characteristics

Vallenato or vallenato music is part of the folk music of the Colombian Caribbean Coast. It is the Colombian rhythm has achieved more popularity both nationally and internationally.

What makes traditional vallenato characteristic is to be interpreted only three instruments that do not require any amplification, two percussion (box and guacharaca), setting the pace, and the diatonic accordion (of European origin) which plays the melody. However, sometimes the songs are composed and interpreted with other instruments: guitar, flute, bagpipes and chromatic accordion. Moreover, for commercial vallenato is common not only the incorporation of these instruments, but also the electric bass and other percussion such as congas and timbales.

The importance acquired vallenato in the last decades of the twentieth century led to the organization of festivals where acordeoneros compete for the honor of being declared the most skilled executor of each of the traditional shield (except, inexplicably, the drums). The most famous of these festivals is the Vallenato Legend Festival, held annually in late April in Valledupar, whose first version was played in 1968. Since 1987, the Cradle of Accordions Festival Villanueva, Guajira, has become the second most important.

In vallenato mode requires use of diatonic accordion simultaneously use both sides of the accordion. This characterizes the difference Colombian vallenato accordion and other musical genres with accordion, which generally suppresses or underutilized part of the low (played with the left hand): In Colombia, harmonic and rhythmic form that handles the accordion low is an important factor in rating vallenato festivals.