33 f
Mercedes Peón P
ercussionist Xosé Lois Romero whisked me up into the hills to a rehearse-and-eat session by his brand-new all- percussion and vocal group, Aliboria. The six young women sing with wild, edgy exuberance, and it’s a mighty sound, with the group, ten in all, using much of
Galicia’s large armoury of traditional skin, wood and metal percus- sion: pandeireta, pandeira, pandeiro cuadrado, tambor (side-drum), bombo (bass drum), triangle, tarrañolas (wooden bones), cunchas (scallop shells), charrasco (jingle-stick), tixola (iron frying pan) and lata (large rectangular tin can, the favoured model being one for- merly containing peppers).
Three of the singers, who also sing with Carlos Núñez, are sis- ters; their father is president of the Cultural Association, teaching gaita playing, percussion, dance and so on, in their town. They and their cousin, also in the group, have been singing traditional songs together since they were little; they go to the villages to learn from the señoras, and also learn from collections.
“It’s an interesting time, because over the last fifteen or 20 years these sort of activities have become very entertaining for the young”, says Xosé Lois. “It’s like a cult. Asturians ask me ‘How come things are so active in Galicia?’ And I tell them the prototypical most cool person in Galicia is a pandeiretero, gay, who sings and plays and dances!” (He means Davide Salvado). “We’re at a time that’s not so much fusion with folk, but something more traditional, more popular. There were the gaita soloists, and then came the soloists who worked with song – Mercedes Peón and so on. Then came the period of dance, when it was restored as an activity. And now is the time of the canción de taverna, the sort of group singing that people do in bars.”
The man to see for the whole range of Galician instruments is musician and instrument-maker Pablo Carpintero. I visited him at home, where he has his workshop and a fascinating room displaying the huge range of instruments he’s made or collected.
“I make percussion and wind instruments. Gaitas, flutes – tradi- tional and also baroque flutes. I make gaitas from the whole north- west – Asturian, Portuguese and Galician. I’ve travelled through the whole north-west, and so far I’ve measured 250 old gaitas, and talked to nearly 200 gaiteiros, and recorded their repertoire. Here there is one of every instrument that we – Rosa and I – have docu- mented in Galicia. 160 different musical instruments.”
A fine gaiteiro, he plays for me, in the appropriate styles, some
gaitas from different regions, accompanied by Rosa Sanchez on drum, and demonstrates launeddas-like reed pipes, jew’s-harps, goat-horn whistle, and some of the many percussion instruments.
Photo: © Judith Burrows
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