§ [guitar music] §
- Richard: Pónte una clave allí. (Put a key there)
Porque vamos a asimilar. (because we're going
to make it like that)
[clapping]
De dum.
§ Déjate llevar
(Let yourself be led) §
§ por el niño que quiere jugar
(by that child
that wants to play) §
§ Dum be boom, boom bee boom, boom bee boom §
§ Boom bee boom, boom... §
Pero éso pasa naturalmente.
(But that happens naturally.)
[scratching pen on paper]
- Juan and Richard: Un, dos,
un dos tres y...
(One, two, one, two, three and)
§ [guitar music
and percussion] §

- Juan: Music and what we are
is a mix of so much things,
and I think that's the richest
thing that we do together.
Like, we mix everything that we,
that we are.

My name is Juan Martínez
and I play the cajón and sing.
- Richard: I'm Richard Hildner Armacanqui
and I play guitar.
§ [guitar music] §
I would describe myself
as a musician,
self-taught, and then
having learned
really like everything I know
from mentors that I've had
throughout my life
and I grew up hearing a lot
of musics from the records,
you know, that my parents had.
I'd hear my father play piano,
he would play a lot
of Western classical music,
but when I first played
was music from the Andes.
Andean folk music.
First, it was my
grandfather who showed me,
and then as my uncles
came to the United States.
My uncle Numa is the one
who really had a full mastery
of the guitar and he really showed me how the guitar works.
§ [guitar music] §

§ §

- Juan: I grew up, ah,
with a family of musicians.
My father is a opera singer.
My grandfather did the first
child orchestra in Venezuela.
And I were around classical
music my whole life.
[Richard and Juan chatting
in Spanish in background]
The day that
I think I decided music
it was my life,
what I, what I came
to this world to do,
actually was playing
African-Venezuelan music
in the coast of Venezuela,
a place in the coast, Chuao.
And first time
that I hear all this community
playing all that drums
and singing a cappella,
and playing the wood
with sticks,
and, all that music together
in that place,
I remember something
in my chest jump,
and I couldn't stop
to play
from that day
when I was eight years old.

§ [cajón percussion rhythm] §

[background chatter in venue]
- Juan: Life is about experience.
It's nothing material,
it's nothing that you can touch,
it's something that it,
just, is part of you.
I think experience is what
forms you as a person,
no matter what you're doing,
in this case
it's music.
In the music
that we do together,
we got a few bands, right?
It's a mix of everything.
It's kind of like
what we are, actually.
§ [Juan singing] §

- Richard: I would say
definitely that the music
that we play
is an expression of identity.
We’re from immigrants
of Latin America
and that we play
Latin American music,
but there are
so many cultures in the world,
so many different
types of people.
That’s the one thing I,
I love about music,
is that
there’s so much wisdom in,
in the things
we have in common,
and the universals,
but I would say there’s
just as much, if not more,
wisdom
inside of our differences.
That’s what I would say my
identity is to try to be able
to code switch
as best as possible.
And then maybe whatever
comes out is what you are.
§ [guitar music in background] §
- Juan: Music is
another language.
How we’re speaking right now,
not everyone can speak
the language
that we’re speaking.
But music is actually a global
language that everyone could
communicate, and express
your feelings and your thoughts
and, and your energy
and your love.
You can connect and communicate
with the rest of the world
without limit or frontiers.

§ [guitar and percussion] §

- Juan: § Cuando el sol aparece
(When the sun comes up) §
§ este niño amanece
(This little one wakes up) §
§ de la cama corriendo a jugar
(Runs out of bed to go play) §