Encienda el Fuego

It is a type of singing associated to an old open position dance of the Cuyo region in Argentina (Provinces of San Juan, Mendoza, San Luis and parts of La Rioja and La Pampa), very popular in the early XIX century. It is estimated that in the first decades of the XX century it had already lost relevance. Some researchers hold the hypothesis that its origin can be found in dances of the Ranquel indigenous people, and that initially it was known as malón (Indian raid) or indiada (Indian mob). The sereno is a cheerful dance, full of naughtiness, in which the dancers show off with provocations and snubs, gallantry and disdain. The lyrics always refer to a typical character of colonial times, the sereno (watchman), who walked the streets at night, watching, singing the hours, announcing the weather conditions and tinging his work with funny attitudes.

The chacarera is a vocal and dancing genre of Argentina, mainly of the Province of Santiago del Estero. It is traditionally performed with guitar, violin and leguero bass drum (double drumhead membranophone, around 50cm high and 40cm wide). There are traditional vocal chacareras as well as only instrumental ones. It is danced by couples who dance freely (but in a group) with circles and turns. Some scholars and performers hold that it is a mono-rhythmic three-four time, while others assert that it is a bi-rhythmic or polyrhythmic dance, with a six-eight time melody and a three-four time instrumental base. La Loca (The madwoman) is a very old chacarera which supposedly keeps its original structure.

The comparsa (type of troupe) in unison vidala is one of the genres of singing with caja (double drumhead hand drum) which is currently performed in Argentina by rural communities of Diaguita, Calchaquí, and Coya origin, among others from North Western Argentina. Its multiple forms adopt tetraphony, pentaphony, diaphony, bimodality, and hybrid scales.

Within Argentina, the tonada cuyana is a musical expression characteristic of the Cuyo region. It is a lyrical genre sung with a criollo guitar trio. Some scholars of this genre affirm that it appears before 1850, due to the decline of the Spanish tonadilla. At that time, it was also known by other names such as estilo, triste and yaraví.

This is a peculiar finding by the Argentine singer, composer and researcher Leda Valladares (1919-2012) in her field collection in the Province of Santiago del Estero. It is a traditional popular serenade which fuses the genres of the estilo and the waltz, and which is usually sung to bride and groom on their wedding day. Its poetic structure is organized in ten-line stanzas.

Considered the mother of the zamba genre, this song gave rise to the celebration of the “Zamba National Day” on that date. This is an unprecedented version compiled by the musician and composer Manuel Gómez Carrillo in Tucumán, in 1923, for which Valladares wrote the lyrics. A great mystery enshrouds the origin of this zamba, and much has been speculated about its name. One of the conjectures relates it to a homonymous place, located in the northeast of the Province of Tucumán (in the Burruyacú Department), where until the mid-XX century there was a logging camp which received workers from neighbouring provinces and border countries. The lyrics written by Valladares approach that subject.

The vidala is deeply rooted in the history of the region made up of the Provinces of Tucumán, Santiago del Estero and Catamarca and also reaching those of La Rioja and San Juan in the west. Each zone imposes its differences, although in all of them, the accompaniment is respected, which in general corresponds to the caja, with which different beats are performed according to its origin. The vidala has very particular and old musical characteristics. It does not follow western aesthetic patterns, but nurtures itself from elements and nuances proper of the original songs of the Andes. Unlike the other genres, the vidala originates as an already mixed criollo folkloric expression, with musical elements proper of the Spanish culture and of the original peoples of the Argentine northwest.

Matarina is the demonym which describes the people from Matara, a village in the Department of Cajamarca in Peru. There, during carnival, coplas to huayno melody are sung, in counterpoint and in group, as it is presented in this traditional version.

The vidala in duo in parallel thirds with caja is a weeping song of uncertain origin, although it is known that it is an Andean and precolonial expression which resembles the Peruvian weeping songs. The Argentine musicologist Carlos Vega maintains that it belongs to a musical system proper of South America. Normally, it contains love laments as its words express oblivion, impossible love and disappointment. It is found in the Provinces of La Rioja, Catamarca, Tucumán and Santiago del Estero.

It is estimated that the zamacueca arrived in Chile from Lima between 1810 and 1825. In Argentina, the dance which bears this name had a variation which made it longer. Towards 1870, the name zamacueca derived into that of cueca. Afterwards, in Lima, it adopted the Chilean changes and was spread with the name of Chilean zamacueca, chilean, or cueca. The origin of the zamacueca can be found in the musical fusion which occurred between gypsies and mulatos who inhabited Lima during the Peru Viceroyalty. The temperament, satire, and lamenting and rebellious performance of the guitar has gypsy origin, whereas the choir form and the tundete (simple repeated guitar strumming) have African origin. This musical fusion begins to stand out during the XVI and XVII centuries.

Song which accompanies a homonymous open position dance. According to the Argentine folklorist and writer Ventura R. Lynch (1851-1883), the dance, of traditional origin, was danced in rural areas of the Province of Buenos Aires between 1850 and 1900, particularly in the Dolores zone and, by the end of the XIX century it was also known in the west of the Pampa zone.

This expression is a rarity as it was compiled in Tucumán (by Leda Valladares), whereas the milonga is a genre typical of the Pampas. Two origins are assigned to the milonga, one of them linked to the criollo guajira or old milonga, which became popular by the mid-XIX century. According to some scholars, this genre replaced others of the criollo folklore, such as cielitos and medias cañas. It is estimated that in the mid-XIX century the genre expanded beyond the Pampa region. The second origin of the milonga, according to the famous Afro-Argentine payada singer Gabino Ezeiza (1858-1916), who introduced the structure of the milonga to the payada (improvised folk song), it comes from candombe, genre made up of musical expressions of African origin.

La baguala is a lyrical genre which can be traced back to the Diaguita-Calchaquí culture (north-west of Argentina and north of Chile). Originally it was sung in kakán language and was considered one of the most ancestral genres of the traditional singing of the area. It is one of the basic vocal expressions of the singing with caja and it is nowadays sung with the poetic structure of the octosyllabic copla. Its melody is triton and the way it is sung is very ornamented. The coplas salteñas come from the Chaco area in the Province of Salta. Through them, the singer improvises his or her words and sings by means of the copla, with interludes where a particular touch of the so-called violin del monte or the caja intervenes.

For more information about the genres and musical instruments mentioned, the following works can be consulted:

Instrumentos musicales etnográficos y folklóricos de la Argentina (Ruiz Irma, Rubén Pérez Bugallo y Héctor Goyena, Eds. 1993. Buenos Aires: INM).

Panorama de la música popular argentina (Vega, Carlos. 1998 [1944]. Buenos Aires: INM).

Diccionario de la música española e hispanoamericana (Casares Rodicio, Emilio, Ismael Fernández de la Cuesta y José López-Calo. 2002. Madrid: Fundación Autor y SGAE).