[1][2] Born in Paso Yobái in the Colonia Independencia distrito in the Guairá Department of Paraguay on January 4, 1934, he was introduced to the harp by a friend of his family and began playing as a child.
[1][2] He joined his first musical group, "Los Cardenales", with Cayo E. Cristaldo, Marciano Trinidad, Pedro Román, and Antonio Álvarez Martínez,[2] as a young man, playing venues around Argentina.
[1] After he completed his primary education, he served his mandatory military service in the Segunda Región Militar de Villarrica, where his skills as a musician were employed on birthdays and for serenades.
[2] While playing in Uruguay with "Amerindia", Samaniego introduced the "ambas manos" ("both hands") technique, which he said was born of the need to cover the absence of a second player, so that the public would not notice.
[1][2] In the late 1970s, his song Marcha de los Ex-Combatientes received the first prize for composition in the first Festival del Arpa organized by Paraguay Ñe’é.