Traditional Asturian repertoire: where to start

The traditional Asturian repertoire is the body of orally transmitted pieces of Asturies —alboradas, processional marches, xirandillas, muiñeiras and a wide ceremonial and festive songbook— and the best way into it is through its kinds of piece, not through a list of titles. This guide gives you a sensible order to start listening to it and, if you play, to start playing it.

When I teach, this is the first thing I sort out with anyone starting: it isn’t about knowing a thousand pieces, but about understanding the families they’re organised into. With that, everything else falls into place on its own.

Understanding the repertoire by families

Asturian traditional music is not an undistinguished heap of melodies. It has forms, and each form serves a function. Once you recognise them, you stop hearing “gaita music” in general and start hearing specific pieces with their own logic.

Alboradas

Daybreak pieces, tied to the opening of festivities. They tend to be broad melodies, solemn in character and open in feel. They’re a good way in because they teach you the ceremonial side of the instrument without demanding speed.

Processional marches

The ceremonial repertoire par excellence, bound to romerías and solemn occasions. Measured tempo, weight, a clear social function. Listening to them helps you understand that the Asturian gaita was not born for the stage, but to accompany the life of the community.

Xirandillas

This is where dance comes in. Lively pieces, with a marked beat, made to move the feet. If the alboradas and marches are the solemn side, the xirandillas are the festive one. By contrast, they’re the ones that best teach you the rhythmic pulse.

Muiñeiras

A dance with roots shared across the north-west of the peninsula, also present in the Asturian songbook. They have their characteristic metre, and it’s worth treating them with their own grammar, not as just another xirandilla.

Where to start listening

If you only want to listen and understand, this is an order that works:

1. An alborada. Tunes the ear to the ceremonial character and to the melody-drone relationship.
2. A xirandilla. The contrast in tempo and function fixes the two faces of the repertoire in your mind.
3. A processional march. It shows you the social dimension, the repertoire in its context.
4. A muiñeira. Once you can tell the previous ones apart, this opens up the kinship with the north-west.

Four pieces, one from each family, and you already have a map. The rest is filling the map in.

Where to start playing

If you play the Asturian gaita or are just beginning, the order changes a little from the listening one, because technical difficulty calls the shots:

• Start with a simple alborada. The unhurried tempo lets you concentrate on the fingering and on keeping the fol steady, which is where every beginner comes undone.
• Follow with an easy xirandilla. It introduces the dance pulse without yet demanding much agility.
• Leave the muiñeiras and the long marches for later. They ask for more breath, more control of ornaments and more memory.

The rule I keep repeating: one piece played well and slowly teaches more than three played halfway and fast. The traditional Asturian repertoire is not a catalogue race. If you’re starting from scratch with the instrument, the basic craft comes before the repertoire: I cover it in how to start playing the Asturian gaita.

One idea to take away

The songbook of Asturies is not a closed archive. It’s still played, recorded and composed from the root, and that’s why entering it isn’t entering a museum: it’s entering a musical language that is still spoken. Start with the families, listen to one piece from each, and let the repertoire ask you for the next one.