Nochebuena in the Cuban countryside: punto guajiro and the decima
The rural Cuban Christmas tradition: punto guajiro, the improvised ten line decima, the laud and tres, and what happens when that material meets a salsa arrangement.
Rural Cuban celebration music is punto guajiro, sung in decimas: improvised ten line stanzas with a fixed rhyme scheme. Singers compete by improvising verses in turn over a laud and guitar accompaniment. It is a poetry contest set to music, and it is still practised.
The decima
A decima is a ten line stanza with a fixed rhyme scheme, a Spanish poetic form that took deep root in rural Cuba and across Latin America. In punto guajiro, singers called repentistas improvise decimas in real time, often in competition, taking a theme from the audience and answering each other verse by verse.
The demand is considerable: the rhyme scheme is strict, the metre is fixed, and the singer has to arrive at the last line with a resolution. Skilled repentistas are held in the same regard as skilled instrumentalists.
The sound
The accompaniment is usually laud, a Cuban lute with a bright plucked tone, together with guitar or tres, plus claves and guiro. It is sparse by design, because the words are the event. The melodies are traditional frames rather than compositions, which is what allows a singer to fit new text to them.
At Christmas
Nochebuena in the Cuban countryside centres on the meal and the gathering, and punto guajiro is the music of that gathering. There is no separate Christmas repertoire in the way a northern European tradition would understand it. The occasion supplies the subject and the singers supply the verses.
Rural material in a salsa arrangement
When this material is arranged for a dance band, two things happen. The decima's long lines have to be fitted to a montuno cycle, which usually means treating a couplet as a coro. And the laud's bright plucked line is often given to the tres or the piano, keeping the register but adding the rhythmic function of a guajeo.
The salsa guide covers the coro and montuno structure that absorbs this material.