When I say that I have spent almost 36 years dedicated to cañonera music, I'm serious. I have done everything that can be done with a musical genre, some more formal experiments than others, but always looking to develop and strengthen this music movement.

Considering that hiring the group Los Cañoneros, can be very expensive for the amount of musicians that we are and all the technical requirements of a group of that category, and taken into account that there are many small parties where there is no space to place a band of this caliber, many times I had thought about the possibility of making a smaller group. A group that could play in the living room of an apartment, that could even work in the style of "before", I mean to play without sound equipment.

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My guitar and I

When I started in music, the instrument I played was the guitar, with it I made my first steps as an amateur and my first approach to professionalization was with her, the first recordings, the first singer I accompanied. But after we started activities with Los Cañoneros, in 1982, I left it only as a support instrument, to make arrangements and for friends parties or serenades.

I just realized, as I write this post, that the guitar was always so important to me, that even in my English presentation for Steemit I appear with it: Ylich, a Latin singer with a Russian accent (A delayed self-introduction).

Finally, one day the guitar suffered an accident, the neck broke and since it was no longer an instrument of regular use for me, I left it to repair it later. That "later" became almost 20 years...

Magic glue

After that "small later", one day my wife asked me to repair a drawer of a piece of furniture that had come loose. I went to the hardware store and bought a wood glue, which was new and they said was "very good".

So, I arrived and used the glue in the drawer, I put it to dry and the next day I was surprised by the quality of that material, the drawer had adhered pretty well and was more solid than when we bought it.

Coincidentally, in those days I found my old and "injured" guitar and I thought that, since so much time had passed and I didn't take it to repair yet, I could do the test with this glue. Well if it did not work, the worst thing that could happen is that I had to throw something that had a long time unusable.

The repair

The neck of the guitar is where all the pressure that can be on a guitar is concentrated, because that's where the strings are tightened, so that needs to be very solid, unless you want to experience what it feels like when the strings have more strength than the mast. I assure you that it is not a pleasant experience!

Well, I followed the instructions on the glue and as a foresight I let it dry several days to be sure that it was already really dry. Finally I placed the strings and with much fright I started stretching the strings until it reached its tuning and without breaking again. The miracle had been fulfilled! And the glue showed that it was "really" good.

That's how the guitar was after repairing it. At that point it had split into two parts.

To study!

I decided to practice again with the guitar and as expected, my fingers did not respond well. Then I drew up a study routine and decided to study only accompaniment of cañonera songs: merengues, pasodobles, waltzes and joropos. Instead of a metronome, to make it more fun, I decided to use an electronic Rhythm Composer with programmed rhythms patterns.

So I started studying and while I was doing it, to make it less boring, I also sang. I already had about 10 songs prepared, when I had the idea that if I got a clarinetist to accompany me, I could make the smallest cañonero group possible. And I thought that if I only used an amplifier for the rhythm I could play without more equipment than that.

But the rhythm composers have sounds that get boring and I decided to ask my friend and drummer of Los Cañoneros, Arnaldo Sánchez, if he would be able to play the drums and that the voice could be heard without a microphone , he said yes and we did the test. And I was surprised that he, who usually plays with rocker volume, could accompany such a low volume and it would sound just as good.

The third member

In view of the fact that it was a very informal project, I did not want to involve the other musicians of the group, so I started looking for a younger musician who was willing to participate in the project. Then almost immediately a friend recommended me to "almost a boy", 15 years old, but who turned out to be an extraordinary musician, and although he did not have clarinet, which was the instrument that I wanted, he played the soprano saxophone, which could do the work of very similar way. Thus the trio was completed with the participation of Leo Boccardo @leoboccardo.

To work!

Once the repertoire was rehearsed, with the happy consent of those who live in my house and of the neighbors, who more than once celebrated that we rehearsed here, we started to work.

The spaces we occupied were the ones I had thought of and in that aspect we did very well. We played in apartments, at low budget parties, at social action events. We made some money and we had a lot of fun.

People began contracting us for bigger and bigger events and we realized that we had to include a bass, because we were already working with professional sound equipment in almost all the events.

The fourth member

At that time I found another young man who was another "surprise" for his great musical quality: Jorge Ramoncini @ramoncinibass, who has been with me since then in all my musical projects.

The main feature in this new stage was to use more complex harmonies, but that should not affect the sound and the invitation to the dance.

After adding the bass I also noticed that, since I no longer needed the bass strings of the guitar, the cuatro could sound much better in the group and I changed the guitar for this other instrument. With this quartet format we could already perform in any type of event, because the sound was complete.

The experience

Also in this format I was able to confirm that this music has many followers and that this musical genre only needs the proper diffusion and of people who play it with love and seeking to contribute to its development. And I also understood that even in trio format you can play the cañonera music.

I could also reaffirm that it is possible to give very varied sounds to each group of this genre, which can guarantee the originality of each band.

The negative conclusion is that the Venezuelan in general, and in particular, the inhabitants of the capital have largely lost their roots, their cultural identity as Caracas citizens. The lack of support in the media and institutions is notorious. Despite a huge campaign that has been made from the Governement to promote the traditional music of Venezuela, this has been fulfilled, but not with the music of the capital. And today, when rhe institutions want to highlight the culture of Caracas they turn to hip-hop, ska and salsa, which although they may have a strong presence in the history of the city, does not respond to cultural factors of the same.

That element, added to a very complex economic situation in the country, was making this work fall asleep and we have not finished some recordings that we wanted to make and several projects that were forgotten.

Who is missing?

Many of you will think that I do not know how to count, that I started with the third member, without pointing to the second. That happens to people who are not in Steemit, they are relegated to a second place (It's just a joke!). As I said, he's my friend for most of my life and he has accompanied me in most of the musical adventures I've had, Arnaldo Sánchez.

Music in trio

In a trio format we made a "home" video, with the idea of promoting the project. The song is a very old instrumental merengue to which I wrote the lyrics.

Music in quartet

Also in home studio we made the recording of several songs, but I just ended up mixing the next one. It is a joropo from the west of the country, written by José María Jiménez and is titled Ramoncito en Cimarrona.

Images

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Playing in a nursing home

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A prívate party

In a school

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Several