Polo designates two forms of Venezuelan folk music. One that originates from

Margarita A margarita is a cocktail consisting of Tequila, triple sec, and lime juice often served with salt on the rim of the glass. The drink is served shaken with ice (on the rocks), blended with ice (frozen margarita), or without ice (straight up). ...

Island and another one that is played in Coro, in the state of

Falcón ) , anthem = , image_map = Falcon in Venezuela.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location within Venezuela , pushpin_map = , pushpin_map_alt = , pushpin_mapsiz ...

Polo Margariteño

Lyrical form

The Polo from Margarita is sung in octosyllabic or hendecasyllabic verses with varying rhyme schemes. Typically the stanzas are composed of four verses, and common rhyme schemes include ABAB and ABBA. Traditionally, however, the polo, like the malagueña and

galerón The galerón are two genres of Venezuelan typical song. The Eastern galerón is sung in improvised ten-line stanzas. Generally, it is accompanied by mandolin, cuatro, and guitar. It is normally played in the Cruz de Mayo celebrations, the improvis ...

has been sung in

décima A décima is a ten-line stanza of poetry. The most popular form is called décima espinela after Vicente Espinel (1550–1624), a Spanish writer, poet, and musician from the Siglo de Oro who used it extensively throughout his compositions. The d� ...

form, that is, ten verses of eight syllables each, with an "ABBAACCDDC" rhyme scheme. It is typical for each verse in the polo to be sung twice, which has lent to it being sung as a duet on occasion. The theme of the polo's lyrics are typically centered around life in the island of

and the states of Sucre, and

Anzoátegui ) , anthem = '' Himno del Estado Anzoátegui'' , image_map = Anzoategui in Venezuela.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location within Venezuela , pushpin_map = , pushpin_map_a ...

. As a result, the imagery and habits of coastal life are frequently the subject of the polo, as evidenced by the following stanza: The theme of love is also common in polos, both as isolated stanzas and as the main focus of the text. Some artists who illustrate the romantically-oriented polo include

Gualberto Ibarreto Gualberto José Ibarreto Barrios (born July 12, 1947 in El Pilar, Sucre state, Venezuela), is a folk singer who plays the mandolin, cuatro, and guitar. See also * Venezuelan music Several styles of the traditional music of Venezuela, such a ...

and the quartet

Serenata Guayanesa Serenata Guayanesa is a vocal and instrumental quartet that plays typical Venezuelan folk music. It is one of the two best known groups that play this style of music (the other being Un Solo Pueblo).Mark Dinneen, ''Culture and customs of Venezuel ...

. An excerpt of the "Polo de la soledad"Ivan Pérez Rossi, anonymous. ''Canciones Venezolanas'', Sonografica, 1989 (Polo of solitude) by Serenata reads as follows:

Harmony

The harmonic structure cycles between an initial

major key In music theory, the key of a piece is the group of pitches, or scale, that forms the basis of a musical composition in classical, Western art, and Western pop music. The group features a '' tonic note'' and its corresponding '' chords'', ...

and its

relative minor In music, relative keys are the major and minor scales that have the same key signatures (enharmonically equivalent), meaning that they share all the same notes but are arranged in a different order of whole steps and half steps. A pair of major an ...

. The basic progression can be described as III(I)-VII(V7)-i-V7 (the Roman numerals in parentheses represent chord functions in the initial major key). This basic harmonic form evidences the origins of the polo in the Spanish Renaissance, as the progression is known as the

Romanesca Romanesca is a melodic-harmonic formula popular from the mid–16th to early–17th centuries that was used as an aria formula for singing poetry and as a subject for instrumental variation. The pattern, which is found in an endless collection of ...

. This basic version has been recorded by Cecilia Todd. A more common elaboration of the harmony would be III(I)-VII7(V7)-V7-i-iv-V7-i-VII7(V7). This version has been recorded by a great many artists ranging from

Soledad Bravo Soledad Bravo (born January 1, 1943) is a Venezuelan singer. Born in Logroño, La Rioja, Spain, her father was a Spanish republican, moving to Venezuela with his family when his daughter was still at an early age. At 24, Soledad began studying ...

to Francisco Mata, among others.

Polo Coriano

Pending research about Cheché Acosta Fuguet (past), and the duo of Nano Bravo and Chucho Penso (current).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Polo (Music) Venezuelan music