Brazilian gaucho music

Brazilian gaucho music (in Portuguese música gaúcha brasileira or música nativista), denotes the traditional music of Southern Brazil, especially the one of Río Grande do Sul state, whose population has a strong ancestry of European countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany. The word gaucho refers to the countryside and farm people.

Among the main musical styles of gaucho music there are: milonga, chamamé, chamarra, polca, vanera (with the variants vanerão y vanerinha), bugio, rasguido doble and rancheira.

The songs of gaucho music present themes of the folk traditions of the gaucho: field, farm, horse, moral values, regional cuisine, women. The music is built in a slow, intimate manner, with lyrics abundant in metaphors. Some representative artists have been Teixeirinha, José Mendes y Gildo de Freitas, Dimas Costa, Gaúcho da Fronteira, Porca Véia.

Some of the musical instruments used in the genre are accordion, guitar, violin and bombo legüero.

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