Latin America

Lawrence Daniel Ibarra Perdigón

The Vanguardia Orchestra was born on May 28, 2001, the name of Vanguardia comes because I always ahead of what I wanted and break the barriers, beginnings date back to 1974 in Block 6 of January 23 in Caracas, musicians rehearsing: Cheo Navarro, Miguel Pacheco, el Gordo Zambrano, Miguel Diaz, Edgar Dolor Quijada and my older brother who supports me and gives me a drum set.

My first professional presentation was with a group called Clave and Son de Caricuao, the director was David Zurita, I made my debut as a chorus singer, imagine if we only alternated with the Caribbean Classical Sonero, that was on May 1st 1983, then in 1985 I began my career as a bongosero in the Fundarte Workshops in the Aquiles Nazoa Library with Professor Orlando Poleo until 1987, the Orchestra Conductorship came later.

The Orquesta Vanguardia is made up of 12 musicians, all of whom have great experience and professionalism. The orchestra is made up of Vicente Frigeiro 1st trumpet, Douglas Villarreal 2nd trumpet arranger, and Miguel Sánchez 1st trombone. 2nd trombone Wilfredo Calderón, Percussion, Oliver Meneses timbal, Richard Avila tumbadoras, Jackson Monterola bongo and bell, piano Douglas Madera arranger and director, bass Elio Torres, singers and choirs José Cedeño, Pedro Rivera and Lawrence Ibarra.

We have alternated, with figures like Hildemaro, Bailatino, Erick Francheski, Grupo madera. Manuel Guerra, Watussi, Naty y Su Orquesta, Noche Caliente, Son Madera Son, Mandinga Star Band, Orquesta Sabor y Swing, Orquesta La Oportunidad, Orquesta Saraguey, Sabor a Pueblo, Orquesta Sinsaye de Venezuela, Agrupación los Tan Tan, Pibo Marquez and his Criollo download, El Combo de Venezuela, Javier Plaza, music lovers meeting in Cali Colombia sharing on Channel 14 with Samir Bazzi and Eddie Saa Colombian singer, Radio Z te Prende with the Pepezon Cali Colombia.

As a bongosero I started in 1985 going through several groups such as: Clave y Son, Son Bacara, Son 27, until 2001 when I founded my own orchestra today Vanguardia, but it was for a short time in the Bongo with Vanguardia.

Beginning as a singer, thanks to the great teacher Oswaldo Morales, well known for his hits like Cinco Centavitos and Ella, I studied with him for about three years. In 2005 I recorded my first production entitled Marcando la Diferencia with 11 songs like SABROSITO by Jose Reina, Cheo Navarro’s Fashion Orchestra, Quiero llorar , Ni llanto ni Flores , Déjalo Volar by Composer Angel Flores, Escaleras de tu Mente by Fran Quintero and Ciriaco by Pedro Rivera With this first production we traveled to Cali and made ourselves known to the public.

I have 8 songs of which 6 are Originals and 2 versions of songs like; Eres tu this is the promotional song that has its video clip that can be viewed on YouTube, as Lawrence and his orchestra Vanguardia.

I want to cry by Elias Escalona, Eduardo Serrano’s Barlovento, Viejo Chévere by Maestro Luis María Frómita (Billo), Guayabera no dé, Dame otra Tarde by Maestro Alfredy Bogado, Ven y Vacila by myself as well as Eres tu debuting as a composer and Vanguardia Son by Douglas Villarreal Arranger of this second production, Jose Guachafa Guzmán , Jose Tuky Torres, Douglas Madera and Douglas Villarreal.

Tours presentations clear promotional tour to Cali Colombia, Peru, Mexico presentations contrasts in VTV, covers in Venevision, Cota 800 Alba, Gaveguero and Bellaglio.

Promotional tour of Colombia in 2019, cities like Bogota and Cali, participating in radio and television, Fairs of Cali, currently I have my third production which consists of 9 unreleased songs and two video clips, Esa Mujer and Block 6 and placed on YouTube by the hand of Alfredo Montilla, musicians who participated Pianos: Douglas Madera and Sammy Infante, Bass: José Guachafa Guzmán, Julito Antillano and Eliot torres, Percussion: José Cheo Navarro, Carlos Guzmán, Enrique Sojo and Oliver Meneses, Trumpets: Vicente Frigueiro, Luis Ruiz and Douglas Villarreal, Trombones: Miguel Sánchez, Singers and Chorus, Edgar Dolor Quijada, Pedro Rivera, José Cedeño and Lawrence Ibarra, Recorded at Requena Studios, Recording Technician Francisco Requena.

Currently I have been 3 year in my new facet as a broadcaster, by the Emisora Oye Ven on 106.9 FM with the program that comes out every Saturday from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm which is entitled “En Vanguardia con Ritmo Salsa y Sabor” which I support the Venezuelan with talent, ephemeral music reviews and where everyone sounds.

 Musical Production, Douglas Madera and Douglas Villarreal, Executive Production, Lawrence Ibarra

Photography by Alfredo Montilla

Contacts: Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @vanguardiaven

Mobile: 0412-998-14-06

Facebook: Lawrence Daniel Ibarra Perdigon

Article of Interest: José Madera Niño “Salsa became part of my growth”

Growing up with music, living from music, producing music, performing music, studying music, is not a cacophony, they are different states that a music lover can go through.

Either involved with one or several roles on the subject simultaneously. It is true that their development is transversed by music as a field that requires developing cognitive, motor, intellectual, and social skills, and even those required by the industry, such as those related to negotiation and marketing.

This means that music involves memory for the need to learn, remember and evoke; it involves dance as a pleasant form of non-verbal communication; it involves musical performance for the execution in various disciplines; it involves ingenuity and creation, to make arrangements and compositions; it involves social interaction, for the role of music in dances, concerts, programs, parties, festivals, competitions, orchestras and groups and finally it involves a field that very few are concerned with, such as research.

But even though for the music lover music occupies a transversal axis, his daily life demands him to fulfill the necessary requirements to live in society, in them, the need to work, study, and take care of the family without neglecting to cultivate himself as a person simultaneously with enriching his spiritual demands.

Linked to all this panorama is a basic principle based on birth as a source of explanation of what men and women will be and will do. We came into the world unprotected, it was our parents who at that stage facilitated our adaptation to life, and as we grew up they unconsciously drew up a script for us about what we would be in the future, often being disappointed by not seeing any of their projections fulfilled.

During the first years of life, the school and the family took the reins of our formation, socialization and the transmission of values, but in this process, the influence of the environment played a preponderant role by carrying behind it a hidden curriculum whose function was to transmit information to us, different from what the school or the family could have covered. In my personal growth,

the influences received by the environment that offered me living in a neighborhood such as the Marín neighborhood in the parish of San Agustín del Sur in Caracas were decisive.

It was living my adolescence in the ’70s, wrapped in the confluence of uses, customs, traditions and a whole diversity of socio-cultural practices inherent to the daily life of the neighborhood all culminating in shaping my tastes, my preferences, my interests, my way of being, of saying and acting.  How to escape, for example, from the practice of a neighbor located at the top of the neighborhood who habitually listened to salsa amplifying it for the whole community; to coexist with the Saturday rehearsals of Frank y su Tribu and Mon Carrillo and his sextet or the almost daily practices of Alfredo Padilla studying his timbal on the balcony of his house, or Pedro García “Guapachá teaching the youngsters his tumbadora techniques; or waiting every year end for the street descargas; dancing in the parties and temples enjoying the song “Rómpelo de los Dementes, “Guasancó” by Sexteto Juventud or “Pao Pao” by Federico y su Combo Latino; listening to the salsa hour with Phidias Danilo Escalona was a must at lunchtime, and at night “Quiebre de Quinto” with Cesar Miguel Rondón.

Obviously, what I have said in this account is nothing more than a brief synopsis of how much influence I may have received, but when added together they give as a result of the support of my expansion through a cultural world that was seasoned by pop music and the expressions of the hippie movement during the 70s.

I continued my formal education studying Psychology at the Central University of Venezuela, simultaneously I studied Theory and Solfeggio with Professor Eduardo Serrano and then at the José Lorenzo LLamozas School, another part of my time was dedicated to studying Traditional Dances at the National Institute of Folklore.

In 1977, a group of musicians and young people from the Marín neighborhood promoted the creation of the Madera Group, through which we were able to channel all those concerns experienced in everyday life.

Maintaining the activity with the group, I got involved with Choral Singing at the Vinicio Adames Foundation.  At the Bigott Foundation, I studied percussion with Professor Alexander Livinalli and popular singing with Professor Francisco Salazar.

I was a member of the group “Afroamérica” formed by Jesus Chucho Garcia, Miguel Urbina, Benigno Medina, Orlando Poleo Johnny Rudas and Faride Mijares. Since 1988 I dedicated myself to the production of Didactic Encounters of percussionist musicians teaming up with Jesús “Totoño” Blanco (R.I.P) and José Agapito Hernández.

In 1993 I was chorister of Marianella y su Orquesta. I was part of the Editorial Board and at the same time an article writer of the magazine “Así Somos”, a publication of the Ministry of Culture.

Pending not to neglect my academic interests, I dedicated myself to pursuing a Doctorate in Education at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello.

Moving on to another facet, I had participated as an actress in the film “Pelo malo” by Mariana Rondón (grandmother Carmen) obtaining the award for a best supporting actress at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York (2014), in the Venezuelan Film Festival-Cinelco (2014) and the Municipal Film Award (2015), then I participated in the video clip of “De tú a tú” of Lasso’s promotional album in 2014.

Awarded as “Honorary Teacher” of the National University of the Arts (Unearte), in recognition of the cultural work developed.

Facebook: Nelly Josefina Ramos Tovar

Article of Interest: Professor MSc. Carlos Colmenárez and his “WRITTEN SALSA”

The capacho tree (Canna Generalis Bailey) is a large flower and its colors can be yellow, red or orange. The fruit they produce has seeds used by Venezuelan folklorists to create the filling of the maracas and, in turn, get their sonority.

For this process, there are three steps to make them and obtain the final product.

In Venezuela, the typical llanera maraca is filled with seeds of capacho, which are very hard and do not wear out easily.

Another material used is the so-called “espuma e sapo” which are a type of seed that also give a very good sound to the maracas.

I have been collecting these seeds you can see in the photos for the maracas that we are going to make for the dancing devils of Tinaquillo in my community of Santa Rita in the lower part of El Valle.

Manuel Alejandro Rangel

The maraca in Venezuela has been present mainly among our native peoples. It is used to accompany the dance, be a child’s toy, invoke, heal and cleanse at the hands of the shaman. This small and powerful Venezuelan instrument is composed of three elements of nature: mango or stick extracted from the wood of wild trees; tapara or gourd, fruit of a climbing plant with the same name and originally African; and finally, seeds of capacho (Achira) or seeds of Espuma e ́ Sapo (wild plant) that go inside the tapara and are commonly found in Latin America.

For being an idiophone instrument, the maraca produces sound thanks to the vibration of its own body, that is, to the shock of the seeds inside against the walls of the tapara when it is shaken, generating a dry and strong sound. Besides resonating when shaken, when we hold the maraca and make repeated circular movements with the wrist, we achieve that the seeds result in friction with the walls of the tapara, which produces a sound with greater sustain, similar to the sweep of a broom, called for this reason by several cultists escobilla’o.

Over the years, the maraca in Venezuela was incorporated into musical expressions of different regions, becoming an almost essential accompanying instrument and varying its playing technique according to the regions and genres that have adopted it. That is why in the Venezuelan plains, the maraca performance resembles the sound of galloping hooves, that is to say, the blows of the seeds to the tapara when shaking it are mostly dry or staccato, with an possible use of the escobilla’o technique that we will explain in detail in this method.

Unlike the performance in the Venezuelan plains, in the east of Venezuela the maraca emulates the sound of the sea with the prominent use of the escobilla’o; while in the center of the country, the use of this technique is low and the shaking of the seeds is less staccato or forceful than in the plains, making its rhythm function as the main guide for the dancers. The maraca can also be seen in different Afro-descendant drum ensembles in the country, and is generally played by the singers, who use only one maraca instead of two as in the aforementioned regions.

The Venezuelan maraca is fundamentally a popular instrument. Maybe that is why, until now there has not been a specific academic musical writing that allows to know in depth all its language. The most direct way to learn to play this instrument is mainly by oral tradition, as well as by observing, listening, and deciphering great maraca players who, thanks to the cultural heritage and family tradition of their towns, play it in a very genuine and masterful way. Insignificant Venezuelan maraca players who were masters in this field such as: Santana Torrealba, Máximo Teppa, Pedro Aquilino Díaz “Mandarina”, José Pérez, Coromoto Martínez, Trino “Chiche” Morillo, Ernesto Laya, Jorge Linares “Masamorra”, Lorenzo Alvarado, Manuel García, and from the Colombian region masters who have adopted the Venezuelan maraca tradition such as Gilberto Castaño, Diego Mosquera, William León, Emanuel Contreras, among many other anonymous heroes from different regions of Venezuela, have been and will continue to be the most important guide for the teaching and evolution of the maraca in the world, providing new generations with a cultural connection to the deepest roots.

Thanks to the legacy left by each of these maraca makers, a vital source of inspiration for many performers for decades, the commitment to continue with important educational inputs that allow the expansion of knowledge and the evolution of our popular Venezuelan instruments at the academic level is born, since these instruments per se, require a rigorous study in terms of vocabulary, technique, and history.

In this method 5 Movements are the key, I want to share the experience that helped me to understand the traditional playing techniques of the Venezuelan maraca and that led me to the design of a musical writing that shows its performance with clarity and discernment for each Venezuelan genre according to the vocabulary and variations that have been standardized over time.

And when I talk about variations, I emphasize five basic movements that I consider to be the key to the playing of the maraca. Five movements that will later become the musical discourse of those who master them.

Five movements that will show the student why and how the main traditional Venezuelan rhythms are born. Five movements that I have not invented, but that are the vocabulary of tradition, and that the student will observe in the performance of Venezuelan maraca players who have dedicated their lives to this instrument.

Personally, Special mention should be made of maestro Juan Ernesto Laya “Layita”, who instilled in me much of the basic knowledge of the maracas in the workshops dictated by the Ensamble Gurrufío: Aprende y toca con Gurrufío in 2000. Years later, once graduated as a classical guitarist from the Vicente Emilio Sojo Conservatory of Music in 2004, I began to design exercises that would allow me to pedagogically transmit to my students the language learned with maestro Laya and with several of the musicians mentioned in this writing.

An important step if we take into account that no music school in Venezuela had a pedagogical program for the teaching or application of theory to this instrument at that time.

It should be noted that I have put these exercises into practice in various clinics, master classes, courses, and seminars that I have had the opportunity to dictate around the world, where the development and learning of the participants has been satisfactory in a large percentage. Especially in the Simon Bolivar Conservatory (Ccs- Vzla) where I teach since 2014, in the Venezuelan Music seminar organized by Venezuelan percussionist Fran Vielma at Berklee College of Music (Boston-USA) in 2014, and in the “Venezuelan Creole Music Course” (Mirecourt-France) produced by maestro Cristobal Soto, in which I participate since 2015, among others.

With regard to the writing of the Venezuelan maraca, over the years I came across Venezuelan works for orchestra where there are specific parts for maracas such as the guitar concertos by Antonio Lauro, the works of Evencio Castellanos, La Cantata Criolla by Antonio Estévez, La Fuga con Pajarillo by Aldemaro Romero, and the Concierto para Maracas y Orquesta Pataruco by Ricardo Lorenz, to name a few. When I read them, I realized that their writing was not entirely idiomatic, so I had to interpret and adapt to the technique and idiosyncrasy of the Venezuelan maracas what the composer wanted to say and that the writing was not able to convey to me.

That is why in 5 Movements are the key, I propose the musical writing for the Venezuelan maracas in a bigrama, since, within the large family of percussion instruments, the maraca is one of the few that produces sound with the movement of the arm both up and down. And therefore, the upward movement is part of the rhythmic phrase.

In the bigram I suggest, the upper line represents the right hand, and the lower line the left hand, very similar to the piano writing in two clefs: right hand treble clef, and left-hand bass clef. In this way, the polyrhythm of the two maracas is visually separated when carrying out their movements. In addition to the bigram, I assigned to each movement a symbol that defines which of the five that I describe will be used in each figure.

Finally, I would like to comment that one of the main objectives of this method is that these five movements and their combinations show how basic traditional Venezuelan rhythms are accompanied, and besides, how they link or build connections that allow the performer to go from an accompaniment pattern to a variation, and then back without interrupting at any time the rhythmic stability, the sound, or the movement of the arm or wrist. I would also like to add that this method not only applies to Venezuelan music genres, but can also be used to incorporate this sublime and powerful instrument into any musical culture in the world.

Maracas in Latin rhythms belong to the minor percussion section.

A classic of Latin percussion. It is an idiophone instrument, it uses its body as a resonator element, which has its own sound. The origin of the maracas is South American and dates from the pre-Columbian era in America. Originally only one maraca was played, nowadays they are usually played in pairs. Its operation is simple, the sphere is filled with small elements that when shaken impact the inner wall producing the sound we all know. These small elements can be small stones, seeds, pieces of metal or glass… They are normally used to mark the rhythm in Latin music.

Hands to the maracas!

Sources:

Photographs: Alberto Cardenas

https://www.facebook.com/ZorcaCultura/?ref=page_internal

https://cuentaelabuelo.blogspot.com/2010/03/las-maracas-o-capachos.html

https://tucuatro.com/camburpinton/las-maracas-instrumento-musical-economico-y-facil-de-elaborar/

https://www.clasf.co.ve/maracas-pan-con-queso-cuero-y-semillas-de-capacho-en-caracas-1721485/

https://manuelmaracas.com/manuelsite/articulo/a-las-maracas-venezolanas/

Article of Interest: Génesis of Salsa, its essence, characteristics, rhythm, history, and expansión

Video Courtesy of multi – percussionist Diego Gale “Master Class: Maracas