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by Isabel Ovalle
There’s something about Latin music that gets to you from the moment the first note is heard. Unless you’re made of stone, your body will start moving as a reflex to the music. The hips will go first, and your feet will follow in a second. Famous Cuban singer Gloria Estefan was right after all, eventually, the rhythm is going to get you!
Things are like that for Hispanics, they take music everywhere. If a few friends get together, more often than not, someone will bring out a guitar and everyone will start singing to the top of their lounges, from Mexico to the very last tip of Argentina, all the way to Spain.
It’s not different for Venezuelans who live abroad. In Qatar there are approximately 400 of them. In 2009, two friends from the land of Simón Bolívar were strolling through Doha on a regular day when they got to talking about music, particularly about the Gaita, a style of folk music original from Maracaibo, in the state of Zulia. A rhythm powerful enough to bring together a group of Venezuelans over 12,000km away from home.
That’s how it all began, with an informal conversation of two friends felt homesick for the music of their homeland. Coincidently, many of the group’s members are originally from Maracaibo, a city located in northwestern Venezuela.
The two friends wondered if they could find enough Venezuelans to form a group. Four years later, the answer is clear, with 15 people from various backgrounds form ing Gaiteros de Qatar. From engineers, doctors and journalists, to a 15-year-old student, the group is also an excuse to get together and keep the country’s culture alive, given that the children of some members arrived in Qatar when they were a few months old and know little about their home country.
The heart of Gaiteros de Qatar is director, Enderson García, who moved to Doha seven years ago. He explained to The Peninsula that most of the Gaiteros didn’t have much experience in music, but some did play instruments, “plus Venezuela is a very musical country, so the experience with the group has been like a school for us,” he added.
After many rehearsals and performances, the group now composes their own songs, about quotidian topics, with one main instrument: the ‘cuatro’, Spanish word for four. The cuatro is the national instrument of Venezuela, it has four strings and it’s similar to a small guitar. It has become an imperative instrument for Venezuelan folk music.
The rest of the band plays other popular instruments from Venezuela, such as the furro (marduyo, original from the Canary Islands, in Spain), the charrasca, or the maracas. Modern instruments are also used to “garnish”, like the keyboards, the base or the flute.
All these instruments were carefully picked in Venezuela and brought to Qatar as luggage. The first rehearsal was held on August 11, 2009. Members can hardly describe the emotion they felt that evening, an inexpressible mix of joy and nostalgia.
September 18, that same year, the first performance, which was in several languages, took place in the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary in Doha. Other shows followed, such as the Halloween party that year. This event featured two unreleased tracks, Gaita in Qatar, which describes how the group got together, and another piece that turns Doha’s crazy traffic into a gaita song.
All these instruments put the music to lyrics that aim to express the voice of the people. In its inception period, during the colonial times, this style of music was sung by the working class. Now the songs are about diverse issues, including the sporadic sadness of the expatriate, a tribute to everyday things, mixing culture with the context. For Gaiteros it’s the perfect way to keep their traditions alive when they are so far away from home.
The group is especially popular among the Spanish speaking community, but locals also enjoy Latin rhythms. Gaiteros rehearses once a week and their high season goes from August to December, when they usually perform as part of local events. The group is open all - amateurs as well as professionals, and revolves around the joint aim to spread the tradition of Gaita.
Famous Latin American artist Víctor Hugo supports Gaiteros, and the group is also well known back home, where they have been featured in television and radio shows.
“We are very thankful to the Spanish Speaking Ladies in Qatar. They have supported the band from the very start, inviting us to perform in various events like the Gala Latina,” said a band member.
The Gaita combines the contents of a piece that has a formal structure of verse-chorus, the first is sung by a soloist and the second by the chorus. In the strophe, four verses are used, while the chorus has four, six or eight lines, both of octosyllabic measure, but other combinations of verses can be used. The rhythm is six by eight, six by twelve, six by fourteen, eight by sixteen, also of regular and irregular meter, rhyme, assonance or consonant.
The next chance to see a live performance of the group will be on December 7, at 7 pm in the Club House of Al Fardan 1 compound, for the ‘Amanecer Gaitero y Fiesta Decembrina’ (Gaitero dawn and December party).
The Peninsula
