion instruments, such as congas and timbales.
The importance that vallenato acquired in the last decades of the XX century led to the organization of festivals in which the Accordion players compete for the honor of being declared the most skilled executor of each of the traditional airs (with the exception, inexplicably, of the tambora). The most famous of these festivals is the Festival of the Vallenato Legend, which is held annually at the end of April in Valledupar, and whose first version was held in 1968. Since 1979, the Festival Cuna de Acordeones de Villanueva, Guajira has been held, passing to being the second most important and, since 1983, the Festival of Río Grande de la Magdalena in Barrancabermeja (Santander), which would be the third most important at the national level for accordion players.
In vallenato, the mode of use of the diatonic accordion requires the simultaneous use of both sides of the accordion. This characterizes the Colombian accordion player and differentiates vallenato from other accordion musical genres, where the bass part (executed with the left hand) is generally suppressed or underused: in Colombia, the harmonic and rhythmic way the accordion player handles The bass is a relevant qualification factor in Vallenato festivals.
Origin
Vallenato was born in a vast region framed by the Magdalena, Cesar and Ranchería rivers, the Caribbean Sea, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the foothills of the Perijá mountain range, in the first half of the century XIX.
The vaquería songs with which the laborers of the large haciendas accompanied their evening shifts to collect and lock up the cattle, were the basis of what would later become the sung stories that led to the Vallenato songs.
The first accordion players in memory were at the same time authors of the songs they played; songs that already had a clear rhythmic difference and their own musical structure that earned them classification as paseos, merengues, puyas, tamboras and sones. Then there was not, like today, a person specialized solely in composing the song, another in executing the melody on the accordion and a third who sang them. The accordion player was an integral musician who played the accordion with equal skill as he interpreted songs of his own inspiration or, on occasions, of a third party. And after the first songs, the accordion players became singing couriers, musical journalists, minstrels, who went from town to town and from town to town bringing information about the latest events narrated in the merengues, walks, puyas, sones and drums. that they sang when they got together to rest and, on special occasions, to dance in cumbiambas that were formed on the occasion of the patron saint festivities, among other occasions.
In relation to the cantares de vaquería as one of the origins of vallenato, the cultural and musical researcher Ciro Quiroz notes about cumbia:
...It was another one of the musical forms born of collective work, like that of the bogas that in the activity of navigation was the root of cumbia or that other of the 'socolators', called 'zafra' in some places, and that died when the inspiring matrix source was exhausted...
Regarding the place of origin of vallenato, Quiroz notes:
Mompox and its area of influence, as part of the Magdalena Grande, should also be included within the territory where the Vallenato was born, with cots discussed like Plato, Valledupar, Riohacha, El Paso and the Bananera Zone.
About the transition of whistles and flutes to the current instruments of vallenato, the same author says about the primitive denomination of the airs:
...This first instrumental transition is difficult to specify in time, but it is clearly still perceived towards the end of the nineteenth century, when you sound, puyas and drums were heard on the banks of the rivers in flautas and cross pitos with the generic name of cumbia.
Rhythms or airs
Walk
Unlike all the other airs of this folklore, the vallenato ride has a quadrature four-beat compás. The marking of the basses is one by three and sometimes, depending on the piece, two by one.
Meringue
Musically speaking, the traditional vallenato merengue has a six-by-eight square measure, a derived measure, since the original measures are four times, three times and two times.
Job
In Valledupar and other towns in the former department of Magdalena Grande, the oldest rhythm was called puya. Its name derives from the verb puyar, and it has a time signature of six by eight. The rhythm, in its indigenous form, never had a song and consisted of the imitation made by the warbler -pitero or cane sillero-, in a fast rhythm, of the song of some birds; It was danced in rows, each person taking both hands closed at chest height with the fingers pointing forward and simulating that the person who danced in front was being punched repeatedly. Subsequently, over time, the different typical triethnic elements of the Colombian coastal and riverside culture merged, managing to add the Negroid puya, a sung genre, to the indigenous puya, resulting in the Vallenata puya with its current balance between singing, melody and rhythm.
The puya and the merengue in their rhythmic and harmonic pattern are the same. The difference is marked in its melodic conception: in the rhythm, in the music and naturally in the interpretation that is made, typical of each piece. Thus, the puya has a two-for-two marking on the basses and, sometimes, two for one in certain passages of the performance, although not in all the pieces. The speed that is printed on it does not make a difference, because the interpreter plays it to his liking.
The puya stands out for being the fastest air, and the one that demands more skill in the accordion player. It is most commonly used in accordionist contests and competitions at vallenato festivals in Colombia.
They are
The son vallenato has a two-four time signature. An essential characteristic in the execution of this air is the prominent use of the accordion basses in the interpretation of each piece, so much so that the basses can be more noticeable than the melody emitted by the keyboard, mainly in the accordion players of the new generations..
The son has a very marked marking in the basses one by one, especially in interpreters from Sabana or with a bass influence – old Bolívar -; unlike the accordion players in the province, who play the son more fluently, less marked, more subtle and give it a bass marking of one for two and two for one, on occasions.
Like the walk, the sones are a kind of chronicle where the singular narrative of the singer captures the events of his existence, particularly in this kind, nostalgic dramas that have been an important part of the author's life are represented.
Drum
The tambora is a rhythm that was not commercially accepted and since the 80's it stopped being popularly heard. It took on a feminine denomination due to the predominance of women's voices when these airs were only sung.
Some are polythematic, in which each verse expresses a circumstance different from the other, but there is one that is constant. Some have the particularity of inserting the unchangeable fixed verse every two verses, and others maintain the writing unit of a theme, but without taking into account concordance and harmony in the poetic phrases.
In general, they all have a satirical quality, achieved in the lack of coordination that highlights the contrast more. There are still some purely instrumental, performed solely with drums. Hence its designation.
Examples of drums: "La candela viva " (by Alejandro Durán), "My compadre fell down", "La perra".
The traditional tambora is of tri-ethnic conformation (black, white and Indian), and its geographical environment is centered on the banks of the Río Grande de la Magdalena, in the subregion known as Depresión Momposina. The towns of the department of Cesar that have had the tambora as their cultural identity are, among others: Tamalameque, La Gloria, Gamarra, Chimichagua, Chiriguaná and El Paso.
Vallenato romance
Preceded by a great controversy in the vallenato world, a fifth air for a contest was institutionalized in Villanueva during the 29th version of the Cuna de Acordeones Festival in 2007. The so-called "fifth air" It was baptized as "Romanza Vallenata", in this same festival in 2006, and was accepted as such with the support of vallenato authorities such as Rafael Escalona, Francisco Zumaqué, Hernán Urbina Joiro, Rosendo Romero and the former president Alfonso Lopez Michelsen.
In this way it was accepted that the so-called "walk" that is heard commercially today, ceased to be some time ago. Just as in his moment of "son" the "walk"[citation needed] arose, today a new air emerges from it. Vallenatos romances, due to their lyrical or poetic nature, are a song to love, heartbreak, forgiveness and women, different from the classic walk that is performed at festivals, which is why it was decided to give it a space in them. In addition, it was taken into account that this air has been a transcendental engine for the internationalization of vallenato. This air, son of the ride,[citation needed] gained independence thanks to worldwide acceptance, and after voices that rejected the evolution of the musical genre. Likewise, this denomination is not determined as an official vallenato rhythm.
Piqueria vallenata
The piqueria (from "pique", confrontation) is a competition usually between two improvisor and improvisatory versers, in which the one who produces the best verses and makes the least mistakes wins, jury trial. There are the modalities of verses of four words, tenth of free theme and forced foot. When choosing the winner, factors such as the ability to improvise verses of four words (quatrains) or ten (tenths) with agility, grace and metric and rhythmic accuracy are taken into account to challenge or respond to the musical requirement of an opponent in equal numbers. conditions. In the judgment of the jury, the pique can have as its starting point a single verse of four words with a certain theme, a tenth of a free theme or a forced foot. The jury can impose any of these three modalities or impose all of them if it considers it so.
Schools
The vallenatologist Consuelo Araújo identified three schools in the vallenato:
- Vallenato-Vallenato: typical of the center and south of the Guajira, with epicenter in the region between Valledupar, El Paso, la Guajira, and south of the ceasing with exponents like Alejandro Durán, Emiliano Zuleta Baquero, Luis Enrique Martínez, Antonio Salas and Lorenzo Morales, among others.
- Vallenato-Bajero: that of the Magdalena, Atlantic and Bolivar region, with Francisco "Pacho" Rada and Abel Antonio Villa among some of its most important exponents.
- Vallenato-Sabanero: from Sucre and Córdoba, with exponents like Andrés Landero, Eugenio "Geño" Gil, Calixto Ochoa and Alfredo Gutiérrez, Lisandro Meza, Alcides Díaz among others.
This classification is not generally accepted and has been criticized by musicians and minstrels. Sabanero musicians in particular speak of accordion music or accordion sabanera music, which was developed in parallel to the vallenata school, of different execution, does not completely share its organology, and does not include the puya as a rhythm, but adds others such as cumbia, paseaíto, porro and chandé.
Styles
Traditional Vallenato
Eminently folkloric in nature, it is performed at festivals such as the Vallenata Legend, the Cradle of Accordions and the Rio Grande de la Magdalena Festival. It comprises four (4) of the five (5) traditional rhythms: the puya, the paseo, the son and the merengue. Its theme covers facts of everyday life, friendship, partying, land and love. It is the music cultivated by minstrels like Juancho Polo Valencia, Alejandro Durán, Abel Antonio Villa, Luis Enrique Martínez, "Toño" Salas, Lorenzo Morales, Leandro Diaz, "Pacho" Rada, "Colacho" Mendoza, Rafael Escalona, Emiliano Zuleta, among others. Also included in this select group were accordion players who were part of the group Los Corraleros de Majagual such as Calixto Ochoa, Lisandro Meza and Alfredo Gutiérrez, the last two still active.
Commercial Vallenato
It is the first vallenato stream to become commercial on the country's stations, being known as "vallenato yuca". It began to be heard in the early 70's, extending its popularity in the 80's. Its main representatives are: Otto Serge and Rafael Ricardo, Jorge Oñate, Los Hermanos Zuleta, Diomedes Díaz, Binomio de Oro (with Rafael Orozco), Los Betos, Farid Ortiz, Iván Villazón, Daniel Celedón and Ismael Rudas, among others. The walk predominates and without so much importance, the merengue and the puya.
Romantic Vallenato
Style influenced by other rhythms such as the ballad, promoted by Iván Calderón at the end of the 80's and beginning of the 90's, it is mainly based on the walk and, decades later, the so-called vallenata romance . Its main characteristic lies in the lyrics, where love is exclusively sung. His themes include love, spite, distancing, declarations and reconciliations. It is one of the most listened to subgenres in Colombia and the most listened to abroad (Monterrey and Saltillo in Mexico, Tumbes, Piura, Cajamarca, Chachapoyas, Iquitos and Lima in Peru, Sucre, La Paz, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Tarija in Bolivia, Rio Branco, Manaus, Porto Velho, Boa Vista, Cuiabá, Campo Grande, Curitiba, Palmas, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Paraguay, Northeast Argentina and the Colombian and Latin American colonies of the United States United States and Europe). Some of its most important representatives are: Binomio de Oro de América, Estrellas Vallenatas, Los Pechichones, Dúo Sensacional, Patricia Teherán, Las Musas, Adriana Lucía (in her time as a Vallenato interpreter), Los Diablitos, Los Gigantes, Los Inquietos, Los Chiches, Los Embajadores, Miguel Morales, Jesús Manuel and Álex Manga (the three ex-devils), Fabián Corrales, Luis Mateus, Nelson Velásquez (ex-devils), Jean Carlos Centeno, Junior Santiago and Jorge Celedón (the three ex-Binomio de Oro de América), Amín Martínez (ex-Chiches), Luis Miguel Fuentes and Hebert Vargas (both ex-Giants), among others.
Since the mid-2010s, there has been a resurgence of romantic vallenato in the taste of the Colombian public, where artists record new songs in this subgenre, in addition to retreading hits from the 80's and 90's, adapting them to the sound of the 21st century for the taste of the young public without losing its romantic essence. An example is the musical and video album "Corazón Vallenato", released on streaming platforms and social networks at the end of 2020 by Codiscos where, accompanied by the accordion of Morre Romero and his son, established artists and Vallenato youth perform classic songs from the romantic subgenre.
Vallenato New Wave
A vallenato current that began to be accepted by the Colombian public since the early 2000s, promoted by Kaleth Morales, son of the vallenato singer-songwriter Miguel Morales, who combines carnivalesque and electronic elements and arrangements with percussion and wind from other areas of the Caribbean region (euphonium, snare, drums, tuba, etc.). Its most prominent artists are: Silvestre Dangond, Peter Manjarrés, Martín Elías (son of Diomedes Díaz), Luifer Cuello, Penchy Castro, Kvrass, Mono Zabaleta, Churo Díaz, Elder Díaz (son of Diomedes Díaz), Daniel Calderón, Felipe Peláez, La Gente de Omar Geles, Los K Morales (successors to the legacy of Kaleth Morales), Orlando Liñan, Kbto Zuleta, Cayito Dangond (brother de Silvestre Dangond), Los Comandantes del Vallenato, among others, remaining in force for two decades.
In the time of the minstrels, Vallenato music was already driving its "Nueva Ola": Alejo Durán composed and performed in 1960 a song in the air called "La Ola del Vallenato" 34;, as a criticism of artists of the time who made innovations in the genre such as Aníbal Velásquez, who recorded and imposed a new rhythm on vallenato calling it "Guaracha".
Musicians
The so-called vallenato minstrels have been lost among history and legend. Among them are the legendary figure of Francisco el Hombre, through Pedro Nolasco Martínez, Emiliano Zuleta, Guillermo Buitrago, Lorenzo Morales, Leandro Díaz, Luis Enrique Martínez, Tobías Enrique Pumarejo, Juancho Polo Valencia, Diomedes Díaz, Abel Antonio Villa, Rafael Escalona, and the one who has been the greatest icon of Vallenato folklore, the first Vallenato King, Alejandro Durán. Many of them died in poverty even though their songs would later be heard throughout Latin America. These minstrels gave vallenato its physiognomy long before it became a sales phenomenon, as it did later.
Despite the existence of composers and interpreters of the traditional vallenato of great popularity in Colombia, the maximum "ambassador" of this music in the world is the singer samario Carlos Vives, who has made it known through a variant that could be called vallenato-pop-rock, also known as alternative vallenato. Today, a differentiation is made between the traditional vallenato and a more commercial vallenato, in which singers such as Silvestre Dangond, Kaleth Morales, Jorge Celedón and Iván Villazón and groups such as El Binomio de Oro de América have stood out. Other interpreters such as Diomedes Díaz made vallenato gain popularity among Colombians, without social or cultural distinction. In Venezuela, Rafael Orozco is considered a musical idol, even many years after his death; such was the affection expressed by the Venezuelan public that one of his greatest hits is dedicated to this country: Touring Venezuela .
Festivals
The most important vallenato festival in Colombia is the Vallenata Legend Festival, which has been held since 1968 in Valledupar, Cesar. In it, the best accordion player is rewarded with the title of Rey Vallenato. The winner of the first festival was Alejandro Durán, who defeated "Francisco el Hombre" to Emiliano Zuleta. It should be noted that since 1987, the "Rey de Reyes" tournament has been held every 10 years, where only those who have been crowned as vallenato kings participate in the festival.
The second most important festival for vallenato is the Cuna de Acordeones Festival in Villanueva, Guajira, a source town for accordion players, which has been held since 1979. The Cuna de Acordeones Festival was named Cultural and Artistic Heritage of Colombia by the National Congress through Law 1052 of 2006. Like the Valledupar festival, the Cradle of Accordions Festival has crowned the King of Kings every 10 years since 2003.
The third in importance is the Rio Grande de la Magdalena Festival, which has been held in the Santander municipality of Barrancabermeja since 1983, which was also declared Cultural Heritage of the Nation through Law 1007 of 2006 by Congress of the Republic. As in Valledupar and Villanueva, this festival crowns its King of Kings since 1992 but every 11 years.
In Riohacha, the Francisco El Hombre Festival has been held since 2009. Unlike previous festivals, this one rewards the best Vallenato groups and singers.
Outside Colombia, vallenato festivals are organized such as the Vallenato International Festival of Monterrey (Mexico), which was held between 2007 and 2017, managing to crown ten vallenato kings in the Aztec country, having special guests performers and composers from Colombia such as Sergio Moya Molina, Adolfo Pacheco, Fernando Meneses Romero, Isaac Carrillo "Tijito", Los Hermanos Lora, Roy Rodríguez, Alberto Rada, El Dúo Sensacional, Jorge Luis Ortiz, among others. In 2016, this festival crowned its first and only King of Kings. The festival was replaced in 2018 by the Vallenato Festival of Mexico, held in the same city of Monterrey. Another festival that takes place in that same city is the Voz de Acordeones Festival, with the longest tradition (it has been held since 1998) and importance because the winner of the festival travels to Valledupar, representing Mexico at the Vallenato Legend Festival the following year. although since 2018 there has not been a festival for various reasons (economic factors to reward the winners and logistics to send them to compete in Colombia, which has discouraged the royal accordion players from participating in the festival. Another reason is the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico in 2020).
Contenido relacionado
October 26th
Greta Garbo
Oware