Lesson 1: La Lancha
Lyrics and Translations: La Lancha
Arrurú mi niño
My mother mentioned this song to me as one that she used to sing with me and my siblings when we were young and that she had learned when she was growing up in 1960s Chile. As far as she knew, it was a traditional children’s song that had folkloric roots. Upon further investigation, the song appears to have very confusing and uncertain origins. One of the most popular recordings of this song is by the Dueto de Antaño, a Colombian musical duet that recorded the song in 1948 and attributed the composition to one of their members, Camilo García. García said that he had been inspired by the music in the 1933 movie “Bogus Bandits”, which had been based on the opera “Fra Diavolo”, which was written by French composer Daniel Auber and had premiered in 1830. You can hear some similarities in this recording of the opera, about 28 minutes in: https://youtu.be/7djsX9CbYWU?t=1680 However, García’s story is suspect due to the recordings of the song that exist previous to 1933. In 1928, Argentinian composer and musician Juan Maglio, also known as Pacho, recorded the song in a tango style under the title “Se va la lancha”. The same year, Cuban singer and actress Pilar Arcos did her own recording of the same song. Even more confusing is that there exists a book with that was published in 1900 in Concepción, Chile, that contains the lyrics to the song alongside a handful of other lyrics to tangos from the era. Titled “Cancionero última moda: se va la lancha” (“Latest fashion songbook: the boat is leaving”), the book has no known author. Despite its murky origins, “La Lancha” gained enough popularity to eventually be used as a children’s song, though with slightly altered lyrics. One of the most popular modern recordings is by Zapallo, a Chilean musical group, from their 2002 CD “Antologia de canciones infantiles tradicionales” (“Anthology of traditional children’s songs”). Links: Dueto de Antaño https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnx-X0fswoM&ab_channel=audiocolombia Juan Maglio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu5_3a5-ANQ&ab_channel=CantandoTangos Pilar Arcos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Rn2jFr96c&ab_channel=CarlosJim%C3%A9nez Zapallo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGMWSm1SmLE&ab_channel=ZapalloInfantil References: https://www.elcuerpoaguanteradio.com.mx/se-va-la-lancha-o-la-lancha/ https://www.musicapopular.cl/grupo/zapallo/ https://libros.uchile.cl/files/presses/1/monographs/468/submission/proof/files/assets/common/downloads/E_PP_034.pdf?uni=aeaf66aa98c04640e9323a1d01791603 Zapallo Lyrics and Translation
For this interview project, I chatted with my mom, Maria Iris, who has plenty of experience with singing to children. She is the eldest daughter of 5 siblings, has a degree in early childhood education, and has worked in several daycares and as a nanny in both Chile and Canada.
We started off our conversation with memories of her childhood. She didn’t remember much, but what stuck out to her was the time her parents went on a trip when her youngest sister was about a month old, and as the eldest daughter, she had to step in to take care of her little sister and calm her down whenever she cried. She remembers singing whatever came to mind, as long as it worked to lull her sister to sleep. She also remembers her mom singing to her younger brother when he was about two years old. She wasn’t singing a children’s song; she was singing a song that was popular at the time on the radio but it worked nonetheless. We moved on to talk about the community center activities she would take me and my siblings to when we were toddlers, before we went to kindergarten. My mom was a big fan of the programs that were for parents and their kids to engage in music together by singing songs and dancing, and she remembers quite a few of the songs. She talked about the importance of singing and dancing for strengthening the bond between parent and child, and about how singing and dancing impact language development as well as coordination. She felt particularly proud that me and my siblings were all speaking English fairly well by the time we got to kindergarten, thanks to the time that she spent engaging with us through music. When I asked about singing at home, she brought up that my dad would sing to us too, but in contrast to her and her well-prepared repertoire, he would just make up a song about whatever he wanted, and it would work all the same and eventually become part of the family repertoire. She would also sing us songs in Spanish that she had learned in university or as a child, but the closest thing we had to a nightly lullaby was a children’s book that had songs about Jesus. Religion is very important to my mother, and when she was young, her family taught her a guardian angel prayer that she would say every night. She wanted to teach it to me and my siblings, but thought it was too long and serious for toddlers to learn, so she found this book that ended up serving as both a lullaby and our nightly prayers. While I had known that my mom had studied and worked in childcare, I hadn’t known just how many songs she had at her mental disposal. She sang at least 10 different ones during the call and texted me the next day to tell me that she had found several more and would be happy to share them with me the next time I went back to Toronto. It was wonderful to connect with her about this topic and I look forward to learning more from her. In their articles, both Robinson and Benedict point out the ways the educational system favours specific types of learning, information, and communication, and ask for current and future educators to question and reform the system, as well as to make room for all the different kinds of students you may have in your classroom. The Robinson article approaches it from a BIPOC angle and focuses on ways to reform the educational system and make it more diverse and inclusive, whereas the Benedict article focuses on the concept of literacy and the ways in which the current system fails to consider the different kinds and levels of literacy found among students. Both articles call into question the foundation of the current system and who it benefits/leaves behind and call for a deep system reform.
It is both hard and easy for me to say exactly what the authors are asking of me. On the one hand, the Robinson article is literally a list of “instructions for structural change”, with fairly clear directives. On the other hand, I do not feel as though I am in a position to exact the change that is being asked of me. Robinson opens his article with “ey swayel l sí:yáye sí:yám” (“my good friends” and “respected leaders”), and “all those who hold the power to enact change”, but as a student in a pandemic, I do not feel like any of those things. Overhauling the public education system is not currently within my personal power, so it feels difficult to pinpoint what exactly I can do that the authors are asking of me. However, the Robinson article uses directives such as “assess”, “acknowledge”, and “affirm”, and the Benedict article calls for “thinking away from” establish concepts and “understanding”, and these are certainly things that are currently within my power. I think that this is a good place to start, because once I gain a deeper understanding of the issues at hand, I can start to find personal ways to implement the change that is called for. These ideas are challenging because they call for changes that are often in direct opposition to the established system, and when the established system is all people know how to work in, ideas outside of that system are hard to accept or imagine, especially when, as the Benedict article states, the systems are “backed by research”. I personally found some of the ideas presented challenging because, while I agreed with them and saw the reason for change, I simply couldn’t imagine an alternative to the way things are currently done. That is not to say that the alternatives are not out there – I just haven’t seen them. I am, however, willing to look for them and to learn from the community of educators that is already doing the work, and when I can, contribute in my own way. |
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