{"id":8662,"date":"2021-09-08T00:00:40","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T04:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/?p=8662"},"modified":"2022-03-22T19:40:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T23:40:13","slug":"descarga-dagoberto-pedraja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/descarga-dagoberto-pedraja\/","title":{"rendered":"Dagobert Pedraja"},"content":{"rendered":"

I'm basically a band musician. I have always embraced rock in many of its variants and, unlike others, I have drunk and participated in other music of the Cuban culture. As a child I listened to the radio and the jukebox in the warehouse that was next to my house, where rancheras, mambos, boleros, chachach\u00e1s, romantic songs and traditional sones played every day; then when I saw the American cartoons on TV I got into everything about swing, blues, <\/span>big bands<\/span><\/i>, the classics' in addition to the good children's songs that were in vogue. In Los Sitios, a Havana neighborhood that I used to visit every weekend to be with my grandparents, I discovered the bemb\u00e9, the ancestral cajon rumba, and I saw the dancers in wooden flip flops. It was the 1960s. The cinema also broadcast various types of music that had strong roots in Cuba: the tangos of Gardel and Hugo del Carril, the Mexican rancheras thanks to the performances of Jorge Negrete and Pedro Infante, Spanish cinema full of paso dobles, flamenco and cuples. In short, a whole sound and visual universe in the head and ears of a child who was a sponge. A universe that has served me both for my work with bands and for playing \u201cbehind someone\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being a musician in a band implies group work, where the ideas of other members flow based on a song, an album or a concert; and if you are an instrumentalist who stands out for solo passages, you must have your personal stamp, the one by which you will be known wherever you stop to play.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But being called to play behind someone is different. When you are part of the backing band of a recognized figure, or you are going to record on an album, you must give up many things and incorporate others. The first thing is the image that you must carry without ceasing to be you, what style you are going to play, what sound you are going to use, what type of harmonic resources you are going to use and \u2014it will seem nonsense\u2014 \u201cagainst whom and what are you going against to touch".<\/span><\/p>\n

My first experience was in the largest theater in Cuba: the Karl Marx. One day the outstanding musician and friend Ra\u00fal G\u00f3mez called me; there was a musical contest and his work was one of the finalists. He wanted a guitar solo at the end of an epic ballad and asked me to collaborate. He gave me a cassette with the song sung by him and his wife Leonor Zamora, accompanied only by acoustic guitar.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He told me: \u201cThis is in a week, live and with the Cuban Orchestra of Modern Music, conducted by maestro Tony Ta\u00f1o\u201d\u2026and nothing more. Intuitively I imagined that music playing with an orchestra, I avoided all the common chords of the recording and I paid a lot of attention to the melody of the final chorus. I structured a very melodic guitar solo playing with the different parts of the song and with some \u2014very short\u2014 moments of speed. Not knowing how it ended, I made variations of 4, 8, 16, 24, and 32 bars, lest I fall short or go too far.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The day of the presentation arrived. There were many renowned artists, great musicians and I, who was a complete stranger, was going to play in front of an orchestra conducted by one of the "greats" and behind two very popular artists. During the rehearsal I witnessed an argument between Ra\u00fal G\u00f3mez and the conductor of the orchestra; that got on my nerves a thousand times because the thing was for me. The director said that how was it possible that a "pelu", a street musician with no academic training, was going to play in front of his orchestra, when he had a graduated guitarist with vast experience. Ra\u00fal did not compromise and told him that he was also a musician, director, composer and author of the song in the contest and that he had chosen me because he really wanted to. That started to get ugly. I was very nervous and upset about the situation and went out to smoke a cigarette. After a while Ram\u00f3n Veloz, another great musician, came up to me and said:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Boy, don't get nervous, these things happen\u2026 Do you know the song well?<\/span><\/p>\n

"Yes," I replied.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Do you have the \u201ccorrect\u201d wardrobe for the night?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Yes, of course \u2014I was at that moment in a T-shirt, a \u201cripped\u201d jean and boots. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me: "Well, stick your guitar in that guy's face so he'll respect you." The night came, the song came and when everyone was waiting for a \u201crock cane\u201d solo, I got off with a very sweet and sticky sound, with many sustained notes and a melodic design that was \u201cchewing gum\u201d. While Ra\u00fal and Leonor put the theater on its feet clapping to the beat of the theme, they went to look for me back there and brought me out to the front with them while I played and counted bars in my mind: \u201c22\u202623\u202624\u2026\u201d. The sound was powerful. Ra\u00fal told me softly \u201cDe pinga, asereeee\u201d; and I \u201cWhen is this over, Ra\u00fal, damn? And he: "In the 32. You are missing 6. Put it in and go closing."\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, the song took first place. The \u201cdirector\u201d with a very serious face shook my hand and Ram\u00f3n Veloz hugged me in the dressing room; then we went to celebrate. That day I realized that, thanks to everything I had heard, without realizing it I had used the melodic and tasty style of Richard Eg\u00fces, flutist of the Orquesta Arag\u00f3n; I had dressed in a suit and tied my hair in a ponytail; I had changed the super rock distortion of my guitar for a very sweet but energetic sound, and my image was not mine, but it was aligned with that of Ra\u00fal and Leonor, the Orchestra and the other artists on the set.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, over the years, I have played and produced bands of all kinds (Garage H, Rice and Beans, Cossa Nostra, Extra\u00f1o Coraz\u00f3n, Coral). I have played behind (or recorded with) Carlos Varela, Paulo FG, Coco Freeman, Maria Antonieta, Arnaldo y La Aventura, Orlando S\u00e1nchez, \u00c1ngel Bonne, Carlos Manuel y su Clan, Orquesta Sublime, Mayt\u00e9 Chile, Bela Mavrak, Joaqu\u00edn Sabina, Anabell L\u00f3pez and many more. All different from each other; with little or nothing to do with rock. I have composed and played music for film, theater, television and radio, in addition to composing rock, boleros, tangos, ballads, funk, blues, Christmas carols and other genres. I have been "me" and I have stopped being "me" depending on others, and I assure you that it is very funny.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being a musician in a band implies group work, where the ideas of other members flow based on a song, an album or a concert; and if you are an instrumentalist who stands out for solo passages, you must have your personal stamp, by which you will be known. But being called to play behind someone is different. Dagoberto "unloads" on the subject. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":1538,"featured_media":8663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8908,8906],"tags":[8521,23,8522,1123,7788,8523],"coauthors":[8520],"class_list":["post-8662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-descarga","category-variaciones","tag-dagoberto-pedraja","tag-descarga","tag-musicos-de-bandas","tag-orquesta-cubana-de-musica-moderna","tag-rock-and-roll","tag-rock-en-cuba"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/magazineampm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Dagoberto-Pedraja-_-portada.jpg?fit=1520%2C695&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1538"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8662"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10503,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8662\/revisions\/10503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8662"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}