In Search of Chamamé, suggestions?
 

I have been interested in chamamé ever since I saw a documentary about it in 2007. On my recent trip, I did hear a bit at a couple of events I attended (the estancia show and one of the tango shows). I knew I wasn't going to have a chance to make a serious search for chamamé on that trip, given other priorities, so it was lucky to hear what I did.

So if you were making a trip to Argentina with the purpose of seeking out chamamé, what would you do? I know it's primarily from the northeast of Argentina.

Hi Willtravel, you are right, chamame is a music of the NE of Argentina and Southern Brazil, in Argentina includes mainly the provinces of Misiones,Corrientes and Chaco; is a music of the the rural population ,the dance is very fast (it is a lot of fun), the instruments are guitars, violin or viola and the characteristic accordion introduced by immigrants from the Volga, songs are in Spanish and guarani, famous authors are Raul Barboza, Transito Cocomarola, and Chango Spaciuk; Chango and Barboza are very well known in Europe,actually I got one CD of Chango here in Germany, I think Corrientes has an annual festival (I am not sure about this), you can check this site where you can listen to th e music too, it helps if you know some Spanish, www.chamigos.com. Chamigo means che and amigo and is a very popular way to address friends in the province of Corrientes, where the chamame music is very popular...Regards Carli

Carlimusa, just a correction, if you let me...
Che in guaraní means MI (my) chamigo means MI AMIGO, and of course Chamamé is more popular in the NE of Argentina and the diferent foreign comunities of the area have also mised it with polkas and other musics from other countries.
Chaco and Corrientes are the most interesting provinces regarding Chamamé. I love it also.
Fintstones.

Hi Flintstones thanks for the correction, it was a typo, che means my (mi in spanish) and is pronounced more like a she , amigo means friend, the union of both words is chamigo, which is a very common way to address friends in these provinces, ( chamigo if you address a boy, chamiga a girl).Another name for chamame is also polka de Corrientes, to diffentiate it from the polka of Paraguay, which is similar. This topic is fascinating to me, I love chamame and guarani too, regards Flintstones and Willtravel.

Thanks for these great answers and tips, Flintstones and Calimusa.

Carlimusa, if you are in Germany, you may have seen the chamamé documentary I mentioned, as it was directed by German filmmaker Cosima Lange.

I did not see the CHamamé documentary but I think it is veery interestign for european as many of our dances are very similar to the ones from EUrope...
Flintstones

Better said, the european influence is very important in our folklore...

WillTravel, sorry I didn't see the chamame documentary, due to my work schedule I can hardly watch any TV, thanks for the information anyways. I hope you can enjoy chamame music in your next trip to Argentina, as you can see Argentina is a very diverse country culturally. Regards.

carlimusa, I don't know if it was shown on German TV, but I saw it at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Definitely a good film if you get a chance to see it. The links above were great. I really enjoyed the chamigos.com site.