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Seis and Aguinaldo examples
Interpreted by the great cuatrista Arturito Avilés
 

Digitized from original audio tape from Musica de la Campiña [Music of the Countryside], a weekly radio program heard in Puerto Rico on WIPR during 1981. The musicians are:

Luis Miranda, trovador
Arturito Avilés
, cuatro
Paquito López Cruz, guitar
Chente Figueroa, guiro

 Seis Mapeye
with Arturito's backing, Luis Miranda improvises a funny décima about traveling to the moon titled Este Planeta Es El Mío [This planet is the one for me]

How can I possibly leave
My barrio Tomas de Castro,
To go to a celestial body
Which is uninhabitable?
Without any air to breath
And no vegetation or plant life?
Without a drop of dew
Or any kind of sunrise?
No, no it can't be,
This planet is the one for me!

 

  

Seis Mariendá
To the tune of a seis Marienda, Luis Miranda interprets a décima he composed titled, Para Amar a una Mujer [to love a woman]
 

 Aguinaldo Orocoveño
A Christmas-themed aguinaldo titled, Olvidar la Fiesta y Conseguir a Cristo [Forget the partying, go find Christ instead]

Some will see me
and hear me sing,
And they'd be thinking,
I'm feeling good
But I have also
seen bitterness
That's why I insist
even though it's at a cost,
Forget the partying
and follow Christ instead.

 

 

Seis Chorreao
About a cat that was frightened and ran away Por Tocar el Guiro en la Sala [for playing the guiro in the living room]
 

 Seis de Enramada
A variation of the seis often heard during feasts at the end of the coffee harvest. Luis Miranda chose this variation to sing of his barrio Tomás de Castro in Caguas in which he lives "happier than a millionaire."

That's where I have my shack
Half an acre of land
A burro that isn't too good
But he can get me across the river
Everything I have is mine,
From the cat to the furniture
And in a hundred-year-old rocking chair
That my grandfather gave me one day
I still sit and rock myself
Happier than a millionaire.

 

Seis Milonga
Don Luis sings about his love for his little island of Puerto Rico

Aguinaldo Cagueño
Lyrics for the seis always have 8 syllables, while aguinaldo lyrics always have 6. Aguinaldos are usually happy or reverent Christmas tunes. But some are very serious. The following aguinaldo was written presumably at the start of the Vietnam War:

They want to start
A new war
This comprises great danger
If one ever comes to explode
It must be avoided
Because in reality
Our society
Will fall into an abyss
Due to the selfishness
Of humanity

 

 

Seis Celinés
Soñé que estaba junto, querida [I dreamed I was next to you, dear]
En la playa junto a tí... [On the beach next to you]
Y un compromiso hicimos [and we made our vows]
A la orillita del mar. [At the edge of the sea]

Seis Habanera
This contemporary seis variation is inspired by the precursor to the Tango, the Argentinian Milonga. Luis Miranda's décima lyrics tell of how he learned to sing the décima:

I began to ponder
Where my sustenance comes from
What gives life to my talent
Which allows me to sing
That's how I came to find out
How and this I've come to trust
That if today I have the power
To sing with skill and knowledge
Its because I've inherited it
From Espinel and my old man.

It was Espinel who left us
And the decima that he created
And it was my old man who gave me
Some of what I know
It was that, with which I began
to sing in my shack
And if now with my song
Some applause I deserve,
I must show my gratitude
To Espinel and my old man.

 

Sueño de una Princesa
[A princess's dream] Neither an aguinaldo nor a seis, but actually a vals written by a jíbaro from Hatillo: José Antonio Monrozeau--interpreted by   Arturito and Paquito to pure perfection