Malagueña (genre)

On a similar thematic note, another popular verse has the poetic voice refuse to sing more, as their soul and heart are hurting and they are out of both love and breath: Many traditional malagueñas are written from a male perspective and often focus on feminine presences in the singer's life, be it lovers, young women in meadows, the Virgen del Valle, or maternal figures.

[2] Using the latter interpretation, the harmonic progression of the malagueña would proceed as follows (each chord represents one 3/4 bar of music): This formula at times receives basic alterations.

For instance, Gualberto Ibarreto's rendition of the malagueña features a longer preparation, with the ensemble vamping on the first I chord for several bars before he begins the next verse.

[4][5][9] A less common melodic variant of the malagueña involves a raised fourth scale degree when singing the first line of text and incorporates more leaps in the contour of the phrase.

This variant has been used by artists such as Vasallos del sol,[3] Soledad Bravo,[6] and Cecilia Todd,[10] and at times these versions of the malagueña are realized with sparser or simply no accompaniment.

Unlike many other Venezuelan folk genres in 3 such as joropo and culo'e puya, the malagueña has less rhythmic ambiguity or complexity deriving from hemiolas.