Learning Música Llanera in Venezuela

Daily Encounters

I first arrived in Calabozo, Venezuela, a small city in the interior plains region state of Guárico, in 2016. As an ethnomusicologist, I had come to Calabozo to pursue fieldwork research on music education institutions, specifically recent initiatives to teach local música llanera (plains region music, pronounced "yah-NEH-rah") instruments within Venezuela's national music education system. I was immediately impressed by how much música llanera permeated the soundscape of everyday life in Calabozo and other towns in the plains, where I lived for over a year. On my first morning there, I took a walk to get a sense of the city, and I stumbled into the Casa de la Cultura ("House of Culture"), a community and culture center that most towns have, usually prominently located in front of the Plaza Bolívar.¹ Walking in, I saw a schedule posted at the entrance with the meeting times for daily classes in joropo, the dance form associated with música llanera, as well as for various música llanera instruments. My ears followed the sound of an arpa (harp) being played, and I found an elderly gentleman in a corner room practicing chord progressions.

Continuing my walk around town, I passed a small hardware store, with a large sound system pointed toward the street, playing famous recordings of música llanera singers. Another gentleman sat on a stool in the entranceway, playing maracas to accompany the songs playing on the speakers. Other moments regularly registered música llanera in the soundscape of everyday life. Every couple of months, pickup trucks would drive slowly down the main thoroughfares of the downtown area, playing recorded advertisements of upcoming amaneceres, all-night shows where the audience was expected to “amanecer,” or reach the next morning’s dawn, listening to música llanera performers. The local universities would also often host shows inviting well-known singers. On weekends and on the special occasions of birthdays or holidays, the family I lived with would bring a speaker system out into the courtyard at the house, to play background música llanera as visiting family members chit-chatted, and sometimes sang along. On Saturday evenings, many families would excitedly turn to the state television channel to watch children from all across Venezuela compete in a singing competition show called Corazón Llanero (“Heart of the Plains”).

In addition to recorded music shared via USB drives, CDs, the radio, and WhatsApp messages, many people in the llanos also experience música llanera in casual live performances at get-togethers or parties. This video was recorded at the goodbye party thrown at the end of my fieldwork in the courtyard of a home in Calabozo. Several of the musicians I had gotten to know throughout my fieldwork came to send me off and make music together, as they often did in both casual and festive situations.

Performance at a Despedida ("Send Off")

Background

Música llanera refers to music from the llanos, or plains, a topographical region that extends from eastern Colombia to southwest Venezuela.² The genre is often recognized in Venezuela by the three instruments of arpa llanera (llanera harp), cuatro, and maracas; commercially-recorded performances have also popularized the use of the electric string bass. Singing is a fundamental part of both traditional and commercial música llanera performance, and other local instruments used to perform música llanera include the bandola, mandolina, guitar, and violin. Most experienced musicians can move seamlessly from performing one instrument to another.

Here is a recording taken at the Casa de la Cultura in San Juan de los Morros, Guárico, the state capital located about two hours north of Calabozo. At a recital signaling the beginning of the summer vacation, several of the music teachers from the Casa de la Cultura performed to accompany joropo dance students; they also spontaneously invited a few other local musicians who were in the audience to perform with them. The singer is accompanied by electric bass, amplified cuatro and arpa, and maracas, while a duo of dancers demonstrates how the joropo is danced to música llanera.

Performance at a Casa de la Cultura

Música Llanera in Venezuelan Nationalism

In Venezuela, the llanos have long held important cultural significance in the definition of Venezuelan identity and nationalism. The llanos region has been historically important for cattle-raising and agriculture, but was also more isolated from other parts of the country due to climate and infrastructure. As in many other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, Venezuela’s population is understood to be mestizo or criollo, that is, as consisting of the mixing of indigenous American-, Spanish-, and African-descendant groups of people.³

The importance of música llanera in Venezuelan nationalism was furthered in the 21st century, particularly with the election of Hugo Chávez as president (his term spanned from 1999 to 2013). Chávez was himself from the llanos state of Barinas and loved to sing música llanera, especially in his public and media appearances. Many of his performances can be found on YouTube. One popular example is this video of Chávez and singer Cristóbal Jiménez:

Video of Chávez singing joropo with Cristóbal Jiménez (hosted by Venezuela TV)

The promotion of música llanera also supported Chávez's political goals of promoting Venezuelan sovereignty (particularly from the influence of the United States) and of prioritizing Afro-Venezuelan and indigenous culture and rights. Música llanera is a particularly strong example of this idealized cultural mestizaje, because it is recognized as using many European-derived string instruments and song forms, the maracas from indigenous cultures in the Americas, and rhythms that came with enslaved peoples from West Africa.

Música Llanera Instruments

Most música llanera instruments are fabricated by local luthiers, who are often also some of the most renowned musicians and music teachers. While the main música llanera instruments have been featured accompanying singers in the previous videos, here is a close-up listen to the arpa, cuatro, and maracas being played individually. These instruments are rarely played by themselves, and most musicians think of the performance of their instrument always in relation to other instrumental voices in an ensemble. However, these videos were filmed in Graz, Austria, at a performance where Venezuelan musicians briefly demonstrated the musical potential of each instrument independently, for a completely unfamiliar international audience.

Arpa Llanera

Cuatro

Maracas

Another very important instrument in música llanera is the bandola, a guitar-like instrument that is played with a pick and performs a primarily melodic role. In performances of música llanera, the bandola can often alternate with the arpa to play the melodic role.

Bandola Llanera

Alma Llanera

Since 1975, Venezuela has had an important and internationally recognized institution of classical music education called El Sistema (“The System,” short for “The Venezuelan System of Children’s and Youth Orchestras and Choirs,” now called "Simón Bolívar Musical Foundation of Venezuela"). El Sistema greatly expanded under Hugo Chávez’s presidency, as his socialist policies sought to extend the wealth generated by Venezuelan oil exports to social projects that served some of the most dispossessed young people and communities throughout the country.⁴

In 2012, with new state funding, El Sistema expanded to include música llanera in its programs in the state of Guárico (as well as other Venezuelan music traditions in other parts of the country). The program that was founded is called Alma Llanera (“Soul of the Plains”).⁵

Here is a video of one Alma Llanera ensemble at their final concert for the academic year, performing for friends and family at a church in San Juan de los Morros, Guárico.

Alma Llanera Orchestra Performance

In Guárico, El Sistema has at least one site in every major town. Alma Llanera is usually run alongside orchestral programs within these program sites. Alma Llanera students between the ages of about five and twenty-two receive instruments and attend class free-of-charge, five days a week, in the after-school hours of 2-5pm. In joining the program, students select for themselves which instrument they want to learn, and thus whether they want to study música llanera or classical orchestral music. In addition to the música llanera instruments that have already been introduced (the arpa, cuatro, maracas, and bandola), students in Alma Llanera can also choose to play upright or electric bass, mandolina (mandolin), or guitar. They are lent an instrument that travels with them daily between home and class. Daily learning takes place in a curricular assortment of private lessons, peer teaching, instrument sectional classes, and large ensemble rehearsals. Students usually also participate once a week in choir and lenguaje musical (music theory/literacy/history) classes.

While música llanera does permeate everyday life in the llanos, Alma Llanera has made the opportunity to learn música llanera accessible in a way it never has been before. This has opened up new ways of performing música llanera, especially through new arrangements and compositions made for larger orchestral ensembles. As we saw in the previous video, Alma Llanera is able to serve large numbers of students through practices based on the orchestra. This performance form is quite distinct from the small ensembles we saw earlier that are used to accompany singers. In Guárico, most students do maintain diverse opportunities to study and play música llanera, however. Many Alma Llanera students also study informally at home with elder family members, and some also attend classes at the Casas de la Cultura, or form small show ensembles with friends to perform at parties, participate in competitions, or make studio recordings. Alma Llanera presents new ways of learning and performing música llanera through participating in a state institution, in addition to the experiences of música llanera already common in daily life in the llanos.

A Pajarillo

From listening to these examples so far, you may have recognized that the performances all sound very similar, despite the fact that they take place in quite different contexts and with different instrumentation. In fact, all of the performances I have chosen to include in this essay have the golpe or ritmo (“rhythm,” or musical form) called "pajarillo" as their musical foundation.

When musicians perform música llanera, they start with a golpe or series of golpes that they will perform. Each golpe prescribes a certain harmonic cycle, as well as common melodic phrases, rhythms, speed of performance, and instrumental techniques. Many written catalogues of golpes outline about a dozen different golpes predominantly used in música llanera, but some musicians told me there are over fifty different golpes that the most experienced musicians know from memory. A 2020 project sponsored by the Latin Grammy Foundation catalogued dozens of golpes used in joropo llanero, on the website Venezuela Musical, categorizing them by the popularity of their usage in performance. There are famous songs that are inextricable from the golpes they are performed with, but singers can also write their own original lyrics to match golpes, and the practice of contrapunteo—an improvisatory duel between multiple singers—is also performed with the instrumental accompaniment performing golpes.⁶

The golpe pajarillo is in a minor key, has a fast pace, and is one of the most used and recognized golpes, especially to accompany singers. The harmonic progression cycles through every four measures. The singer often starts their part with a high sustained tone, as we saw in the second video.

The Alma Llanera orchestras often perform the composition “Rapsodia de Tierra Llana” ("Rhapsody of the Llanos Lands") by Venezuelan composer Pablo Camacaro, in an arrangement by Alma Llanera director and founder, Luís Herrera. Here is an excerpt of a performance that the professional Alma Llanera orchestra from Guárico had on their first international tour. Notice the jackets in the colors and pattern of the Venezuelan flag that they are wearing.

Alma Llanera in Graz

Go back to the other videos and see if you can compare these performances and identify the underlying pajarillo golpe. What do you think of the pajarillo performed by the Alma Llanera orchestra in Graz?

Alma Llanera represents an expansion of opportunities for Venezuelan youth, especially in the llanos, but it also demonstrates some of the artistic changes to music performance practices that accompany the institutionalization of music education. How do you think that these changes in instrumental ensemble and performance context might change the conceptualization of what música llanera is?

Discussion Questions

Think about some of the following questions, and consider discussing them with your classmates:

1. How does the playing technique/style of the instruments demonstrated here compare to similar instruments you might be familiar with in other traditions?
2. Consider other pieces of music or songs that you are familiar with in your daily life, or that have been discussed in class. Does the instrumentation, musical form, or differences in performance context ultimately change your perception of whether one performance is the same as the next? What are the essential elements in different music cultures that make distinct performances continue as the same, or different?
3. What other examples of major institutions developed to support music cultures can you think of? How do you think those institutions have shaped the practices of that music culture?
4. Imagine you are a music composer or arranger interested in cultivating performances based on traditional music practices in other ensembles or instruments. What kind of information or understanding would you need to do so?
5. How do the processes discussed in the Venezuelan context here compare to other genres of music involved in nationalist processes in other places? What other examples can you think of?

Section for Music Majors

1. What is the harmonic progression used in the pajarillo? (After you’ve tried to identify it, check with the analysis of the Pajarillo golpe by Venezuela Musical)
2. While golpes are usually defined by their harmonic cycles and sequential form, can you identify any other melodic phrases, rhythmic patterns, instrumental techniques, or singing practices that are common across these different performances?
3. Go back to the second video: How do the dancers' movements interact with and respond to the music?
4. Look up the score or recordings of performances of the piece “Fuga con Pajarillo” (“Fugue with Pajarillo”), part of Suite para Cuerdas (“Suite for Strings”) by Venezuelan composer Aldemaro Romero (1928-2007). Identify where the pajarillo golpe is performed, and what other performance aspects of the pajarillo have been maintained by this orchestral composition.

Further Reading

Open Access Resources for música llanera (Spanish language)

Recent project sponsored by the Latin Grammy Foundation and conducted by Katrin Lengwinat, Jesús Mangarré, and María Betania Hernández. Their website (Spanish language) and accompanying YouTube channel catalogues explain and present performances of the various golpes used in música llanera.

Website that invites you to follow along with the chord progressions, hand positions on cuatro, and lyrics for popular Venezuelan songs.

Tutorial videos by cuatro player Alis Cruces, demonstrating chord progressions and hand positions for popular Venezuelan songs.

Social Media tags

(If you’re interested in seeing more performances by these musicians—in order of appearance):

• Estéban Rutia on YouTube
• Jean Ochoa on Instagram
• Ibrahim Herrera on Instagram
• Luís Herrera on Instagram
• Isidro Landaeta on Instagram
• Sinahyd León on Instagram
• Instagram of Orquesta Henry Rubio, Alma Llanera Professional Orchestra of Guárico
• Instagram of El Sistema, Guárico State
• Instragram of Venezuela's national Alma Llanera Program