Huayno

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Huayno (quechua: wayñu, Spanish: huaino) is a genre of popular Andean music, especially common in Peru. It is a combination of traditional music of the rural folk in the area with popular urban dance music. High-pitched vocals are accompanied by a variety of instruments, including flute, harp, panpipe, accordion, saxophone, charangos, lute, violin, guitar, harmonica and mandolin. Some elements of huayno originate in the music of the pre-Columbian Andes. Huayno utilizes a distinctive rhythm, in which the first beat is stressed and followed by two short beats.

Huayno is an important Andean genre of dance and music of pre-Hispanic origin and at present very wide spread among the Andean peoples. Huayno adopts diverse forms, according to the local or regional traditions and in certain forms it represents the popular adherence to the culture of the land. Huayno is an excellent example of typical Andean dance.

The dance begins with the man offering his right arm to the women as an invitation for her to dance. Alternatively, he puts his handkerchief on the shoulder of the woman. Next, the partners walk along an enclosure, and finally they dance. The dance consists of an agile and vigorous stamping of the feet during which the man follows the woman, opposite to front, touching her with his shoulders after having turned around, and only occasionally he touches his right arm to the left hand of his partner while both swing to the rhythm of the music. His movements are happy and roguish.

The musical rhythm consists of a base pentatónica from binary rhythm, structural characteristic that has allowed this genre to turn into the base of a series of hybrid rhythms, from the chicha up to the Andean rock. The instruments that intervene in the execution of the Huayno are the quena, the small guitar, the mandolin, the harp and the violin.

In some variants of the huayno there are typical bands which add instruments such as the trumpets, the saxophone or the accordion. On the other hand, although they are very different genres, in the popular sense, the huayno is more akin to the matelot top of what it feigns, since he remembers it this saying of mountain matelot top: "There is no matelot top without huayno / not huayno without matelot top / cholita pollera green / for you goes the third one."