PRIMARY SCHOOL PARRANDEROS IN 2013

THE JOROPO IN TRINIDAD

Carlos García, an ethnomusicologist from Caracas and specialist in Eastern Venezuelan music enlightened me on the complexities of this type of music. He pointed out the many similarities between the parang of Trinidad and the folk music of the Oriente region of Venezuela. Old parranderos had often tried to educate me on the differences between sabana blanca and guarapo, estribillo and zumba que zumba. I was a dull student. I asked the same questions over and over again. However, I slowly undersood that while some older Venezuelan melodies and names were retained in Trinidad, there were a few which were either forgotten or applied differently in the two countries. I discovered that in Venezuela the joropo oriental was the generic name covering the joropo itself as well as the golpe and the estribillo. Each joropo was independent in melody and harmony. What was common to them were the rhythm and general musical pattern. Regino Noriega and Ciprian Ruiz had taken pains to explain that the difference between the sabana blanca and the manzanares, for example, was the toná I remember Ciprian Ruiz singing:
Morenita pelo largo
y delgada de cintura
ayer tarde en el paseo
me alabaron tu hermosura

He sang that stanza in one toná, calling it a manzanare, then changed to a different toná calling it a guarapo. Little by little I became aware that manzanares, guarapo, sabana blanca and even the less popular guacharaca or the paloma and gallina were traditional joropo melodies that had also been played in Venezuela. They derived their names from the central subject matter of the song. In each case the stanzas followed no specific order, and were measured in eight syllabic quatrains with a strict rhyming pattern. One always expected the assonance of second and fourth lines, and one was seldom disappointed. I listened to the manzanares which dealt with the river near Cumaná in Venezuela (There is also a Rio Manzanares in Madrid). In the most popular of its stanzas it tells of the man whose dying mother has sent to call him. The man has to cross the river to get home:

Río Manzanare
déjame pasar
que mi madre enferma
me mandó llamar.


RIO MANZANARES

This song has been claimed by both Venezuela and Trinidad and is included in the repertoire of most parang performers in Trinidad. Recently the winners of the Junior Parang Primary Schools Festival, Sacred Heart (Sagrado Corazón de Jesús) Boys RC School, performed for a visiting Cardinal at Presidents House in Trinidad. It was heartening to hear the boys sing the manzanares verses in such clear Spanish.




The above text is an excerpt from the book The Cocoa Panyols of Trinidad: An Oral Record. This book is now out of print. The author is anxious to have it reprinted since many persons have been expressing an interest in it.

PARANG IN LOPINOT
Papa Goon and Sotero invited me to come to Lopinot on the following Saturday. They were going to 'make parang' right there at Papta Goon's place. we prayed that it would not rain. They were going to make sancocho, cachapa and other special dishes prepared with grated corn. Without doubt Papa Goon was the leader in creating the atomosphere for fetes up there in the Lopinot valley. "I like my parang", he always said. He described the preparations in store for the weekend with glee. In anticipation he bellowed:'Se quema el pueblo. Is fire in the town!' Off we went to Papra Goon's house to rehearse,
as it were, for the great event!
As the afternoon progressed our lightheartedness increased. Papa Goon discovered that the young landy with us was the grand-daughter of a good friend of his. His compliments on the lady's beauty multiplied, becoming free and daring: She was Delfín Noguera's grand daughter. 'That is why you so pretty'. Then our private afternoon parang began with two cuatros, a marac and three old-time parranderos singing aguinaldos, joropos, estribillos and picón. Sotero explained that the aguinaldo and the serenal were the same song. A serenal was sung when serenaders arrived at the home; they also sang it upon leaving, but with a different tonada, a different air. The name serenal was associated with the well-known refrain 'Sereno, sereno, sereno será, estos son serenos de la madrugá'. Here reference was made to the night dew or sereno, to which the srenaders were exposed as they moved from house to house.
Aguinaldos consist of four-line stanzas. Each line is strictly measured to contain six syllables following the rules natural to Spanish prosody. Rhyming is in the second and fourth lines. In the aguinaldo, the parranderos sing of the whole cycle pertaining to the birth of Jesus Christ. Each stanza is an independent composition, a cameo. There is no specific order in which stanzas are arranged. However, they are thematically united.
Papa Goon and Sotero took turns to sing alternate stanzas:
El Angel Gabriel
le anunció a María
que en su vientre santo
un niño nacía

La paloma blanca
que tiene en el pico
una cinta de oro
para Jesu Cristo

Older parranderos place great emphasis on the accurate narration of the story of the birth of Christ, insisting on not mixing details of the Annunciation with the Nativity scene, or the Pssion and Death of the Saviour with the Christmas story. They criticize even more severely those who juxtapose sacred and profance elements in the same song. The strict adherence to the thematic development is probably a remnant of the dramatization that was simultaneous with the singing of the aguinaldos. In fact, there is still some measure of awareness among younger and newer parranderos that a particular format ought to be followed when engaged in 'making parang'.

Sotero apoligused for not havging the violin that day to enhance the quality of the parang being offered. He talked about having a bandol, a mandolin or even a bajón (bass), but promised that on the following day the music would be more complete. I didnt mind. The musicians were few, but the music was tuneful and the singers resourceful.

This was music that the old peons had brought with them from Eastern Venezuela


The above text is from The Cocoa Panyols of Trinidad: An Oral Record. It describes a spontaneous parang in the 1970s. The parranderos were Spanish speaking septuagenarians nutured in the Cocoa Panyol and Parang culture. Decades later we witness the staged parang involving young people who do not speak Spanish but are eager to be involved in the tradition. They participate in annual Parang Festivals, Competitions and Shows entertaining enthusiastic parang aficionados.