THANK YOU!

Thank you to the worn straps, to that small bellows and all the people that have enabled me to
enjoy music in this small part of the world:
My grandfather, Romn Urraza, who made me listen to the txintxarris (bells) of a tambourine
for the first time.
My mother, Kontxa Urraza, who passed on to me the strength and energy of dance, the
movement of those arms in a small kitchen in Rekalde.
My father and brothers, who have always supported me, followed me and cheered me on.
My friends from the neighborhood, Rekalde. I was so lucky to have Iaki Zabaleta and Jos
Mara Santiago Motriku! Together we traveled and discovered a small part of Euskal Herria.
We shared car rides, excitement and experiences in trikitixa territory. Funny how something as
simple and small as this instrument and its world at the time seemed like an immense
universe.
The dance group Beti Jai Alai, where I learned how to play the alboka and almost hidden in
those dressing rooms, I learned how to play that green Larrinaga that overwhelmed me with
that unique sound. It was also important to learn how to play the txistu in Rekalde and also
listen to the first cassette tapes and the new records.
When we started going to Iurreta and all those small towns and hermitages, who would have
thought we had a world full of stories so close to home!
Also the excitement and nervousness when meeting my trikitixa idols: Fasio, Piti, Joakintxu,
Rufino, Salba The greats from Gipuzkoa, like Laja, Epelde, Martin, Zendoia, Auntxa, Sakabi,
Oria Brothers, Maltzeta Those tambourines brought me closer again to my grandfather and
mother: Maurizia, Landakanda, Iturbide, Egaazpi And the youngsters of our generation like
Tapia, Imuntzo, Zabale, Maixa, Leturia, Beloki Thanks to all of you because you have helped
me to keep going, to look for motivation, the energy I need to keep creating.
My friends and mentors from Oskorri are in my heart. Theres no way I could have imagined
different paths without their valuable teachings.
I cant forget Xabier Amuriza, Juan Mari Beltrn, Tilio, Pertika, Ibn Koteron, Imanol Urkizu,
Ramos, Garikoitz Mendizabal, Oreka TX. With all of you Ive learned to know your instruments
and dances, allowing me to give my own vision. Also thanks to the record labels who have
believed in my projects, engineers, musicians, productions assistants Those that are
sometimes invisible but indispensable to carry out these adventures.

Thank you also to all the people that at some point have wanted me to play at a local festivity,
wedding or fair, or a show, or a collaboration. Youre a very important part of my baggage,
because trust is something that gives you a very special strength, the necessary energy to push
that bellows.
In conclusion, thanks to all the friends who Ive met in this creative journey, people who have
always encouraged me to keep building musical universes.
With this project, Im celebrating 35 years of incredible adventures with these tiny accordions.
This is my tribute to the world I love so much. A dream that expresses my feelings for music.
Ive played songs that mean a lot to me. They are like magnets that made me want to learn
them when I only had a cassette tape. Ive played them in different keys. Ive taken some
artistic licenses with the structures and Ive changed the established forms, but always with
immense respect to this world and all the people who belong to it. Ive thoroughly enjoyed
myself and Ive felt really free creating different versions.
With the tambourines Ive paid tribute to rhythm, which is an essential part of trikitixa. Ive
played with different tambourines from different artisans. Ive been lucky enough to fill my
home with tambourines of all shapes and sizes.
For vocals, I formed Sorginak, a group of young ladies from the trikitixa world, to express a
metaphor from when I started playing trikitixa and tambourine. They give the excitement and
freshness of the beginning of a journey.
Together with the music, you will have a book with very brave photos from Igotz Ziarreta and
part of my personal image archive that Ive collected in my meetings with all the trikitrilaris
that have left a mark on me. There is also a text by Joxean Agirre introducing you to the actors
and actresses of this 150 yearlong movie.
It is possible that Ive left out some names when writing this thank you note. Ill probably
remember these names tomorrow or maybe next week. And there are many others that I do
remember but theres not enough room for them in this brief text. But all of you have
influenced me, with your contributions and friendships, you know youre always in my heart.
This work is dedicated to my children: Maren, Sunne y Kerman.

KEPA JUNKERA & SORGINAK

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TRIKITIXA
DEVILS MUSIC

Original blues music was played in the thirties on the Mississippi river banks, at sordid dives
where low quality alcohol was served. These places, the juke joints, were rejected and
attacked by the Christian black community who coined blues as the Devils Music as opposed
to Gospel Gods Music - that was sung and played in church.
In the beginning, Trikitixa was also suspect of inducing indecent behavior among people,
especially young people.
The theories about the arrival of the instrument range from people who claim it was
introduced by Piedmontese workers who, between 1850 and 1960 used their experience
building the Alps tunnels to help build the Beasain-Altsasua railroad track, to people who claim
Bilbao to be the origin. The first thesis, explained by Aguirre Franco in his book Trikitixa,
argued that it couldnt have arrived through the Bilbao port as trikitixa has hardly any roots in
the coastline, not to mention the ports and it is well rooted in the interior. He also says the
origins of soinu tixikia (diatonic accordion) are in Central Europe (southern Germany, Austria
and the Alpine regions in general), areas far from the ocean which also disprove the theory of
the expansion along the coast.
The first graphic reference to a trikitixa is a photograph from 1890, taken in Altsasu.
On the contrary, to Bizkaian popular music scholars as Aingeru Berguices, the oldest trikitilaris
are from Bizkaia and the first trikitixa shop, Zengotita, was opened in Bilbao. This small
controversy helps fan the flames of the centuries-old rivalry between both territories
Based on the available information, we could summarize the history of trikitixa by saying that
there is an early development in Bizkaia, almost rooted out by the Civil War in 1936 and after
the war it is in Gipuzcoa where it is finally reborn around the figure of Elgeta, a master who
taught all the relevant figures of the genre.
In Bizkaia, we had to wait until the cultural resurgence after Francos death for people like
trikitilaris Rufino Arrola or tambourine player Maurizia Aldeiturriaga to return to the scene.
Rufino Arrola was 58 when he started playing the soinu txikia again and Fasio was 62, and even
so, their activity was unusually intense.
When Kepa Junkera started playing trikitixa (he was 15 in 1980), he found two reference
points: one centered on Iurreta (a meeting point of several trikitilaris from Bizkaia. It was there
where he met Fasio, Maurizia and alboka player Leon, but also Rufino Arrola), not very
developed but with great personality and the other were the Gipuzkoa classics who had
mastered a greater technical development. Gipuzkoan trikitilaris already had some recordings
and that was an advantage for the young trikitilari from Errekalde.
Kepa Junkera remembers that when he was 15, he discovered a new world and became caught
between these two poles: I realized that over here trikitixa was more personal, it was
conditioned by everybodys personality and in Gipuzkoa they had better technique and they
knew their instrument better. From the Bizkaia trikitilaris, Fasio was the one that got to me. He
was more melodic. Rufino had great strength and rhythm. The contrast between these two
references, Iurreta and Gipuzkoa, was key for me to find my own identity, says the trikitilari.

He started perfecting his style after the 1986 competition. He was the only participant from
Bizkaia. He played several of his own songs, that he had spent a few years working on. Up to
that point Kepa Junkera, Zabaleta and Motriku were very popular in Bizkaia and had many
fans. I think in the 1986 txapelketa (competition) there was a new audience and that allowed
us to start thinking about new ways. And I just went for it, knowing I still had a lot to learn.
That txapelketa helped me get exposure for my material. I wasnt trying to compete with my
idols. The fact that me and Motriku were from Bilbao, that we werent euskaldun zaharras and
we had long hair puzzled them a bit. The txapelketa opened the doors to the great school, the
Gipuzkoa school.

CASSOCKS AND GUARDIA CIVIL THREE CORNERED HATS

The trikitixa rapid-fire expansion during the first decade of the 20th century (and even before,
according to ongoing investigations in Bizkaia), is in direct contrast with the crusade against it
promoted by the priests from their pulpits.
Kirikio, writer and chronicler in Basque, left a written testimony from 1914 in which he
describes the fair celebrated at the Urkiola heights on the second Sunday of October and he
states that gazte aldra asko joan ohi dira bidean soinu joten, dultzaina, pandero, atabal, auspo
soinu eta honelakoekaz, ikotika eta ujuka, zoro-zororik.
Also Azkue, who was a priest and even Eibar socialist Toribio Etxebarria, complain about the
obscenity of the songs sung in these fairs. The youths are liberated from prejudice by drinking
and dancing, and according to the priests sermons women throw themselves in the arms of
men. Thats why the diatonic accordion received pejorative nicknames like Infernuko
Hauspoa, Txerren Hauspoa and so on during this era.
Priests knew through confession the risks of dancing at fairs and they maintained a belligerent
position against trikitixa in general and close dancing in particular until the sixties. Maurizia
Aldeiturriaga used to say than when her husband, trikitilari Benantzio Bernaola Karakol, said
in confession that he had played some pasodobles, the priest would threaten him with denying
him absolution. Trikitilari Auntxas mother received several anonymous letters that told her
that first she would lose her sons soul and then hers. Every time he came back from a fair he
would find his mother crying.
According to Jose Jabier Abasolo Tilio, promoter of the tributes to the old Bizkaia trikitilaris
from 1974 on, the Guardia Civil also joined the repression against trikitixa, but for different
reasons than the church, some people were fined in Arratia and they even broke some
trikitilaris bellows. Obviously, the fines imply the existence of snitches.
These scuffles against close dancing created some absurd situations, as the ones lived in
Madariaga, an Azkoitia neighborhood that is right next to Elgoibar, at the Azkarate heights.
Whenever a sheriff showed up in Azkoitia, where close dancing was banned, couples would
run giggling to Elgoibar, where it wasnt.

In Urola they invented the baltseo txikia (minor waltz), which consisted in hugging your
partner while the trikitixa song was sung. It combined close dancing with separate dancing.
Besides the priesthood rejecting trikitixa, we should also add the social marginalization
promoted by the authorities, who excluded it from festivities and any official functions. The
pampered instrument was txistu. In Basque festivities, txistularis wore kaiku and trikitilares
wore blouses, marking the difference between the statuses.
Aingeru Berguices refers to the 1905 Bakio patron saint celebrations official program, which
states: after the regattas are finished () the lively outdoors feast will begin (). Barrel organs
are forbidden to avoid nastes (nahaste means mix, mess).
Popular music scholar Kepa Perez Urraza, from Zeberio, believes that clearly, trikitixa
introduced a liberating element in the ways to have fun for youngsters in that time. According
to a terminology dictionary compiled by the Trikitilaris Association, cassocks are not
compatible with trikitixa. Weve had union-supporting working class priests, congressmen,
members of Parliament, conspirator and bertsolari priests, but theres never been a trikitilari
priest.
Trikitixa hasnt been any luckier with celestial sponsors either. At the beginning of the
seventies, a group of trikitilaris decided to choose the Virgin of Arrate as their patron saint.
They left a trikitixa as an offering at her feet. It didnt last a week. Nobody knows who made it
disappear.

MORE FIRST NAMES

Even though the history of trikitixa is quite short, its full of legendary names. The first names
known in Bizkaia, according to Aingeru Berguices, are: Juan Bautista Uriagereka (1862) and
Agustin Elortegi (1863), from Markaida, a neighborhood in Mungia. It seems more recent
studies are bringing to light more trikitilari names that lived between the two centuries. In the
Association website, the most veteran known trikitilari is Gregorio Abaro, from Bermeo, born
in 1869.
According to Aguirre Franco, who wrote a fundamental book on this subject, the first written
references to trikitilaris by name from Gipukzoa go as far back as 1900 and they mention
Ormaiztegiko Itsua, who played at weddings and festivities and also busked for money at the
station and Pedro Urteaga, from the Alzola casero, in Zumarraga. Following we have Jos
Korta Pastor, Mollo and Martin Aranzeta. Around 1918 we first hear about one of the
legendary trikitixa men, Gelaxto, who forms the Elgoibar Trikitixa that year, accompanied by
two female tambourine players. A chronicle about the St. John bonfires on June 23rd 1920 in at
Eliz Kale in Zumarraga mentions accordionist Kanpazar. Jose Oria and him formed the first
stable trikitixa in Euskal Herria. We also hear about Itsaokorta and after 1920, the amount of
trikitilaris known by name increases noticeably.
But Berguices argues that trikitixa in Bizkaia was present before those years. Proof of the early
expansion of trikitixa in that territory is the existence of the shop Zengotita in Tenderia Street
in Bilbao, which was also a workshop and they even manufactured instruments, although in

very small quantities. Kepa Junkera owns a trikitixa manufactured by the Rodriguez brothers
in the Artxanda workshop around 1920. But even before then, Zengotita himself sold Hohner
brand trikitixas. The European trends arrived in Bilbao and they expanded from here to other
places. For example, the La Casilla festivities were renowned, says Kepa Perez Urraza, who
follows the steps of Aingeru Berguices in this and other subjects and with whom hes done
some field work. He also adds that the most important information discovered by him is the
first written reference to trikitixa. Its a text by historian Juan Carlos Guerra about the Urkiola
fair mentioning a brand new accordion. Its a text from 1889. Its odd that in a photograph
from that very same year shows a trikitixa in Altsasu. And there is a festivities program from
Bakio in 1905 found by Berguices that announces a party with trikitixa. These facts prove that
the trikitixa expansion was very fast, although we suspect the focal point was Bilbao. The fact
that it had an instrument shop proves there was a following in that envifonment. If Gipuzkoas
following had been so developed at that time, they would have opened a shop in Donostia.
Maybe as a result of that initial Bizkaia advantage, in Huitzi (Nafarroa) for example, their name
for trikitixa was Bizkai-dantza. That is, according to writer Orixe.
For Jose Jabier Abasolo Tilio, promoter of the tributes that would take place in Iurreta from
1974 on, there are leading figures of trikitixa like Fasio Arandia, Rufino Arrola or propia
Maurizia, that return to the scene motivated by the cultural resurgence of those years.
Dance federations are created, the Durango Fair, Ez Dok Amairu and it is in this environment
where popular music (besides trikitixa we have alboka, dulzaina or txalaparta) gets a renewed
momentum. We organized the first tribute to Serafin Aranzeta from Oromio, a neighborhood
of Iurreta, who was a road builder and in 1926 had recorded an lbum with La Voz de su Amo
in Bilbao. We realized then that there were veteran trikitilaris living in their country houses
that we didnt know about. We went from house to house extending invitations to the old
masters, he says.
Besides Tomas Arrizabalaga Sitze, Rufino Arrola, Basilio Txiki (Undagoitia), Salba Ugarte, Luis
Bilbao, Modesto Solozabal, Frutos Aulestialde, Fasio Arandia or Maurizia, who were born at
the beginning of the century, Tilio knew of even older trikitilaris. For example, he knew
tambourine players Juanita and Felisa Bermeosolo, from Natxitua, who at the time of the
tributes were in their nineties or a trikitilari from Zaratamo, Anton Agirre, close to 100 years
old who unfortunately died before they got to meet him. He received a posthumous tribute.
They also met Juan Etxebarri, a trikitilari almost 100 years old who still played with the Santa
Ageda group. Most of these trikitilaris had fought in the Civil War and some of them had
brought their trikitixas with them.
Kepa Junkera played trikitixa for the first time in one of these tributes organized by the Iurreta
festivities commission. He went there to play the alboka with the dance group Beti Alai, but in
an intermission he borrowed a trikitixa to play a song and he left the audience open-mouthed.
Tilio has a picture from 1979 where he is already the trikitilari from the dance group and
sports long hair. He was only 14 years old.
From 1988 on, already 24 years old, Kepa Junkera plays in all the Bizkaia and most of the
Gipuzkoa fairs. In only a few years he plays all across the Basque geography. In the town
squares he played the classic repertoire, which is very vast, says Tilio.

The roster of female tambourine players is impressive in Bizkaia. Besides the already
mentioned Bermeosolo sisters, we have Romualda Zuloaga (Galdakao), Leona Ziarreta (1888,
Zeanuri), Felisa Lekue (1878, Dima), Frantziska Larrinaga (1861, Dima), Paula Elorrieta (1901,
Arratia), Kattalin Urigoitia (1860, Elexabeitia), Tomasa Etxebarria (1889, Zollo) or Andresa
Ibarrondo (1906, Erandio Goikoa) and of course, Maurizia (1904, Zeberio). It is rumored that
some of these women drew silhouettes of their boyfriends on the skins.
Primi Erostarbe (1907, Araoz) was coetaneous with Maurizia in Gipukoa. Manuel Sudupe
Gelatxo Zaharra played with his wife Pantxika Zubizarreta. Her two sisters Martzelina and
Juliana also played the tambourine, same as Maria Barrena (Araoz). Mara Larraaga, la
Etxesakortas sister, also played the tambourine. Also deserving a special mention in this group
of female tambourine players is Mikaela Zunzunegi, born in 1923 in Zumarraga, for having
accompanied legendary Elgeta for years, as well as also being engaged to him, according to
Antxie Mendizabal in her book Zumarragako Trikitixa. We should also say that in Mikaelas
family, everyone was a musician. Her father, Joxe Antonio Zunzunegi, was a pretty good
trikitilari because he used to play with Gelaxo. Her brother Juan Mari played the trikitixa and
her sister Maritxu played the tambourine.
Frantziska Antonia Irizar, mother de Jose Oria, from the Zumarraga Trikitixa de Zumarraga, was
also a tambourine player.
It is evident that tambourine predates trikitixa. It had accompanied alboka, for example, and
had been a main solo player in the fairs, because there were women that could liven up a
dance with just a tambourine and their voice.

EUSKARAS MAP
It is surprising that a foreign instrument would adapt so easily to this land and in a few years it
would expand to a good part of the Basque geography. If we take into account that the same
phenomenon happened in the alpine regions thirty years before and that it actually ousted the
indigenous instruments, we have to come to the conclusion that soinu txikia had virtues (in the
words of Aguirre Franco richness in dynamics and harmonious racket) that its predecessors
like for example alboka and dultzaina, didnt have.
Theres another even more surprising fact: the implementation of trikitixa coincides in general
terms with the Euskara map, so much so that for the following generations, soinu txikia has
been closely linked to this language. Joxe Mari Iriondo started the radio program Gure
erromeriak in 1962, in Loiola Irratia. Herri Irratia from Donostia continued with Saski-naski
from 1964. Esteban Larraaga was one of the pioneers that kept Sutondoko erromeriak in
Arrate Irratia. Some say this last station broadcasted trikitilari recordings day in, day out; that
the songs were repeated but the listeners never tired of them. In both Larraaga and Iriondos
programs a whole generation of trikitilaris was recorded. All these broadcasts were entirely in
Euskara. In the sixties, the Land Rovers that travelled the narrow Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia and the
Atlantic Nafarroa local roads played trikitixa at full volume from their opened windows. But
those were hard times. In 1964, Loiola Irratia was closed by a government order. There were
Franco supporters that warned the Delegation when certain songs were played.

Maixa Lizarribar in Euskadi Irratia and Jabi Nabarro in Egin Irratia had radio programs from
1996.

THE FIRST RECORDINGS

The first trikitixa album was recorded in 1924 by Columbia in Donostia, and the performers
were tambourine player Joxe Oria and Jose Lete Etxesakorta.
Another recording pioneer was Serafin Aranzeta, the road worker from Iurreta. The
circumstances of the recording deserve a few lines. As the trikitilari himself explained, in 1926
while he was working on a roadside ditch, he was approached by a car and told that they
wanted to record an album. He didnt even have time to clean up or change clothes. He left his
wheelbarrow and mattock by the ditch, called his sister so shed join him with the tambourine,
got in the car and went straight to the Albia Coliseum where they recorded the songs in record
time. The label was La Voz de su Amo.
Jos Oria recorded a second album for Columbia accompanied by Errota from Legazpia, and a
third accompanied by Egiguren, but the dates are unknown. We only know it was before 1936.
Before the war, Etxesakorta and Manuel Sudupe Gelatxo had also recorded slate records
with the label Regal. The Zaldibar trikitixa had also recorded.
It was from 1963 on that Loiola Irratia started recording Gipuzkoa trikitilaris. Jose Mari Iriondo
had returned from military service and started his radio job when Sakabi and Egaazpi showed
up and asked how much would it cost to record a few songs. Joxe Mari Iriondo answered that
in any case, the radio station would be the one paying. Thus, trikitilaris like Maltzeta, Zendoia,
Egurrola father and son, Epelde, Arbe, Epelarre, Bitarte or Zabaleta started going to radio
stations to get recorded. Before this, Jesuit Father Bergara had recorded Migel Sagastume and
Gillermo Aldalur Pikua, both on accordion and Kandido Beristain, on accordion and trikitixa.
In the 70s, labels like Edigsa, Herri Gogoa, IZ and others started recording albums as a
standard operation.

ELGETA, THE MYTH

Jacinto Rivas Elgeta (1905-1964) is without a doubt the trikitilari with the most legend prone
biography. He was born in Donostia, abandoned at an orphanage and adopted to the casero
Intxuzabal in Bergara, although its closer to Elgeta, thats why he was known as Elgeta or
simply Intxuzabal. He taught two generations of trikitilaris after the war, at least in Gipuzkoa.
Sakabi started to study under him before the war. Tapia, Epelarre, Maltzeta, Auntxa, Arbe,
Kataolaza, Urkiolegi, Zabaleta, Erribera, Zialtzeta , Laja and many others studied under him
and credit him as the main responsible for the survival of soinu txikia in Gipuzkoa and its
renovation. Sakabi, for example, attested that if it wasnt for him, there wouldnt be any

trikitixa. His mastery also reached Bizkaia. Julian Larrinaga from Munitibar (now he lives in
Gernika), studied under Elgeta, who went to his casero to impart classes.
For lack of a better word, he was the first soinu txikia professional. Before the war, he had
work as a laborer at several workshops in Eibar, but he balanced his work with live shows at
farewell parties and fairs. Its been told that he was a pianist at Casa Petra or Petratxarri, a
madam that managed a small brothel in the very republican and pretty cosmopolitan gun
manufacturer town. His repertoire was so vast that he was more than able to entertain a place
of such characteristics, but with the trikitixa, not the piano. The first part of his life was deeply
lined to Eibar, where he had learn to play his instrument with Miguel Sagastumes father, the
Magician from Urki, an accordion player who was hired as a professional by the Orquesta
Tropicana, managed by a Basque, when he was only 19. After the war, Elgeta didnt have a
stable home. He went from casero to casero teaching trikitixa lessons. His contract included,
besides 25 pesetas, food and board and three cigars a day. He didnt set foot in a church, he
was a night bird and an insomniac (spent most of his time at night playing solitaire) and he got
up around noon (something very rare in a casero). In the war he volunteered to help fortify
Bilbao, for which he ended up doing time in the Santoa and Cdiz prisons, but allegedly not
for long because there is a picture of him in 1942 between two of his pupils, Auntxa y Sakabi.
He never married. His last romantic involvement was with a girl from Urretxu that
accompanied him on tambourine. The break up with this woman affected him deeply. Sakabi
invited him to his home but he didnt accept. He quit the trikitixa scene, retired to Donostia
and lived his last years erratically. Some said he lived in an old train carriage, others at a
homeless shelter. Some of his pupils saw him playing at bars. Pepe Yantzi recorded some songs
at this latter stage of his life. Iker Goenaga, one of his fans from the following generation,
notes that in one of the songs he changes the tone five times and in others he improvises.
Apparently, Elgeta managed to add two octaves to his accordion keyboard with the help of
Martzelino Larrinaga.
Elgeta is the prototype of the modern artist with romantic tinges that sacrifices his life for his
art and lives with nothing else to hold on to but his music. But he was a modern artist
embedded in the rural close minded world of the post-war era, which accentuates the paradox
even more.

TWO EXTREME CASES

The history of trikitixa is marked by peculiar cases. The two people that mark the history of
trikitixa in Bizkaia in the past century were born in the same year, 1909, Rufino Arrola in the
Andrakas neigborhood in Mungia and Bonifacio Arandia Fasio in Igorre, and both had to give
up trikitixa for different reasons in their youth to start playing again at an advanced age, Arrola
at 58 years old and Fasio at 62, going on for another two decades without any signs of fatigue.
Rufino Arrola, for example, participated in more than 20 txapelketas (he won three trophies in
the same day) and Fasio formed a legendary trio with Len Bilbao and Maurizia that played all
over Bizkaia again and again.
Rufino Arrola learned to play the trikitixa as a kid. At age 14 he had already played in a few
fairs but gave up the instrument in his mid-teens, apparently for work reasons and doesnt pick

it up again until he turned 58, when he suddenly decided to ride his bike to Donistia to buy a
Larrinaga-Guerrini. The night before he had been bewitched, staring at the trikitilari that was
playing in the neighborhood party and that sound stirred something very deep inside that he
thought already dead. He switched the anvil at his forge for the trikitixa and developed flurry
of activity until 1996.
Fasios case is similar. He started playing town squares at 13 but then the war broke out and
during the war two of the trikitixas he had left back home were stolen. He started playing
again around his retirement. However, it is known that he was a big football fan and before
that time he used to travel to the away games of the Igorre team and played the trikitixa in the
bus. Around 1968, according to Xabier Paya and Fredi Paia in their book dedicated to Maurizia,
the Arratia trio was already cheering the Arratie games. They also collaborated with the dance
groups Dindirri and Andra Mari and performed at least once a week at the Mendigoikoa
restaurant in Atxondo.

MAURIZIA, AN UNMISTAKABLE VOICE

Of all the numerous women that have formed trikitixa duos in the past century and a half, only
20 are a part of our collective memory and the most prominent is Maurizia Aldeiturriaga, who
started singing and playing tambourine at 13 and created a legacy thanks to her personality on
stage.
She was born in Zeberio in 1904 to a family of tambourine players. His father, older brother
and maternal uncle Calixto played the instrument. His uncle Calixto taught her some lessons
but her essential learning happened on Sunday afternoons, when she practiced on her own at
home. It seems that kind of learning was very common at that time. Xabier Paya and Fredi
Paia, in their book Aupa Maurizia!, quote the case of tambourine player Manu Ugarte from
Plentzia, who learned how to play the tambourine practicing with the bucket when he was
sent out to fetch water.
Agurtzane Intxaurraga, in the Bidegileak issue dedicated to the tambourine player, tells that
Maurizia left home at 9 years old to works as a maid, but three years later she returned to
Zeberio where she started working at textile factories and playing tambourine with trikitilari
Jokin Goiti Joakintxu. When she was 17 she met trikitilari Benantzio Bernaola Karakol, with
whom she started to play and would marry seven years later.
Karakol was from Artea and started playing trikitixa while he took care of the goats. Later on,
while working for Vasconia, he became friends with trikitilari Pedro Artiano Aldai, who
would help channel his true calling. His brother Juan Juan Lodia also played the trikitixa
although in an inverted position, i.e. playing bass with his right hand and melody with his left,
as he was left handed. Its been said that Benantzio Bernaola Karakol arrived in Artea playing
the trikitixa when he returned from military service.
The aforementioned Pedro Artiano Aldai was considered by some the best trikitilari of his
time in Bizkaia. He played in Bilbao, where people formed three different circles in La Casilla: in
the first circle people danced the tango and chotis, in the second there were gatherings of

women from the San Francisco and adjacent streets and in the third, a trikitilari played jotas y
pasadobles for the euskaldun maids and the small town guys that came to the capital city. It
was one of the strongholds of Pedro Artiano.
But lets go back to Artea. In the 20s and 30s, the Artea fair started on Sundays at 3 pm, once
the youngsters got out of church after saying the Rosary. Maurizia played to tambourine while
she walked from Zeberio to Artea. She was joined by another girl who also played. In the city
square, Pedro Egia was waiting for them with the trikitixa and he played the first song. He was
the opening act because the real star of the evening was always Karakol and, of course,
Maurizia. People who attended those dances say that Maurizia accompanied him in the jotas,
but not the rest of the repertorires. During the intermissions, Leon Bilbao got on stage with his
alboka and he always partnered with Maurizia, because her way of singing suited this
instrument best. But obviously, the young people of that time found the alboka obsolete.
Trikitixa was more powerful, more polyphonic and it suited the rhythms that came from the
city better, like pasodobles.
In any case, the trio that would make history in popular music started forming in the Artea
square in the 20s.
Once married, Maurizia and Karakol kept playing. They were a regular fixture in the Virgen
del Carmen festivities in Zornotza, San Antonio in Urkiola, San Fausto in Durango or San Pedro
in Dima, as well as many other dances in other towns and neigborhoods. People danced in
these fairs for hours. It is said that in Garai they watered the surroundings of the San Miguel
church in the morning and even doing so, by night the grounds had already dried up and the
dust made it hard to see.
Maternity was a very short hiatus in the activity of this tambourine player, because the couple
still fulfilled their commitments while she held her youngest in her arms.
But the most dramatic hiatus in Maurizias life took place: the war. She left the casero where
they lived in Zeanuri to return to her mother in Zeberio with their 8 year old son. When the
fascist troops approached the town, she fled to Somorrostro, where uncle Calixto lived and
from there to Cantabria. Meanwhile, her husband was arrested when he was trying to flee to
Iparralde. During the 3 war years, nobody remembered the trikitixa. When her husband
returned home, he was denied a job at Vasconia, claiming he had fought for the republican
side.
According to Fredi Paia and Xabier Payas book, she starts playing again in 1949 accompanying
her husband Karakol, first in nearby neigborhoods or in txerribodas (pig slaughters), until
fairs start happening again. Around 1964 albokari Len Bilbao joins the couple to form the trio
that made history.
When her husband died, she joined the Fasio Arandia trio (when he died, Basilio Undagoitia
joined in) and played all along the Basque geography, coinciding with the rebirth of Basque
culture. It was 20 years of uninterrupted activity, without a doubt Maurizias golden years.
She prepared her performances to the last detail. She dessed as a baserritarra. She was ready
to leave a couple of hours in advance and she was always on time for her performances.

Before she went on stage she would perform an almost magic ritual: she spread newspaper
sheets in a corner, set them on fire and stretched the skin of the tambourine with the heat.
Once, in the Ermitabarri neighborhood of Zeberio, Maurizia started the performance on time
by herself and the trikitilari that was supposed to play Pedro Aratiano Aldai, arrived later.
She filled the stage with her presence and conveyed enormous energy. Maurizia had a deep
voice and she started singing in the low range to finish the songs in the high end. She said she
imitated Len Bilbaos alboka. It is also Xabier Paya and Fredi Paias opinion that at least in the
rhythm and the final part of the songs, she used the alboka as a model. Some youngsters say
she sang out of tune. The vast majority says the contrary. What is very clear is that her voice
had primitive resonances and exuded wild strength. From the sixties onwards, she dazzled all
the young musicians she met. Her voice can be heard in several albums of the time, like
Kortatus debut album Kortatu, Txikitxuterik by Iker Goenaga; Nondik jo Maurizia?, by
Kepa Junkera; Agur Maurizia by the group Urgabe, another by Imuntzo or Bizkaiko trikitixa
by Xabi Aburruzaga. She also left 4 albums where she is one of the main performers: Herri
musika sorta. 15 Arratia, Herriko musika, from 1977, Euskal Herriko soinu tresnak, by
Beltran, y Maurizia, Leon, Fasio eta Basilio, from 1987.
She sang in B flat, very loud and strong. It was the ideal way of singing to attract people to the
circles that form in the dances before the war. Her performances often lasted for hours. She
went back home playing and singing and remembered how she spent several hours awake in
bed going through the images of the day.
Among all the other female artists, Maurizia was the most recognized by the younger
generations. A good part of her career coincided with the development of Rock Radical Vasco
and some of the leading figures, like Josu Zabala or Fermin Muguruza, have praised her and
called her a punk from other time, which is pretty much saying she was a punk avant la
lettre.
Between 1940 and 1960 there is a setback in the world of trikitixa. Because of the smear
campaign on Euskara, up until the 60s Maurizia sang her songs in Spanish. In an interview with
Euskadi Irratia in 1985 she stated that she didnt know how to speak Spanish but she sung in
that language. The Paya brothers tell the story of a bertsolari from Getxo, Asensio
Bidaurrazaga, who improvised in Euskara among friends but sang in Spanish in the town
square. In the sixties she switched to Euskara and started singing traditional songs.
During those two post-war decades, musicians started abandoning the diatonic accordion for
the chromatic, incorporating fashionable styles and compositions to their repertoires:
rhumbas, habaneras and rancheras. Around 1970 this process was inverted and accordion
players who had learned to play with the chromatic, switch to the diatonic. Competitions are
created. There is an album released for each competition and radio stations and ETB help
spread the word of the trikitixa. The first competition (1970), celebrated in the Plaza de la
Trinidad in Donostia during the Euskal Jaiak program, surprised everyone and proved the
enormous popularity of the instrument. Tickets were sold out and an avalanche of people tore
down the entrance gates. There were more than 2.000 people at the enclosure and many
more in adjacent streets. In the 80s, the competitions managed to gather 8.000 fans in the

Velodromo (cycle track). The trikitixa schools (at one point, Martin Aginalde had 345 students
in his 8 schools) helped strengthen the popularity.

ROMAN URRAZA AND KONTXA URRAZA.Kepas uncle and mother

Kontxa Urraza (Kepa Junkeras mother): I would have liked to study music and since I couldnt,
I encouraged my children.
Kepa Junkera has confessed several times than when it comes to technique he ows a lot to the
great trikitilaris from Gipuzkoa, but when it comes to his sense of rhythm and the strength of
his performances, it all comes from his childhood. His mother, Kontxa Urraza, was a dance
partner to Txilibrin (Silvestre Elezkano), un albokari, koplari and dantzari born in Igorre in 1912
who incessantly promoted popular culture after the war. One of the most vivid images Kepa
keeps from his childhood is his mother dancing in the kitchen at home, at Goya street in
Errekalde.

Your husband was your neighbor since you were a child. Could this be a staircase
love?

Thats how it was. We both lived in the same building, number 7 Goya Street, he lived on the
ground floor and me in the right side interior apartment on the first floor. Its a pity that he
isnt here now. Hes been in the hospital for a few days with bronchitis. Weve known each
other since we were kids. During the war, Pedro was in Belgium. He was one of the many
children fostered by families from that country. In fact, his adoptive family still keeps a close
relationship with him. We visited them a couple of times and they visited us. They loved him
very much. The last time they came, they said Pedro was still a son to them, me a daughter
and our children were like their grandchildren.
-

Your fondness of trikitixa comes from your father, Roman Urraza, who played the
tambourine.

Mi father was from Zollo but I was born in Miravalles. He spoke Euskara but mother was from
Santander, didnt speak it and we lost it. Mi father played the tambourine and he was best
friends with trikitilari Salba Ugarte and also Txilibrin, one of the founders of the dance group
Beti Alai from Basurto. I belonged to that dance group and when Txilibrin started participating
in jota competitions, he asked me to dance with him. I was his dance partner for years.
-

But did you dance before joining Beti Alai?

Yes, yes. At home we all loved to go to the fairs and parties we organized in the country on
Sundays. We had a friend that had a country house close to the San Roque church, on the way
to Pasagarri; several families got together and there was always a trikitixa around. Trikitilari
Salba Ugarte lived in Errekaldeberri, right across our house. He was from Orozko and knew my
father since they were kids. They were a trikitixa couple who always played among people, on
the street. They never set foot on a stage or a bandstand. For example, wed go to the Santa
Lucia fair but we would go many families together, with all the kids and wed bring all the food.

Obviously there was dancing in these gatherings, but I started dancing more formally at Beti.
And with Txilibrin I only danced the jota and it was wonderful. He was older than me, there
was a big age gap between us. He was the dance teacher at the dance group. In fact, he also
taught in other groups he started in other Bilbao neighborhoods.
-

Why you choose him as a dance partner?

I guess its because he stood out. It was amazing to see him dance the jota. He went to many
competitions. Later on my mother passed away and there were times when Maite Ugarte,
Salbas daughter, stood in for me. We didnt always dance the jota. Once they staged Las
estampas vascas by Guridi and I remember I joined the performance at the Ayala Theater.
-

For example, Kepar remembers that when he was a child, one Sunday afternoon his
grandfather and Salba came down to the neighborhood, went into a bar and played
several songs that he heard captivated from the street.

That was a scene that happened often. They would come down from for example San Roque
or the country house where we went every other Sunday. My father celebrated everything
with the tambourine. It was normal for the families to go back home and for them to stay
playing music at some neighborhood bar.
-

Pedro and you get married and move to his apartment or yours?

Mine, because my father was a widower. We still have the apartment but weve moved to
Zeberio with our daughter because Im a bit tired of all that. Rekalde is very special to us and
Im thrilled that my children are proud to be from that neighborhood, its deeply ingrained in
us, like the Athletic (smiles again).
-

Kepa spent several years in Zumaia , where Pedro was in charge of the construction of
two cottages.

We spent three years in zumaia, living in a house in front of the San Juan fountain. I love that
town. Kepa was two and a half and Maria was six months old. Pedro was the foreman of the
workers that built the two cottages that are near the lighthouse and a few more further down.
The cottages were for the company bosses, one for Retolaza and the other for Asumendi otro.
The cottages were a nightmare: in order to take the materials to the site, they had to do it
through the Talaiamendi meadows. Its a pity my husband isnt here! He loves to talk about
that construction. We became such close friends with the Txortena family who rented us the
house during those three years that we came back every year for summer vacation. Every time
I see a story about Zumaia on TV I get emotional.
-

How many children do you have?

Three. Kepa is the oldest, then comes Maria and the youngest one is Asier.
-

Kepa admits that its something that comes from you. I think he says he tries to do
with the trikitixa what you did dancing.

Yes, thats true, he says that. He is self-taught. Now there are schools where you can learn, but
back then there werent any. He learnt with a cassette player and bit by bit. When he learnt a
song, I would dance and tell him it was ok, I gave him my approval. Ive always loved to dance.
I also danced before Kepa started with the trikitixa. My husband doesnt. Every time I heard
music in a square, I gave him the coats, ran through the crowd and danced with anyone.
-

Theres a moment when you decide Kepa has to study the accordion with Pecia.

Kepa was 8 or 9 when he started studying music theory and accordion. We bought him a
second hand accordion, a small one because he couldnt play a large one. But he didnt like it. I
sat beside him, to push him, but he protested and said he wasnt going to go anymore. I think
he doesnt like to be in front of sheet music. The day he said he wasnt going back I got very
upset and went to his teacher. He said he was a very capable kid and that he would find his
own way. In high school he was a straight A student.
-

How is Kepa? Did he stand out for his tenacity, his will power?

I dont know how he is (smiles). Hes a different guy. I remember in the Indautxu school there
were teachers who congratulated him and gave him As, in composition, for example. Hes shy,
but thanks to the trikitixa hes opened up a lot.
-

When did Kepa start to push the boundaries of trikitixa? How did you feel about it?

Since he got such good grades, I wanted him to study music. I remember one day I took him to
the dentist and he told me not to worry, that since he liked triki so much and felt so happy, he
would end up making money with it and I should let him be. He spent endless hours playing
cassette tapes. It was unbelievable. I remember one day when Salba was at home, he listened
to everything that Kepa played and said: Hes already copied me. Salba played only a few
songs, but when he did, he did it with great strength and the sound he achieved was very
special. Soon I realized Kepa would make it. You could tell when he went to the competitions.
Even before that.
-

Have you ever danced to your sons songs? Kepa says his songs are trikitixa, since
youre able to dance to them.

Thats true. Now Im 82 and Ive stopped dancing, but its true. The thing is he has turned
trikitixa around, but there are things hes done that I love. I love the song Uriondo, I would
listen to it all day long. My son in law Kepa Perez Urraza says Uriondo is a place near Zeberio
where our last name comes from.
-

Usually the younger siblings are the artistic ones. What about your other two children?

Maria studied music and then she studied psychology and music education. She was a music
teacher for several years but shes recently quit, saying its very hard. Ive encouraged all of
them to study music except the youngest; I couldnt break him. I tried with different
teachers but it didnt work out. The youngest one, Asier, studied business administration and is
working in his area of expertise. I think music is a wonderful thing. I would have loved to study

music and since I couldnt, Ive encouraged my children to do it. Maybe when Kepa hears this
hell laugh, but I love music.

THE GREAT STARS

THE TRIKITIXA DE ZUMARRAGA
The Trikitixa de Zumarraga were pioneers in several aspects. Its been said that they were the
first to bring the trikitixa from the casero to the streets, the first to record an album and also
the first to start using Spanish in their songs, following a trend that started before the war.
Joxe Orias mother, Frantziska Antonia Irizar, from the Olarte casero in Zumarraga, was
already known as a tambourine player. According to Antxie Mendizabal in her book
Zumagarrako Trikitixa, she was the one entertaining the groups of women that got together
to do volunteer work. During their breaks, Frantziska Antonia would play the tambourine and
sing songs while the rest of the women danced.
Jox Oria, Frantziska Antonias son, inherited her love for music. In an feature from 1920, he
appears partnering with Kanpazar and years later he partnered with other musicians. His name
is mentioned in the first trikitixa album recorded in 1924, together with Etxesakorta. Thus was
born the Trikitixa de Zumarraga. Oria was 24 years old and Joxe Lete Etxesakorta was 19.
At Elizkale street in Zumarraga there was a bar that was packed with parishioners on Sunday
mornings while the sermon was taking place, and then ran back to the church when they heard
the organ playing. This was the bar where the Trikitixa de Zumarraga was consolidated. The
mother, Frantziska Antonia, would listen to her sons performances form her bed, when he
returned from a fair and went into the bar to end the day. Journalists from that era (Antxie
Mendizabal has several statements) define him as a natural born entertainer, and very
naughty. This is one of his songs sung in Spanish: Ayer me dijiste que hoy/ hoy me dirs que
maana/ y maana me dirs/ que de lo dicho no hay nada (yesterday you said today, today
youll say tomorrow, and tomorrow youll say that you didnt say anything at all). Another one
in Spanish: Dicen que casar/ yo tambin me casara/ si la vida del casado/ fuera como el
primer da. (I would get married if married life was like the first day. And the last one
Debajo del delantal/ tienes el txitxilimurdi/ y un poco ms abajo/ qui tolis pecata mundi.
(under your apron you have your txitxilimurdi, and further below qui tolis pecata mundi)
When Etxesakorta was 23 he had to quit playing and take up exile in Argentina, for reasons
that some chronicle called non-confessable. Apparently he impregnated a girl and the
society of that era punished them both, the girl of course and also the trikitilari. They
celebrated a farewell dinner at a bar in Zumarraga and and Joxe Oria kept playing the
tambourine and singing with other trikitilaris like Errosta, Gorriz or Karlos Egiguren.
There were also some setbacks with Joxe Orias next partner, Felipe Mondragon Errosta
from Legazpia. He worked at Patricio Echeverria and his boss told him to choose between his
job or the trikitixa. He didnt have a choice but to cancel some of his commitments.
Joxe Oria should be recognized as the first who mixed tambourine with trikitixa. Before him,
there were several female tambourine players who organized shows without trikitixa. After

him, we had to wait until Sakabi for the relationship between tambourine and trikitixa to be
normalized.
Before the civil war, Joxe Oria already had three albums under his belt, one with Etxesakorta, a
second with Errosta and a third with Egiguren. These famous verses are from that time: Al
entrar en Zumarraga/ ha nacido una laguna/ donde se baan las guapas/ porque fea no hay
ninguna (there is a lagoon in Zumarraga where the pretty girls bather, because there are no
ugly ones). Joxe Oria was a nationalist and he recorded many songs with abertzale content. His
third album, the one he recorded with Egiguren, had problems with the censorship bureau.
During the civil war he was a member of the Amayur battalion.
But he also accompanied Benigno Berezibar Kanpazar from Elorrio, Kandido Beristain from
Azkoitia, Alejandro Telleria Gorriz from Antzuola and Joxemiel Ormazabal. The collaboration
with the latter was crucial for the Trikitixa de Zumarragas career, as it allowed them to
connect with the post-war generations. This trikitilari taught Joxe Urteaga, Joxe Orias nephew,
how to play, who would become a key player in the following generation. Before his death in
1940, Joxe Oria was lucky enough to see his nephew Joxe on stage playing the tambourine. Ten
years later, four brothers from the Urteaga family would relaunch the Trikitixa de Zumarraga
brand, and they would later on experience their golden age. In 1957 they recorded again for
Columbia. This album included a famous song dedicated to the daughter of the Eusebio, owner
of the bar where they used to get together: Kalebarrendik hasita/ Elizkaleraino/ ez dago
neska politagorik/ Eusebioren alaba baino. When the album was released, Eusebios
daughter, Gurutze, had already gotten married and her husband treated them to dinner. These
were the post war years and the Guardia Civil was watching them. When they played in a bar,
they left someone outside as a lookout in case they came. In the Kizkitza fair, the Guardia Civil
forced them to play pasodobles. Antxie Mendizabal has gathered countless anecdotes about
the Trikitixa de Zumarraga. They played nonstop for hours and there were times when people
had to help Joxe Urteaga so he could urinate while still playing.
His trikitixa teacher, Josemiel Ormazabal, was also a famous local personality. He owned the
Isabel restaurant in Zumarraga and the Golden discotheque. For 10 years, the orchestras that
performed in town ended up playing impromptu shows in his club. In 1959 when one of the
brothers, Inaxio, left the group, Joxemiel Ormazabal returned to the Trikitixa de Zumarraga

SAKABI, ONE OF THE GREATS

Faustino Azpiazu got his stage name Sakabi at the casero where he was born, hidden in the
foothills of the Izarraitz range, close to the Aittola Berri restaurant, on the road from
Madariaga to Lastur. He was the youngest son of a very famous healer of the area, so much so
that a doctor from Azkoitia (Artzuaga) who had once reported him to the authorities (he did go
to prison) had to resort to him when one of his children got sick.
Sakabi was born in 1916. At 10 years old he went to a Whit Sunday fair in Izarraitz with his
father and he was hypnotized by the sound of the trikitixa. He learned to play his first notes
with his uncle Anton Baltzola and then continued learning with Madarixa Txikia (Jose Manuel
Aranbarri). On Sunday mornings he went to 7 am Mass and then took class in Azkoitias
Madariaga neighborhood, where he would later perform in the afternoon. It was this trikitilari

who recommended he went to see Elgeta. Sakabi was only 16, but he had already seen Elgeta
perform in the New Years fair in Elgoibar and was very impressed by him. Elgeta lived in Eibar
and the trip was sort of a small odyssey: an hour and a half walk from the casero to the
Azkarate heights, there hed take the 8 am bus from Azkoitia to Elgoibar, where hed take the
train to Eibar. Elgeta gave him double lessons, one before lunch and one right after; he would
then take the 6 pm train back but this time hed have to walk 8 kilometers from Elgoibar to the
Azkarate heights because the bus didnt run in the afternoon, and then the hour and a half to
the casero.
He repeated this journey about ten times, but this was 1936 and the war interrupted the
relationship between Elgeta and his firts pupil. Elgeta volunteered to serve on the front and
Sakabi, now 20 years old, stayed in the casero and was later recruited. He fought in
Extremadura and Madrid, was wounded twice and lost the trikitixa he had brought from home.
It would take a while before they started the classes again, in 1940. This time Elgeta went to
his casero. This was probably the first stay of many, as he spent several years going from
casero to casero. Elgeta had 12 pupils, but Sakabi was his favorite.
Sakabi partnered with tambourine player Egaazpi (Jose Mari Urbieta) in 1945. It was a stable
partnership, as it lasted more than 30 years. It was almost an exclusive contract. During those
years they went to the fairs in Egaazpis Lambretta. The tambourine player worked at the
Egiguren lathe factory in Zestoa and had to work overtime to compensate for the time he took
off to perform. Some days he worked up to 16 hours.
In 1957 Sakabi met Laja at the Korostite fair, at the hillside of the Izarraitz. He was only 13
years old but he already stood out for his talent. According to Iigo Aranberri in his book
Sakabi. Soinu txikiaren handitasuna, Sakabi told Elgeta: Wed better retire, this kid is coming
up strong. Years later they would play together many times. They were obsessed with quality.
Sakabi could handle himself with music theory, although poorly. He studied under the
conductor of the Azpeitia orchestra, Azpeitia, Jose Mari Altuna Puccini, and so did Laja. Both
fought to dignify trikitixa.
The fairs he played weave a dense web over the Gipuzkoa map: Madariaga, Martirieta,
Komunsoro, Zurruntzola, Errezil, Bidania, Goiaz, Santa Engrazia, Erdoizta, Iturriotz, San Pedro
de Aia, Urteta, Laurkain, orio, Aginaga, Usurbil His style was elegant, polished and very
technical. In many of these towns the festivities would begin in the morning with passacaglia
and finish with the dance around three in the morning.
In 1970, Sakabi and Egaazpi won the first trikilari competition (Trikitilarien Lehen Txapelketa)
although there had been others before the war. It was held on September 13th and by six pm
they had sold out all the tickets. Two thousand people gathered in Donostia. Many of them
came from the Urola valley as all of the six duos that entered the competition came from that
area: the Zendoia brothers, the Egurrola brothers, the Epelde Brothers, Illarramendi and
Imanol Iturbide, Laja and Berastegi and Sakabi and Egaazpi. These last two won the txapela,
but the award for best musician went to Laja. The newspapers from that time boycotted the
event.

The second edition of the txapelleta took place the following yeart, but Sakabi decided not to
enter.
He retired at 60 years old, he had problems with rheumatism. But before leaving the stage
they recorded the album Sakabi-Egaazpi trikitilariak. Sakabi left a mark in some of his
pupils, like Imuntzo (Juan Ramon Azpitarte). People said his style was influenced by his master,
Elgeta. They also say there was a competition in the 50s Sakabi didnt want to enter, but
Elgeta signed him up and the pupil beat the master.

THE GELATXOS, A DYNASTY

Manuel Sodupe Gelatxo Zaharra (1888) was a trikitilari that started a dynasty which has
continued until the present day. Accompanied by his wife Juliana Esnaola, who played
tambourine, travelled through a good part of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa and was considered by
many as the best trikitilari before the war, because of his technique and hes ability to write
new songs in a time where the trikitilaris repertoire was very meagre. Some of his songs are
still performed today.
Gelatxo Zaharra created his own repertoire but he also created a family of artists. His three
sons Lorentzo, Jose and Pedro have been trikitilaris and dancers. The most famous is Pedro
Gelatxo Gaztea (1928), who opted for the piano accordion but still wrote songs that could be
played with a soinu txikia. Hes travelled the country for 56 years, 50 of them with a band
formed by saxophone and drums named jazzbana, after the percussion instruments brand.
Traveling with all the instruments made it hard to perform in neighborhood parties.
Sometimes they shipped them in advance and then went by train, but others they had to carry
them on donkeys. Manuel Sodupes three daughters were dancers and they danced in many
competitions. Manuel Sodupe died in 1953. He went to his casero, Agarre in the Elgoibar San
Lorentzo neighborhood to have his picure taken. He went back home playing a birikilketa and
suddenly he felt sick. He died soon after. For more than a decade he belonged to the most
revered trikitixa trio together with Elgeta and young Sakabi.

MALTZETA, ONE OF THE FIRST PROFESSIONALS

He was one of the first professional trikitilaris who dedicated his time exclusively to his
instrument, at least for a couple of decades. At first, he tried to balance a job in a factory at
Forjas Juaristi with his trikitixa commitments, but it became impossible and he decided to
leave the factory. He live the golden age of fairs in Gipuzkoa, during the 50ss and 60s. He was
a top ranking trikitilari together with Sakabi until Laja burst into the scene. He got married in
1966 and returned to a factory job at Fundiciones Zubillaga in Azkoitia, but a serious accident
at work made him leave his job again.
He lived in the Altzibar neighborhood for many years, right by the Landakanda and Zabale
caseros and not far from Umansoro or Imuntzo. If we widened the perimeter, we would find
other names like Zendoia, Epelde, Izer or Zabaleta. Were talking about one of the biggest
concentrations of trikitilaris and panderojoles in the history of trikitixa.

Writer and journalist Juan Luis Zabala says in his book Maltzeta, soinu bete bihotz, that the
trikitilari and his brother Justo traveled often to the caserio where they were born, Maltzeta
Etxetxo, which is now demolished in their Renault 8. The trikitilari was holding her daughter
Mamen in his arms, and right there, in front of the demolished walls, he played his piece
Hamabost hamasei urte. It was obviously an exercise in nostalgia.
Juanito Garate Maltzeta had been born in that casero, in Azkoitias Urrategi neighborhood,
in 1924. Nearby there were caseros like Goenatxo, Euzkitze and Uitte. The latter was the
birthplace of many trikitilaris like Euzkitze, maternal grandfather of bertsolari and journalist
Xabier Perez Euzkitze and harri-jasotzaile (stone lifter) Juan Jose Unanue is from Goenatxo.
Maltzeta was a haunted casero. Two former generations had played the dulzaina. As told by
the trikitilari, his father kept several music instruments in an engraved box, from a violin and a
guitar to flutes, tambourines and dulzainas. They never saw a trikitixa there, but his father
claimed he used to play it in his youth, before he started with the dulzaina. When he came
back from Sunday mass, he used to have some broth with a glass of wine and then sat in the
balcony looking out with his dulzaina and played it softly. His son remembered some of the
songs he heard at home and included a biribilketa by his father in the album he recorded in
1981, when he was 60 years old. Juan Mari Beltran found four dulzaina players nicknamed
Maltzeta Etxetxo. Three of the trikitilaris uncles formed a dulzaina group that performed at
weddings. To complete the picture, one of his grandfatherss brothers, Lorentzo Garate, was a
bertsolari.
His admiration for Gelatxo Zaharra (Manuel), who played in the nearby fairs, forged his calling.
At 15 years old he worked making charcoal and with the money he obtained he bought his first
trikitixa. Trikitilari Jose Mari Arabarri Madarixa Trikia went with him to the Larrinaga-Guerrini
factory and he also taught him his first classes. On Sunday mornings, Madarixa Txikia went
from Azkoitia, where he lived, to Maltzeta where Juanito and his friend Eugenio Alberdi
Zabaleta(who also became a trikitilari) were waiting for him. Both started playing when they
were around 18 years old in the nearby fairs, in Irukurutzeta, Pol-Pol, Elosua, Zarguate,
Urrategi or in Aizpurutxo.
During his military service he met a trikilari from Orio that had studied under Elgeta and when
we returned home, he got in touch with the master. Elgeta spent five weeks at Maltzeta
Etxetxo.
Maltzeta lived the golden age of fairs in the 50s and 60s, before the first discotheques
opened. In Errezil there were four fairs each Sunday (at the square, Benta Berri, Zurruntzola
and Lete), another four in Aia (Urdaneta, Altzola, Aia Behea and San Pedro). Elosua,
Irukurutzeta, Gorla and Oleta held large fairs. Sometimes they kept the trikitilari for days. In
Altzola, for example, Maltzeta used to stay for seven days. There are fairs like the Agieta in
Zumarraga in which Maltzeta hast played for 35 consecutive years. Up until the 50s they used
to play without tambourine. Later on he was accompanied by Izer, Landakanda, Iturbide,
Bidani, Egaazpi, Egurrola and his own daughter Mamen, who caused a stir because of her
style of playing (hanka eta buru) at the finals of the 1980 competition. Apparently, Joseba
Tapia asked Maltzeta if he could play with his daughter for the finals. The father said she was

too young, but then changed his mind and thought that if Joseba Tapias was interested in her,
then she should play with him, not Joseba.
There is also a strange anecdote related with the civil governor at the time, Pedro Manuel
Aristegui, a member of UCD born in Irun who was smitten by the girl after she performed at an
inauguration. There were admiration letters, presents and even a phonecall. The governor
promised her he would get her boyfriend exempt from military service, but he died in a
terrorist attack while being an ambassador in Irak. Mamen played with his father until she
turned 16 and she is featured as a panderista in the three albums recorded by the trikitilari,
one for IZ and two for Elkar.
In 1983 they moved from Azkotia to Hondarribia, where his daughter opened a trikitixa school
where Maltzeta taught some classes. Among the alumni of the school are bertsolari champion
Amets Arzallus who accompanied his sister Itsaso playing tambourine.
Maltzeta died 2006, at age 82.

AUNTXAS WALKS
Antonio Aranaga Auntxa was born in the Zubiondo house at Kalebarren Street in Urrestilla in
1910. Hes one of the few trikitilaris of his generation that didnt come from a casera. After
the war he opened a restaurant that is still run by his sons nowadays. The nickname came from
a bet his grandfather won: he had bet that he could climb up to a bar counter in just one jump.
He jump twice and received the nickname Ahuntza (goat).
Antonio Aranaga Auntxa bought his first trikitixa in Azpeitia, at the Guibert department store
(he used to spend a lot time of glued to the store window) for 40 pesetas. He tried to learn
how to play on his own and when he realized he wasnt improving, he went to one of the great
pre-war trikitilaris, Kandiko Beristain from Azkoitia. Kandiko had won the Euskal Jaiak
competition three times, Donostia in 1933, Errenteria in 1934 and Bergara in 1935. Kandiko
Beristain knew music theory and played two or three instruments in the local band. After
taking classes from him for six months, he went on to study under Antton Baltzola from
Zestoa, and Elgeta. The classes took place at the pupils home in a closed room and they lasted
many hours. Auntxa also bought a gramophone to listen to the few records available at that
time. They were pieces by Etxesakorta, Gelatxo y Kanpazar, which he learned by repetition,
with some additions of his own.
In 1941 his mother received an anonymous letter blaming her for her sons behavior. As he
told Joxe Mari Iriondo, his mother asked him in tears to stop playing the trikitixa, as the soul
was more valuable than money. This anonymous letter was written because of the burgeoning
success of the Landeta fair. Inazio Bereziartua, owner of a bar in Azpeitias Landeta
neigborhood proposed Auntxa to celebrate a fair each Sunday on the open field he had next to
the bar. This neighborhood was very convenient for the trikitilari and since the money
collected at the fair would be for him, he gladly accepted. The fair started at four in the
afternoon and finished around dinner time, when the trikitilari returned to the bar and kept
playing there. There was a fair for six or seven Sundays and the attendance grew exponentially

until the letter arrived and Auntxa had to cave in to her mothers wishes. The letter had
achieved its goal.
But by then Auntxa was already famous and known in fairs and bachelor parties. At 13 years
old he had played in the Zestoa Spa, in the black tie parties that took place in the San Miguel
festivities to bid farewell to the summer vacationers. The coins he received as payment
impressed him so much that when he got home, he woke his mother up to show them to her.
After he turned 14 he was called to play at the bachelor parties in the nearby towns. The
parties took place in the attic of the caseros, more than a hundred people attended and they
lasted for several days. Besides cash, he was sometimes paid in goods. He would come back
home with bread, beans and sometimes even chickens which helped a lot in the famine years
after the war.
Even though in the 50s the popularity of the bachelor parties and weddings that requiered the
presence of a trikitilari declined, the fairs kept going. Auntxa played at the fairs in Urrestilla,
Oatz, Nuarbe, Aratz-erreka, Arriaran, Matxinbenta, Ezkio, Urki, Santamaa, Kizkitza, Beizama,
Bidania, Goiatz, Errezil, Iturriotz, Zurruntzola, Benta Berri, Etumeta, Erdoizta, Elosiaga,
Putzumenta, Pagotxeta and many more. He also had regular commitments at Nafarroa and
Iparralde.
The means of transportation at that time had nothing to do with the present ones. In Iturriotz,
for example, besides the fair in San Joss day, the teens in the neigborhood organized roast
lamb banquets six times a year. The trip to Iturriotz and back was an athletic feat: he rode a
bicycle to Errezil, went to 7 am mass, climbed to Zelatun and then went down to Iturriotz. It
was more than two hours of cross-country walk with a trikitixa on his shoulders. According to
Iriondo in the book Urrestillako Trikitixa, in a fair he would make three times as much money
as in the factory job. In a fair in Zelatun his net earnings amounted to three thousand pesetas
after paying the tambourine player and the collectors.
There were special fairs, like the one on Santa Luca in Zumarraga. For years, Elgeta, Sakabi and
Auntxa played in the square morning, afternoon and evening for two days. Auntxa claimed
they could play for three hours without repeating a single piece. But it wasnt improvised
repertoire. A month before they would meet at Auntxas restaurant to prepare the
performance. At the other corner of the square there was another trikitilari playing accordion,
but he wasnt very popular.
Both Trixitixa de Zumarraga and Urrestila (Auntxa and Iturbide) were the first to have regular
commitments at Iparralde. Auntxa went for more than thirty years to the festivities in
Hazparne, Baiona, Ezpeleta and Donibane Garazi. Once at the Baiona Euskal Jaiak, the
organization took him on a ride through the town streets in a convertible. That was the most
glamorous performance in Auntxas long career.
Auntxa also visited Nafarroa towns regularly like Iruea, Leitza, Lesaka, Bakaikoa, Elizondo,
Lizarra or Kortes. He usually traveled by motorcycle. He went to Iruea for 40 years with his
buddies. They would save money during the year to spend a few days in sanfermines. He used
to remember often how a bull scared him to death while running.

Unlike other trikitilaris, he didnt want his children to follow his path. He used to tell them how
hard it was to spend three days away from home with only a few hours of sleep, arrive home
and then go to work at the factory without any rest. He worked in the Aguirre Hermanos
furniture factory in Azpeitia. He told Joxe Mari Iriondo, that according to his accounting books,
in 1950 he made more money with the trikitixa than at the factory. But there came a time
when the family restaurant required his full attention. He quit his job at the factory and also
stopped playing the trikitixa until he transferred the restaurant management responsibilities to
his children. After a twenty-year hiatus, he started performing again.
Together with Iturbide he recorded an album for IZ in 1975 and collaborated in a few others,
among them a CD released by a German Label, Erde Records in 1991.
Kepa Junkera visited him often, as did other young men who were studying the instrument,
and the veteran trikitilari collaborated in one of his recordings.
He was an avid hiker. For example, he participated in several timed twelve hour treks
organized by Lagun Onak from Azpeitia. Auntxa managed to complete one of those treks at 71
years old. The trek departed from Azpeitia, climbed Izarraitz, then went down to Lasau, then
climbed Aizarna, Eturneta and Ernio to continue through Urraki and descend to Azpeitia again.
He had hiked from Urrestilla to Donostia about five times in the last years.
After the war, the Carlist militiamen confiscated his trikitixa and he considered it lost for years.
One of those militiamen, probably regretful, wrote him a letter telling him the instrument was
in Madrid. Auntxa ignored the letter, but months later he received a package with the trikitixa.
It was a piece hed bought at the Zengotita shop in Bilbao. Auntxa thanked him and treated
him to lunch in his restaurant. But the history of that trikitixa doesnt end there, it was stolen
from his car in a trip with his son to Barcelona.
Auntxa died on Santa Luzia day in 2011 and according to statements made by his sons on Joxe
Mari Iriondos book Urrestillako trikitixa, up to his last moments he was still moving his
fingers, like he was reliving the Zumarraga fairs.

LAJAS TXAPELAS
The case of Iaki Garmendia Laja is similar to bertsolari Andoni Egaas; amassing txapelas
before retiring from competition. When asked about this subject, Laja tries to add them up but
is not sure: he could have won eight or nine, year after year, in the championship finals in
Donostia.
Laja must have been a precocious trikitilari. They say Sakabi met Laja in 1957, when he was 13
(he had been born in 1944) and he was already playing at the Korostieta fair, at the hillside of
the Izarraitz. Sakabi told Elgeta: Wed better retire; this kid is coming up strong
Iaki Garmendia Laja has no knowledge of this anecdote because he didnt live it I bugged
Sakabi to give me lessons but he told me that between the factory job and the fairs, he hardly
had any time left and it was him who called Elgeta, who by that time had retired to the
homeless shelter in Tolosa, to come to our casero, to Laja, to give me lessons. I was 15 at the
time and I was Elgetas last pupil. I remember he came from Tolosa by bus and arrived at the

casero with a bag of clothes and the trikitixa on top of the donkey my mother used to go to
the market. He spent about four months in our house. Then he left for Donostia. People saw
him playing at Bar Basarri and others, in front of a cigar box where he kept the coins. By the
time Elgeta came to teach me, I had already played a couple of years at the Korostieta far,
which was relatively close to his home, he says.
Iaki Garmendia Laja inherited his fondness for trikitixa from his father. His father played the
trikitixa and he had two bertsolari brothers who sang in the neighborhood bars, Azanekoa y
Pikuanekoa. But the family bertsolari who made history was the grandfather because he
starred in a small challenge with the great Txirrita. Allegedly, grandfather was taking a herd of
piglets to town and crossed paths with Txirrita, who asked them if they weighed a lot.
Grandfather replied they would weigh a lot if they were like you, making fun of the
bertsolaris weight. From that incident came the verses found in Txirritas biography.
My older sister also played the trikitixa. She was better than me. Elgeta once said he would
have preferred to teach my sister. She had an excellent music ear. Whatever piece we were
playing, she would sing it from upstairs, he says.
Elgeta wasnt Lajas only teacher because he also studied music under the Azpeitia band
conductor, Jose Mari Altuna. I studied with him for three winters, when the workload at the
casero is lighter. He taught me music theory among other things. By then I used to play a lot in
weddings. I used to go to Arzak restaurant, for example. From time to time an inspector would
show up asking to see my musician card. Obviously I didnt have the card and I had to go
home. I lost a few weddings because of the damn card. I decided I had to prepare for the exam
to get the card. I studied with Jose Mari Altuna and went to take the exam to the Donostia
Consevatory before a jury comprised of Bello Portu and Francisco Escudero, no less, and other
people representing some Ministry from Madrid. One of the parts of the exam consisted in
reading sheet music and playing it with the trikitixa, with the added difficulty that they werent
in the same key, the trikitixa was in B Flat and the sheet music in G. I had prepared the Turkish
March for my performance with the trikitixa and they were very impressed, he remembers.
Experts claim Elgeta and Sakabi were the biggest stars of the post war era and Laja added one
more step to the ladder of evolution.
Laja is very humble about this. Its always easy to add another step when you know in depth
what your predecessors have done. I knew in depth what Sakabi had done. I tried to assimilate
what hed done and add something else, he says. He added so much to Sakabis legacy that
when the first championship in Donostia is held in 1970, Sakabi-Egaazpi won the txapela, but
the best trikitilari award went to Laja and the best tambourine player award went to Imanol
Iturbide.
Laja has played with countless tambourine players. He played with Berastegi for many years,
with Etxeberritxo, with Zabale, later with Imanol Iturbide and finally with Landakanda.
Hes probably the trikitilari whos won the most txapelas at the Trikitilari championships. When
asked about the subject, he starts counting: it could be eight or nine. He has a split txapela
with Martin because their scores were tied, the year after he placed second after Martin (its

the only second place hes had), because in all the other editions he came back home with the
txapela.
He recorded his first lbum with Iturbide in Herri Gogoa, he recorded another five with
Landakanda, he also released Azken jazzbana (with saxophone and drums) and one of his
pieces is in the txapelketas compilations.
Laja met Kepa Junkera when he played accordion at the Beti Jai Alai. We went to many Bizkaia
towns: Elantxobe, Ibarrangelu, Laga or Laida and there we would run into the Beti Jai Alai guys.
Both Kepa Junkera and Zabaleta played the accordion. They used to stare at us. Later on we
played often at Aia, in Aristerrazu. He was a very smart kid and he played our pieces very well.
He was one of our fans from that time, and now hes a great artist. He doesnt play the trikitixa
like us and he doesnt prepare for a four hour long show hes different, hes from another
world. He does keep the beat but his imagination runs wild. In the beginning, when he used to
play the fairs in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa and released his first album, Kepa. Zabaleta eta
Motriku, a beautiful records, they were more in synch with us; Zabaleta played the base notes
and Kepa did his own thing. He does as he pleases and he never repeats the parts. He is
without a doubt an improvisation genius. He wasnt lucky at the txapelketas, he didnt even
win a single txapela and I think that also contributed to strengthen his ways. The funny thing is
that he took really good pieces to the competitions and years later the students requests his
pieces and not so much Tapias, he says.
I ask him if hes ever played Junkeras pieces Once he answers-. There was a festival in
Tolosa and Kepa and Mutriko had to cancel at the last minute. The presenter, I think it was
Joxe Mari Iriondo, looked at us and asked if anyone was brave enough to play his pieces. I
remember I played a few and I was pretty successful. Kepa was adored among young trikitilaris
and fans.
Lately hes had a closer relationship with Motriku. Recently they played together in
Aristerrazu. People said we made an odd couple, because he sang everything in Euskara
without really speaking it and I spoke to him in Spanish without really knowing the language,
but despite everything it looked like we understood each other. We usually get together at his
wifes casero in Zornotza. When Landakanda told him he was going to retire from the
tambourine and encouraged him to take his place, he got really excited and practiced so
thoroughly that in the first fair we played together we had more than enough pieces. He cant
play a lot because of his job, but hes thrilled to play every once in a while. He enjoys the
tambourine a lot, he says.
I remind him that after the San Jose day festival in Azpeitia he played with Kepa at the
Pastorkua restaurant, They said it would be great if different trikitilari generations got
together to play, the younger ones with us, Landakanda and me. We played with Kepa and
Motriku and we caused a small commotion with pictures and cellphone videos, he
remembers
Laja still plays every day but not on a fixed schedule to learn some new pieces or go over
some old ones. He lives in a new house next to his family, a few meters away from the casero

where he was born, now turned into a restaurant. Hes taught some of the young trikitilaris
that are now on the forefront like Imuntzo, Lurdes Alkorta, Izer or Agurtzane Elustondo.
He is still teaching. His students range from 12 year old kids to elderly people who have
learned over 60 pieces. The students record Laja while he plays the pieces very slowly and then
practice at home. There are students that have learned the whole piece in a week. Nowadays
there are trikitixa schools in every town and neighborhood. Some of my students are people
determined to have me teaching them.
They have two sons that play the trikitixa. One of them plays with him at weddings at
Mendigoiko, in Atxondo. Hes been doing it for over twenty years. One of the houses
specialties is serving the food to the rhythm of the triktixa a dozen of girls come out while
were playing and we disappear once theyve served all the tables, only to reappear with the
next course.

TOMAS SORALUZE EPELDE, A PERMANENT SMILE

There are misterious and intriguing smiles, like Monalisas, but there are also honest and clear
smiles like Epeldes, who always has a smile on his face, especially if hes playing music. He was
born in the Epelde casero in Azkoitia. Its the last casero along the road from Akzoitia to
Martirieta.
If the Trikitilaris Association had to trace a route for a walking tour of trikitixa, they would have
to choose this Azkoitia neighborhood. Walking up to the neighborhood hermitage is immersing
oneself in the history of the trikitixa. Out of the 30 caseros that form the neighborhood, the
first on the road from Azkoitia is Imunsoro (Imuntzo), birthplace of a trikitilari. The third one is
Egurrola, birthplace of a panderojole who played with Jose Mari Epelde, Tomas father. We
also find casero Zendoia, birthplace of the brothers of the same name and also casero Muno,
where Jose Mari Epelde was born, and further up Montte, home of one of the greatest
dultzainero dynasties in the country. This doesnt mean there werent any musicians in the
other caseros. There were trikitilaris in Susteta, Irisarri or Urteaga, but they didnt perform in
public. There were dulzaineros in Korta and Etxetxo too. Tomas Soraluze Epelde stands me
corrected saying were talking about the past, its not the same anymore.
I used to tell my father I was the real Epelde because I had been born in that casero. He had
been born in Muno and moved here when he married an Epelde. In fact, his friends always
called him Muno, says Tomas Soraluza, the present Epelde, and adds that when the
txapelketas began and he participated with his brother Luziano and his father with Egurrola, in
order to avoid confusion they started calling his father Epelde Zaharra and him just plain
Epelde.
Xabier Gantzarain, director of Arteleku, dedicated a book to Epelde Zaharra (Epelde. Mende
baten soinua) in which he manifested his astonishment at the emergence of trikitixa in
Azkoitia and the surrounding area in the first decades of the 20th century. He remembers it as
one of the most intense cultural phenomena of the time, surprisingly under the rule of a
catholic fundamentalist political party.

Tomas grandfather played the dulzaina and he was a bertsolari. Father and son used to go to
the Santa Lucia fair in Zumarraga. The father improvised bertsos while the son played music.
In the 1920s trikitixa substituted dulzaina. Trikitilaris like Etxesakorta, Beltziur, Kantera, Gorriz
or Kanpazar would go to Martirieta. Epelde Zaharra bought a second hand trixitixa in Azpeitia
when he was 16, and bought a second one when he was 18 at Larrinaga in Donostia. Since he
bought that trikitixa until the war broke out, Epelde Zaharra played all the fairs in the area, but
especially Aizpurutxos. He would perform solo, but he always carried a tambourine in case
someone felt like playing.
His son Tomas was born in 1945 and he learned how to play the trikitixa at home, self-taught,
without the help of any teachers. Although Epelde Zaharra hardly played at home, he was
determined to teach his oldest son, but he didnt improve. It was then that Tomas picked up
the trikitixa for the first time. You were born for this, said his father, when he saw how well
he did. The oldest brother started playing tambourine. All Ive learned, I did listening to others
like Maltzeta, Laja or Sakabi, who came to the neighborhood often, he says.
The Epelde dynasty continues with Tomas nephews.
Hes participated in txapelketas and has played with several panderojoles, but hes been
playing with Imanol Iturbide for almost thirty years. There have been times when weve
played together 13 days in a row. Spending so much time together, you end up working well
together. From the time I was 33 until I turned 56 I dedicated myself full time to the trikitixa.
The festivity would usually begin around 11 in the morning and continue until after midnight.
Even in a fair you would have to play several hours, he remembers.
What was the drink of choice to last this long? I ask them. Iturbide likes beer but Epelde is into
stonger spirits.
He recorded his first lbum with Iturbide and then he recorded other three with Anjel
Larraaga.
Nobody lives at the Epelde casero anymore, where Toms was born, but it was remodeled
recently and the family gets together there: five sisters and three brothers. There are pictures
of all of them playing tambourine. One of this pictures was taken at the Laja restaurant.
Tomas is still single. I feel I havent had time to get married, he explains.
His youth was marked by the neighborhood priest restrictions, who banned dancing cheek to
cheek.
When he was 16 he helped build the road to Martirieta and the project was directed by the
neighborhood priest, Don Esteban (who will be mentioned in Zendoias biography), one of
Tomas uncles and dulzainero Monttte. We built 6 kilometers of road with our hands without
getting paid. Once we finished the road, the neighborhood decided they had to give a
motorcycle to the priest, a Vespa. Around that time there were a lot of young people in
Martirieta and we started organizing fairs. In one of his sermons, Don Esteban picked on me.
From the pulpit, he described in detail what we did at the fairs, with the intention of scaring

our parents. And the truth is we didnt do anything that could be reprehensible, he
remembers.
The brushes between the youths and the priest reached such a boiling point that when the
priest announced he was leaving for another parish, the youths that attended the 8 am mass
where the announcement was made, left the church and went to a bar to celebrate.
Epelde met Junkera during the txapelketas and theyve admired each other ever since.

ZENDOIA AND THE MARTIRIETA STORIES

Tomas Zubizarreta was born in 1930 in the Zendoia casero in Martirieta, an Azkoitia
neighborhood so linked to trikitixa that Laxaro Azkune, in his book dedicated to trikitilari
Zendoia that will be presented in this years Durango fair, calls it Firu-firu bailara.
Zendoia played the trikitixa for the first time at the Martirieta fair when he was 17 years old,
replacing one of his uncles and he was the official trikitilari of that fair for half a century.
Zendoia still lives in the casero where he was born and although hes retired from public
performances, he still plays for his family at 84 years old.
Laxaro Azkune narrates the life of the trikitilari and relates many anecdotes that recreate the
atmosphere of the era. The book has a chapter dedicated to close dancing from which we
extract a couple of anecdotes.
The Azkoitia council had decided to allow close dancing in 1955, because the neighboring
towns had already taken that step. Azkoitias parish priest expelled the whole council from
church and denied communion to the mayors two sons that had innocently approached the
altar. The mayor knocked on all the doors; he even spoke with the Burgos Archbishop, but it
would be three more years until they were allowed back in church.
The ban was lifted in Azkotia, but not in all its neighborhoods. In Martirieta, where trikitilari
Zendoia is from, Don Esteban the priest, kept intimidating the youths with his anathemas. Ten
years later, in 1965, three young couples decided to provoke the priest. The day before they
rehearsed at trikitilari Epeldes casero and on Sunday they danced el baltseo txiki at the
Martirieta bar, a hybrid modality that consists in dancing separately in the instrumental parts
and hugging in the sung parts. The priest found out. He went to the bar in the afternoon and
the couples repeated the offense. The three girls were expelled from the churchs
congregation.
The Zendoia casero is so close to the priests house that the brushes between the young
trikitilari and the priest fill many juicy pages.
The book describes trikitilari Zendoia from the point of view of his contemporaries. We hear
from Laja, Epelde, Egurrola, Sakristaua, Manuel Iturbide, Luis Alberdi Zabale, Manolo
Arrizabalaga Izer and others.

ALL THE RHYTHM IN THE HANDS

LANDAKANDA
Out of all the great Gipuzkoan panderojoles from the 50s, one of the most important is Pedro
Arruabarrena, who died in 1960 in the Zeru Txiki bar in Tolosa with the instrument still in his
hands, while he accompanied Elgeta. He marked the beat for the best of that decade, the
already mentioned Elgeta and also Migel Sagastume and Gelatxo, in the Gipuzkoa and
Duranguesado fairs. He was born in Irura in 1925, worked construction in Eibar and left some
works worth mentioning in this trade, such as the terrace of the Txoko bar, thats been left
intact after several renovations.
Arruabarena was a spectacular tambourine player. He played it with his hands, elbows and
feet.
It was watching this panderojole that Jose Ramon Zubizarreta Landakanda learned how to
play the instrument. In the book that Miel Anjel Elustondo dedicated to his career, Landakanda
states that the tambourine is the leader in the trikitixa, the one that marks the beat. He says
that in the 1982 championship, when they entered the venue they saw that one of the
members of the jury had been a dantzari and Landakanda warned Laja that he would play
slightly slower than in the fairs because professional dantzaris like to dance a bit slower. We
practiced a bit before going on stage. Laja had a hard time at first, but he caught up with me
right away. Some people disagree, but the leader of the trikitixa is the tambourine, he says.
But the panderojole doesnt only keep the beat. In the same interview Landakanda says that
he only drinks water, not because he doesnt like champagne or beer, but because those are
served cold and damage his throat.
People say that every time Egaazpi ordered a drink he added I dont want it cold and once
Sakabi told the server make sure its just been boiled. And even so, he used to have throat
problems. Landakanda thinks that the ones that sing take care of their cords, except Sebastian
Lizaso, who seems to be doing just fine with cold champagne.
In this interview, he also says that once someone told him that if he was able to sing without
drinking, then hed be an artist.
Jose Ramon Zubizarreta was born in 1932 in a casero in the Azkoitia Kukuerri neighborhood
that was also a mill. Before seeing Arruabarrena live, he started playing tambourine at 12 years
old imitating Joxe Oria, the panderojole from Trikitixa de Zumarraga, that he heard on Radio
San Sebastin, the only station of the time. He was the youngest of ten siblings. Nobody at
home played the tambourine, but he had two cousins from the Izer casero who did. In the
mill, he would sit on the staircase and play between chores.
He retired temporarily when he got married at 26 years old. This abstinence lasted for 13 years
until one day Maltzeta showed up and told him he needed a tambourine player for a tribute.
Meanwhile trikitixa maintained its course. Egaazpi had become the official panderojole for
Elgeta and Sakabi. The fairs were declining, but there were many festivals. It was the time
when duos were paid six thousand pesetas. This was some serious income, as there were days
when they had two performances. He returned to the stage with his wifes permission.

He started his collaboration with Laja. They recorded the album Laja eta Landakanda in
Madrid with pieces like Mendien edertasuna and Azpillaga songs, which were hugely
successful. It was 1977. The following year they tied for the first place with Martin and
Egaazpi at the Donostia finals. Laja y Landakanda collaborated for over twenty year. He also
played with Kepa Junkera during the months Motriku was doing his military service.

THE ITURBIDES
Imanol Arregi Iturbide is recovering from surgery and welcomes us at the door of the
Iturbide casero, located on a small hill overlooking the Loiola sanctuary with an impressive
view of the whole Izarraitz mountain range. He walks with the help of crutches but still has the
joyful look in his eye so characteristic of his stage presence, because for a pandero jotzaile,
keeping the beat is just as important as being the life of the party.
A good tambourine player has to master three aspects: he has to keep the beat, sing and
enliven the party. I think Ive stood out for the latter, he says.
Hes the oldest son of Patxi Arregi, founder of the dynasty, who was born right by the Loiola
sanctuary, in Errekarte, in the casero the council turned into the Hermano Garate museum.
There was some sort of exchange and the family moved to the Iturbide casero, which would
give name to three pandero jotzaile generations. Patxi also played trikitixa and flute, besides
tambourine. Trikitilari Otola learned how to play with him.
The Iturbides have played with almost all the trikitilaris of the 20th century, with Gelatxo
Zaharra, Madarixa Txikia, Auntxa, Sakabi, Laja, Otola, Bitarte, Eleuterio and Juan Tapia, Mardu,
Txankarta, Martin Aginagalde, Tomas Zubizarreta Zendoia, Tomas Soraluze Epelde and
many more.
Although Patxi is considered the founder of the dynasty, there was a predecessor in the family,
Maria Joxepa, who also played the tambourine. She was my grandfathers aunt. She died at
95 years old when I was 17. They said she played the tambourine when she was younger, but I
never saw her. In Maria Joxepa birthdays all the uncles and aunts got together and they
brought Sakabi with his trikitixa, but since oddly enough there werent any tambourine players
in Iturbide, Sakabi played by himself. I think they considered the tambourine a minor
instrument, something they had to hide. My father started playing it when I was almost grown
up. He played with Gelatxo and Etxesakorta, with first rate trikitilaris fila. They said he made a
great couple with Etxesakorta, he had a great voice, he says.
Patxi also collaborated in Trikitixa de Zumarragas second album in 1930, but the album was
never released. Apparently, according to the censors the songs had too much abertzale
content.
Migel Arregi was second in the Iturbide dynasty. It seems he had a fixation with dates. He got
married on his birthday and he died the day he turned 90. He played often with Auntxa,
Txankarta and Epelde Zaharra. He used to say that the best of the brothers was Patxi and that
his favorite among the young ones was Imanol.

Boni Arregi Iturbide, who played with Otola for years and Joxe Mari Arregi Iturbide
complete the panderojole family. Jose Mari played with Sakabi, Arbe and Hijinio Zabaleta. Arbe
used to say that he never saw Jose Mari look tired while he played the tambourine.
Imanol Arregi Zubizarreta Iturbide is the one who continued the dynasty. He was born in
1935 in casero Iturbide. He played with all the trikitilaris of this time: Sakabi, Auntxa, Laja,
Martin, Epelde, Miren Etxaniz, Pikua, Migel Sagastume, Bitarte, Zabaleta and Zendoia. When
the Loiola Irratia recordings started, he would be the one to call when they needed a
panderojole.
When he talks about his uncles, you can tell he has a soft spot for Migel, who he considers a
great artist. After he retired he came to the casero every day. From 65 to 80 years old. He
worked here in the vegetable garden. I had a special relationship with him. When he turned
80, we didnt even celebrate. He was a very cheerful man, but he went downhill. He spent his
last years sunk into depression. I think I was the one who made him laugh for the last time. He
had been a man full of energy who broke a lot of tambourines and he found strange that I
would bring just one to the fairs. He loved to dance. He needed a cane to walk, but he would
hold on to his wife and go to any party where he thought he could dance. He would soon
forget about his wife and dance with other women. He had a great sense of humor. He danced
with so many women that many of them thought he was single. It came to a point where we
couldnt even play tambourine anymore. It made me very sad, says Imanol.
Imanol Arregi Iturbide started playing tambourine by chance. After uncle Joxe Mari got sick,
Sakabi came home to ask me to accompany him. I was about 28 and probably felt like partying.
In the morning we played passacaglia in the streets of Zarautz and I was very embarrassed but
during lunch I drank a little and by the afternoon it was the trikitilaris who were embarrassed
of me. They said they would pay me 250 pesetas more if I kept playing through the night, but I
said I had other commitments. My only commitment was that I wanted to go dancing, he
remembers.
Imanol Iturbide believes in luck. In 1970, Joxe Mari Iriondo told him that the following Sunday
he had to go to Donostia to participate in the first trikitixa championship. I didnt even have a
tambourine at home. I borrowed it from Egaazpi. He accompanied Errota, a trikitilari from
Aia, and he won the best tambourine player award. Thanks to that award he accompanied
Enrique Zelaya in a recording that took place in Barcelona for a German label. We were in
Barcelona for eight days and I was treated like a King. It was there when I first saw an
automatic door, a five-star hotel and an escalator, and it was there where I saw Ursula Andress
for the first and last time. And I even got a 1000 peseta tip. I took a tambourine my uncle Migel
brought me from a casero in Elosua. Those were the times when tambourines werent
important at all, he remembers. Iturbide has always played down his merits and considers
tambourine to be a simple embellishment for the trikitixa, a second rate instrument and to
prove it, one day while he was accompanying Laja in an Amezketa fair, he told the trikitilari
that he was going to stop playing in the middle of a piece. So he did and people kept on
dancing. He tried to prove that the tambourine player wasnt indispensable. But Tomas
Soraluze Epelde, who is joining us for the interview, contradicts what the tambourine player
says: Ive actually created a new piece exclusively for Imanol, with whom Ive reached some

sort of simbiosis. There are moments when we are so synched together that it seems like
were having a conversation. He plays something with the tambourine and I answer with the
trikitixa, he says, imitating with his voice the rolls on the tambourine.
But Iturbide doesnt give up. In the beginning I felt really embarrassed when I listened to my
recordings, both the tambourine and the vocals. I guess now Im used to it. I think there are
others out there as bad as me, he says.
Imanol Iturbide was a gardener and he worked for the Azpeitia council for years. It was
always hard to balance work with the trikitixa commitments. I remember, for example,
spending three days and nights with Epelde without taking our shoes off, because the few
hours of sleep we had were in the car. We had a flat tire returning home at 7 am and I barely
managed to make it to Azpeitia by 8 am where more than 20 workers were waiting for me to
start their work day, he remembers
Besides his uncle Migel, hes also a big admirer of Joxe Oria, especially for his style of playing.
And hes also felt admired. Motriko, for example, told him once that he inspired him to take up
the tambourine.
He doesnt keep anything at all, not even recordings or pictures.
He has two sons and a daughter who havent followed in his footsteps, but some nephews and
nieces do.

Josu Arrizabalaga Izer : the Junkera pieces that were rejected

in 1988 are the ones the younger generations are taking to the
txapelketa
His grandfather (Joxe Arrizabalaga) and his father (Manuel) were trikitilaris and by the time he
was two years old, he was already playing with a toy tambourine at home. When he was a kid
he started playing his fathers trikitixa in hiding, until he sent him to study under Laja. He was
under Lajas wing from the time he was 14 until he turned 18. Izer eta Alabier play about 100
shows a year. He used to work at Corrugados de Lasao, until they recently closed. Hes
studying the possibility of managing a few trikitixa schools for adults, but he wants to take
things one step at a time. Josu Arrizabalaga Izer was born in 1980 and he was 8 years old
when Kepa Junkera participated in the 1988 txapelketa. But despite being that young, he can
recall vividly the impact this performance had in the championship.
-

It seems hard to believe that you remember anything about that championship.

I was at the txapelketa and for me it was like a revelation. To me, that championship was like a
summary of the trikitixa scene at that moment. My father knew Junkera because they had run
into each other in competitions and concerts and he said that Junkera and Tapia were
exceptional and he had special admiration for Junkera. I thought about that txapelketa a lot.
After Martin Aginalde created the trikitixa schools, we have learned how to play the
instrument with excellent technical correction: we play with the tightest beat, notes, bass
lines Id say its like a politically correct trikitixa. I think this obsession with correction comes

from a certain complex some trikitilaris had, like Laja or Martin, to quote two examples, who
were keen on learning music to dignify the instrument. I think they were jealous of the
accordion and they lived as if they were hurt by the lack of resources of the trikitixa. They had
listened to a lot of accordion music and you can tell by the way they taught. Its evident that
their style of playing was, so to speak, more elaborate than the traditional style. By the time I
was eight years old I realized that in the 1988 championship, Tapia and Junkera had climbed
another step of the ladder, maybe two, because the steps they took caused a commotion. That
txapelketa summarized the whole trikitixa scene, defining the tendencies of the time: there
were very good trikitilaris from the tradicional school. There were trikitilaris like Imuntzo, for
example, who went to the competition with good chances of getting a perfect ten after
preparing thoroughly. Imuntzo played fast and sharp, the pieces were very good he did great,
he proved he was one step beyond the old school. Zabale, the present champion, was also
there, but Id say he was lacking some maturity then. And then we got those two monsters,
Tapia and Junkera who came from another orbit. They were trikitilaris that also listened to
other genres. You digest and metabolize the music you listen to and these two had a much
more extensive musical culture than the rest And they proved that you can play a fandango
with the trikitixa and make it almost unrecognizable. They were very gifted trikitilaris, very
special and they took a giant step. Nowadays weve listened to Junkera so much that it doesnt
surprise us, weve grown accustomed to his music, but in that context it was something
unbelievable. Sometimes Ive reflected upon the arduous task the jury had to carry out that
day and its something that could make you shiver.
-

You claim that day there was some sort of a confluence of all the different trikitixa
schools and tendencies.

Yes, yes. To me it was like taking a class on trikitixa history. Jauregi was there, so was Laura
Apeztegia, for example, who played very well but very traditional. Imuntzo and Zabale were
also there, who were on another level. And we also had these two aliens from outer space.

How would you define Junkeras line? Did it open a freer future for trikitixa?

Junkera hasnt been corseted like us, like me, for example. Ive never known anything but
trikitixa, at home and in my environment because when I left the house I met Epelde or
Egurrola. I havent been able to get out of that universe. Ive spent years having dinner every
week with Otola; each Friday I visited Auntxa, who was like my grandfather. I spoke frequently
with Sakabi. I was with him the day before he died. Ive had all the trikitixa greats very close.
Im not saying that Kepa or Motriku dont have any roots, but they have a different
relationship with trikitixa. My father says hes seen Junkera play Lajas pieces with astounding
ease. Now that hes gone so far in his style, he might find it difficult, but back then he did it. I
remember the presentation of an Imuntzo album organized by Elkar in the Saizar sidrera. He
was soundchecking in a corner of the improvised stage because he had been asked to play a
piece with Imuntzo. There were many trikitizales that had come in a bus and nobody greeted
him. I didnt have the same relationship with Kepa as I do now, but I felt very sad. There are
traditional people that still believe Kepa doesnt know how to play. And while he was testing

the microphone, out of the blue he started playing a traditional piece that left us in awe. It was
ten seconds at most, but they were enough to leave us dumbfounded. He is unusually gifted
for playing but also for making music, he coordinates the instruments that accompany the
trikitixa and hes proved it record after record. If he wasnt any good, he wouldnt be where he
is right now. Obviously I dont like everything he does. I dont like everything Tapia does either.
If there are still people who criticize what Junkera does, imagine what it was like in 1988. It
was a head on collision for them. But for others, it was a revelation. Proof of that is that the
youths that go to the txapelleta now play those pieces. The pieces that were rejected 9j 1988
are the ones the younger generations are taking to the txapelketa. And whats even worse; its
been more than 30 years and we still havent been able to surpass them. What we do have is
some musicians and groups that repeat what they did.
-

You studied under Laja. Some say hes a key figure of modern trikitixa.

I think he is an important figure. More than teaching you how to play repertoire, what he did
was teach you how to understand the instrument, to play with it, to value its potential and to
control it. He taught me education isnt just teaching pieces, its something deeper. Before
him, Sakabi had taken an important step. He was preoccupied with dignifying the instrument,
with getting a music education. Hence his playing style was characterized by the definition of
the notes, the clarity. Laja and Martin, to quote two of the greats, take a step further and take
on trikitixa on a more professional way.
-

Your father, Manuel Arriozabalaga Izer, participated in the Donostia championships.

When my father ran into Junkera in one of the txapelketas, he was accompanied by a brother
of Tomas Soraluze Epelde. Toms married my fathers sister. My grandfather also played the
trikitixa and since he had two sons, he decided the oldest, my father, would have to take care
of the casero and the youngest would learn the trikitixa. But my father didnt give up. He
played at night, after he was done with all the chores and managed to surpass his brother.
Finally, my uncle kept the casero and my father kept the trikitixa. We have two great uncles
who are twins and at home we call them the American uncles because they spent some time
there, and they are the ones that play the tambourine. They were very good. When they came
back from America, they would organize parties that lasted for days. The characteristic
Landakanda yell was patented by our uncles. The truth is trikitilari families are intertwined.
The Alberdis or Zabale are related, the Landakandas (Zubizarreta) too. This trikitxa thing is
like a hereditary transmitted disease. I have no choice but to find a girlfriend that plays an
instrument. My dad said that when the Martirieta trikitilaris were young they would listen to
what Maltzeta or Zabaleta from the Urrategi neighborhood were playing (the neighborhoods
are in two facing hillsides) and they would answer back. Traffic wasnt as noisy as it is now. In
Martirieta they say there was a trikitixa in each casero and the Montte and their dulzainas
lived on top of the mountain, right next to the hermitage.

AGURTZANE Y JON ELUSTONDO: We have the feeling that since Tapia and
Junkera showed up; little has been done for the advancement of trikitixa.

Agurtzane Elustondo is the president of the Trikitilari Association and her family is a living
example of how culture is transmitted between generations. Agurtzane remembers gratefully
the amount of trips his father had to take so that she could study under Laja when she was
only ten years old. She plays the trikitixa, her brother Jon accompanies her with the
tambourine, they have another sister who likes tambourine too and only the fourth one,
Nerea, resisted trikitixa and enrolled in a bertsolari school. Today she is a renowned figure in
that field.
-

It is evident this is a family thing

AGURTZANE: Our father was born very close to the Gelatxo casero, in Elgoibar and he played
the accordion when he was young, although our mother never saw him play. There was also an
old trikitixa at our mothers house. When I was ten and my music theory teacher asked me
what instrument I wanted to play, I answered trikitixa and he gave me a scolding. Actually, he
gave it to my mother. He was asking her how come I had thought of the trikitixa at that stage.
A few years have passed and now there are trikitixa classes in that music school. It was then
when I started studying under Laja. My father drove me there, but when he couldnt because
of the shifts at work, I took two buses, one to Zumarraga and another to Azkoitia, and from
there I walked to Lajas casero. It was a privilege to study with him. Him and Martin were the
top musicians at that moment. I studied business in Oati and Donostia and now I work as
manager of the Lenbur foundation. Ive had periods of more or less intensity, but Ive never
stopped playing the trikitixa.
JON: When we were kids they took us to the fairs and festivals were Laja or Martin played.
They instilled their love of trikitixa in the oldest three, but it had the opposite effect in the
youngest, Nerea. She said she was fed up with the trikitixas and tambourines and enrolled in a
bertsolari school. She studied engineering and has spent several years working abroad, but
now shes returned home and is very focused on her performances. I can see she enjoys
herself. Agurtzane and me have played together since the beginning. Weve participated in a
couple of collective albums, Faborez, recorded by four duos and Bizi recorded by many
trikitilaris from Goierri.
-

Were you in the 1986 and 1988 finals?

AGURTZANE: We didnt just go to the finals; we went to the qualifying rounds too. I was about
11 (she was born in 1975) and Jon 13, but I remember the atmosphere and the controversy
surrounding the Joseba Tapia and Kepa Junkera performances clearly. Maybe a few years
before there were similar controversies about Martin and Laja, but Im sure they werent as
hostile. There were two factions, one supported Junkera and the other Tapia. Our mother is
from the Agieta neighborhood in Zumarraga. They celebrate the San Martin festivities. Im
not sure if it was 1986 or 1988 when the festival committee decided to hire Tapia. There was
some turmoil, some people protested and it was decided that Tapia would play in Friday and
Junkera on Saturday. This fundamentalism was typical in rural areas. We were fans of both
trikitilaris.
JON: There was a time when Tapia and Junkera played all over Gipuzkoa. Many towns hired
them both. From 1986 to 1989 they reached all the neighborhoods and they had a very vast

repertoire. Tapa for example, included Beatle covers that he sang in English and played with
the trikitixa, tambourine and a drum machine. Junkera only played his own pieces.
AGURTZANE: The repertoire renovation started before that. Laja had a very personal style;
Martin had very elaborated pieces. Tapia modernized trikitixa adding rock touches, for
example. And Kepa, Zabaleta and Motriku had many improvised elements in their duos.
Zabaleta played the back beat and Kepa was free to play with his trikitixa. Kepas performances
were a privilege. There are tons of modern pieces that use the resources and embellishments
Kepa created at that time. And then we have the imitators, of which there are a few. Tapia also
has imitators. We have the feeling that since Tapia and Junkera showed up; little has been
done for the advancement of trikitixa.
JON: Kepas ability for improvisation is without compare. We could make a list with all of
Tapias and Junkeras merits. Tapia is one of the few trikitilaris who sing and he sings with his
own style. But the duets Kepa did with Zabaleta were unbeatable, and they still are. Its kind of
ironic: in the championships we mentioned, Kepa Junkera was much more criticized than
Joseba Tapia, but if you go to the youth championships, his pieces are much more popular
than Tapias. His pieces have become classics.
AGURTZANE: Kepa knows the instrument unlike any other and he has introduced new tones
and chords. He has altered the structures of the fandango and the arin-arin, although
maintaining the rhythm, he modified the introductions and the codas of the pieces and some
people find that unacceptable. Its the strength of the habit. I have to admit that the most
difficult melodies played by Kepa seem easier and thats because he plays them with a lot of
feeling. You cant say Kepa is a machine, he plays what comes from the inside and he has a
special talent for composition. Then you have his stage presence, his poise, his gestures and
his trances. When we say he has naysayers, sometimes I think there arent that many and
some of them are just for show, not because they really dislike him.
JON: The importance of Kepa Junkera is evident when you see the expectation when he
performs. After the San Jose festival last year, he ran into Laja at dinner and when they started
playing together after the meal there was an avalanche of people who wanted to capture that
historical moment with their cellphones. It was a very special moment. Besides, I think Kepa
and Laja have had a very special relationship for many years.
-

There might be some mutual admiration between the trikitixa old guard and Kepa
Junkera.

JON: For sure. I know theyve visited him at his house in Busturia and it is evident they profess
mutual admiration. They know Kepa has taken trikitixa to a place they didnt even suspect
existed. I think admiration between colleagues is easier because they can appreciate what the
other does better.
AGURTZANE: Kepas music training is much broader than Lajas. Hes collaborated with the
best folk and jazz musicians in the world, and to be able to work with international elite
musicians, you have to be a prodigy.

JON: Hes also very good as a producer. He produced the album Betiko trikitixa which has
become a reference point for all of us. Its not a particularly amazing idea, but he had it and he
carried it out. It has pieces from a couple of generations of trikitilaris: Arrola, Maltzeta, Auntxa,
Martin, Joseba Tapia and others were recorded in the studio. They also included some already
recorded pieces by Sakabi, who had already retired.

Talk to us about the tambourine. Its a pretty humble instrument

AGURTZANE: When we play away, there are places where the tambourine attracts more
attention than the trikitixa. To me, its an important part of trikitixa.
JON: I knew the relationship Martin and Imanol Iturbide had. They recorded an album that I
have listened to a thousand times and I still listen to it. Ive also met Motriku, Landakanda,
Leturia and many others and I believe the panderojole mustnt hoard all the attention, he has
to do what he can to enliven the atmosphere, but without being a pain in the rear. Its a
complicated job. Its sort of the singers role in a rock band, for example. And then, there has
to be a good understanding between the trikitilari and the tambourine player. It hasnt
happened that often, but playing tambourine with a trikitilari with no sense of rhythm is a
nightmare.

JUAN TAPIA (son of Eleuterio Tapia): Junkeras emergence in

Gipuzkoa was spectacular
Juan Tapia was 17 or 18 when he met Kepa Junkera. He was playing one of his first shows in his
birthplace, Asteasu and in one of the intermissions, Kepa approached him and told him he
really liked the trikitixa and asked for permission to give it a try. Kepa did some of his circus
tricks and left him very impressed. Hes followed closely his career ever since.
Juan Tapia belongs to the Tapia dynasty (1926, Asteasu) , Juans father was a surprising man
because besides being a great triktilari (one of the figures together with Sakabi, Auntxa and
other greats from the post-war generation) he also did rural sports. His son Juan, now
dedicated to teaching trikitixa in several music schools in Gipuzkoa, remembers that some
sports stars like Perurena, Yurrebas or Urtain hung out at the kitchen of his casero.
Eleuterio Tapia was segalari (competitive reaper). He boasted about never losing a bet. His son
explains his track record because he trained meticulously and knew how to retire on time. he
always told us to do things right or not do them at all, he says. He balanced the fairs with the
preparation of segalaris and harri-jasotzailes. When I was a kid my father was already famous,
both in the trikitixa world and in rural sports. There were times when cars came in and out of
our casero incessantly. We didnt have telephones yet, so the invitations to weddings, first
communions or neighborhood parties and fairs were done in person, visiting the trikitilaris
house. If you also add the fact that many youths who practiced rural sports trained with my
father, then you get an idea. I was born in 1963 and when I was about 10 I met Perurena,
Urtain and many others at home. Segalaris and harri-jasotzailes of the time came over to hire
their trainer before they entered a competition or they simply came to ask him about advice

when accepting a challenge from an opponent. With all this hustle and bustle, it wasnt
uncommon for my mother to do part of the casero chores. It was a small casero: we only had
five cows, five calves and one mule. And a young guy helped us out who later became famous
in rural sports: Paskualsoro. He came to our house before he did his military service and stayed
with us for twenty years, until he got married and moved to Bedaio. He was segalari and harrijasotzaile. Thanks to his help my father had more time to counsel and train athletes and play in
the fairs, he says.
The Tapia dynasty begins with Eleuterio. It seems that when he was 15 he brought a trikitixa
from a nearby caserio and even though it was at night and his brothers were in bed, he
couldnt help himself and he played a few notes. They all woke up and ran to the kitchen. They
were fifteen brothers and sisters and they caused such a ruckus that they woke up their father,
our grandfather, who started yelling that playing the trikitixa wasnt allowed on weekdays. My
dad would remember this scene often, remembers Juan.
Among the 15 children of the Mindegia casero (in Asteasu they call the caserio Mutegia in
Gipuzkoan dialect), there was one that would also become a trikitilari, Juanito Tapia, father of
Joseba Tapia.
Eleuterio learned how to play some pieces on his own. Later he went to the town organist and
soon after he started playing in parties with a repertoire of six pieces, according to what the
trikitilari told his children. The little money he made with the trikitixa was given to his father
and thats when he changed his mind and even got in touch with Elgeta who visited the
Mindegia casero several times. This casero is halfway between Asteasu and Villabona, a few
meters from the road, close to Zizurkil.
Juan Tapia started studying trikitixa with his father when he ws 15 years old. At 17 he debuted
in Asteasu and by 18 he still studied with his father and also studied music with Isidro
Larraaga in Tolosa and architectural drawing in Donostia. After military service he started
working for a company but he realized that his true calling was teaching and he started
designing a specific methodology for trikitixa. His students start playing with sheet music, so
they are aware of what theyre playing, what chords theyre using and what harmonies
correspond to each chord. When they progress, they start working on memory and musical ear
and their playing becomes freer because music is creativity above all, he says. After his
fathers death, he stopped playing fairs in 1988 and has since then dedicated all his time to
teaching trikitixa classes in the Asteasu, Usurbil and Beasain schools. His students ages range
from 8 to 60 years old. Most of them are young but hes had students over 60 who just want to
learn a few pieces.
The Tapia dynasty continues. One of his nephews (who is also his godson) plays the trikitixa in
the band Trikizio and his 16 year old daughter, Aiora, also plays. Both have been his students.
-

What merits do you see in your father as a trikitilari?

He never took being a trikitilari seriously, he never put his heart and soul into it. He worked in
the casero, played some fairs and taught trikitixa, but his real calling was rural sports and
gambling. He liked to coach the young segalaris y harri-jasotzaile that approached him. He

would leave the trikitixa for sports pretty easily and even so he was good at it. This was a time
when there werent many trikitilaris and he was part of that small elite formed by Auntxa,
Zialtzeta, Egurrola or Maltzeta. Eleuterio Tapia was recognized. He played very clean. They say
uncle Juanito was even a cleaner player. My father had more talent for improvisation and he
could write music. My uncle would learn the piece and play it as is. But my fathers most
recognizable quality was his execution speed. I cant remember who it was; it was probably
Sakabi who asked in a championship if the score consisted in measuring who played faster. He
started in the championships very late, at 45 years of age. Laja won but they say their scores
were tied and my dad told the jury that Laja deserved to win. Speed was an asset then. There
were fairs where the people who danced complained if you played slow. Now people play with
a fixed setlist, but back them the trikitilari adjusted the repertoire to the venue and the
audiences demands.
-

Are there any existing recordings from Eleuterio?

He almost recorded an album with Landakanda. He was going to record it in Barcelona and he
was rehearsing the pieces bit he had an accident and cut one of his fingers off with a reaper.
Laja went in his place. We have the album Tapiatarren trikitixa, which compiled some of the
Loiola Irratia and championship recordings, but the quality is very poor.

When did you meet Kepa Junkera?

Before the Donostia championships, Kepa had already participated in other minor
competitions and the arrival of Junkera and Zabaleta in Gipuzkoa, which is what I knew, was
spectacular. What they did was so different that they left us stunned. I met Kepa for the first
time in Asteasu. I had debuted recently and he approached me while I was playing and said
that he also liked trikitixa and asked to borrow my instrument. It was the town festivities and
its possible that they came to town from Bilbao with some dance or music group. I lent him
my trikitixa and he did a series of exercises, not even a specific piece, but it was enough to
baffle me. I must have been 17 or 18. I figured he had been playing for years and he had
tricked me. He was so good at improvising that it took me a while to come round. From then
on I followed him. His firs appearances were scarce, then more frequent and he exploded in
the championship.
-

What did Junkera prove in the 1986 championship?

That his ability was extraordinary. But people didnt assimilate his style. I remember well that
he finished a piece with an uncommon ending, that wasnt popular then. A lot of people
started gesturing causing a fuss and then he said that it wasnt supposed to be like that, that
he had made a mistake. Most of the audience understood that fandango or arin-arin had a
fixed structure and Kepa broke those molds. Until the 1986 championship, people hardly knew
what he was doing. There were just rumors. They said there was a promising kid from Bilbao,
but they didnt know much about him. Kepa used the championships to make his
achievements known. Its funny when I remember now: there were some in my environment
who said if this kid had a good teacher, he would make it. The day of the championship came

and people didnt understand how you could finish a piece with a chromatic scale or the use
certain chords where they hadnt been used before. But it all worked out, everything he did
was so innovative that each piece he played threw you off center and amazed you at the same
time. The truth is he was very good
-

But was he good just for the specialists, for the connoiseurs?

Thats the problem. It was probably like that. Im talking from my own experience. I know
there were a lot of people who didnt understand him. They said you couldnt dance to those
pieces but it is evident that they were danceable because when he started playing the fairs
with Zabaleta y Motriku, people danced to his pieces. What Zabaleta and Junkera did at the
fairs also deserves some comment. I had seen trikitilari pairs playing pieces as a duet: one
plays the base melody and the other plays a third or a sixth. But what these two did was
something else: Zabaleta would play the melody and Kepa improvised, did whatever he felt
like. Usually by the second part, the trikitilari repeats himself. Kepa never repeated himself.
Some of us couldnt believe it. The truth is its impossible to repeat so many notes, chords and
harmonies. Its impossible to memorize all that. Kepa improvised all the time. And people
danced like crazy. Its not true that you couldnt dance to his pieces. I went to all the Kepa fairs
I could and people danced all the time.

But when he played solo?

That was harder. Sometimes it was difficult to get what he was playing. But people danced
even when he played solo. Kepa never strayed from the beat, Im sure of that. I think he knew
what he wanted to do from the beginning and hes proved all along his career that hes a great
musician.
-

Lets go back to the 1986 and 1988 competitions. How did you live them?

I think what happened with Kepa was very unfair. The jury decided his pieces werent what
they were supposed to be and a few years later they became classics and young musicians
played them in the competitions. I went to the championships with my students and Ive seen
awards given to musicians playing Kepas pieces. It is also true that the people who in 1986
said those pieces werent triktixa are singing that same old song today.
-

Joseba Tapia and Kepa Junkera came up almost at the same time. What can we say
about your cousin Joseba?

They are both amazing and I think that often a genius needs another genius in order to grow. It
happens in other genres and walks of life. Its like they supported and rejected each other to
go forward. In the world of pelota, for example, we can name many examples: Beloki had Eugi,
Retegi had Galarza, Olaizola had Irujo. Imuntzo is also a great trikitilari, but the other two stand
out. Josebas style of playing was easier to understand for the audience, but he also had big
problems the last time he participated in the championships. I remember he came to see me
so I could listen to his pieces. Im love the new stuff, although I know that not everything new
is good, and I told him I liked them a lot, but that he would get into trouble with the audience

and indeed he did. For example, he played an arin-arin which had a sudden halt in its
execution, a surprising break, he also used some chords that were very good but that seemed
distracting I think those innovations also have touches of provocation or playfulness with the
audience. Its a legitimate game but it can generate rejection. But in the championship world,
the taste makers are the people who dance, the people who go to the fairs, and those people
tend to be traditional. After those finals with so much innovation, the jury started regulating
the work of the contestants. They started requesting compulsory pieces and setting a series of
rules, which I feel are excessive limitations. In fact, the championships started declining.

Gaizka Peafiel:

I think Kepa has reached a point where he needs

to go back to his beginnings.

Born in Lezama in 1985, Gaizka Peafiel hasnt lived trikitixa as a family tradition or something
his environment encouraged. There were hardly any triktilaris in Txoierri. But even so, when he
was a boy he watched the championships on TV and listened to records. He started playing
txistu with a local dance group when he was 8 and when he joined the Bertoko group from
Zamudio at 12, a school with a new teaching plan, and started playing trikitixa, he knew it was
what he was looking for all along. He studied under Gaztaaga and the Allur brothers My
teachers have always been from Gipuzcoa. At 15 years old I was playing the classics from that
area. The Allur brothers, besides teaching me how to play, they gave me what you cant get
any more at the music schools, the culture surrounding trikitixa, the plethora of stories and
gossip that help you represent this world, a culture as valuable as the technique needed to
play, he states.
He listened to a Kepa Junkera record for the first time when he was 14. I remember my
parents gave me Bilbao 00:00 h in 1998 when it came out. I put it on the CD player and I dont
think it lasted more than five minutes. I didnt think much of it and put it in a drawer. Now its
my favorite record. If I had to choose one, I wouldnt doubt for a second, but in order to
appreciate that work you need to have an educated ear. I was fascinated by triki-pop. Alaitz
eta Maider, Maixa eta Itziar or Etzakit were my references, they represented who I wanted to
be when I grew up. When I was around 16 I met people who played folk music, they were
older than me and they had other music culture. They said Junkera had a book about trikitixa
published by BBK that had sheet music in the second part and I learned twenty of his pieces. It
was an amazing discovery. I started internalizing his style. A friend of mine says that Kepa has
been my virtual teacher. Ive listened to his album so much and Ive studied his repertoire so
thoroughly that little by little Ive been assimilating elements of his playing style, especially the
harmonies. When I play I always get the same question: Youve studied under Kepa, right?
Today he teaches at several music schools, has released an album, has a website on trikitixa,
has directed audiovisual work for Esne Beltza, to mention one band, and although hes
accomplished a lot in his career, he remembers the day he played at Aristerrazu as one of the
best moments in his life.
-

How did you combine at 16 years old the pieces from the Gipuzkoa classics with
Junkeras style?

At that age I played everything I was given. In the trikitixa world there is a certain age that if
you get hooked, you assimilate and play everything. A few days ago I was in Getaria, at the
Young Trikitilaris Championship and they were all amazing players. They are so hungry they
learn with amazing ease and they play all the styles. They also have a more open mentality. My
teachers, the Allur brothers, for example, were very open minded and had a very varied
repertoire. The debates from the late 80s between the fans of Junkera and Tapia were far
behind. What remained from those debates is a rule introduced in the championships: from
then on, the jury scores if the piece can be danced to or not (dantzagarritasuna, un euskara),
which is nonsense because any music theory teacher that takes a look at his pieces knows that
Kepas fandangos are as fandangos as all the rest of them. Kepa found the road that hadnt
been travelled. Tapia also did some new things, but he didnt go as far as Junkera. In 1988
Tapia played a fandango that even today sounds innovative but he had many factors going for
him, as the language and his family environment, and they were more benevolent with him.
Kepa was erdaldun, from Errekalde and he didnt even have a renowned teacher because he
was self-taught.
-

Do you mean there is a lost generation after these two geniuses?

After Junkera and Tapia came the triki-pop trend. They are trikitilaris making their own way.
But there is a generation after that, our generation, the ones who were born in the 80s, that
hasnt done anything relevant. I dont think there are any major icons in this generation. I
couldnt mention more than five names.
-

The trikitilaris from the generation before yours talk about Junkera and Tapias style
confrontation as something that affected them deeply. It probably wasnt like that for
you.

Weve never seen any incompatibilities between the traditional style and the new, we can
move between both naturally. But weve felt the effect of that confrontation. There are still
some underlying tensions. There is excessive competitiveness, theres mistrust. I think we
should promote the colective image of the trikitilaris, as the bertsolaris do, for example.
-

Could you explain what Kepa contributes musically to trikitixa?

What I admire about Kepa the most is his bravery, his freedom when doing things. He doesnt
owe anybody anything and thats where his courage comes from. Thats the feeling I get. This
freedom has allowed him to do things as he wanted when he wanted. He doesnt think aobut
the possible repercussions in the world of trikitixa, he thinks about the bigger picture. I think
that open mindedness starts when he collaborated with Oskorri, a group with a very eclectic
musical culture. Hes career has spanned many years and his creative ability is still surprising.
He starts working on a project and before its finished, hes already thinking about the next
and writing in his notebook. His ability to think in advance is admirable. I dont think there are
many creators with this anticipation ability. Its like hes always taking us by surprise. It is also
true that hes got the means. For starters he has a very extensive education, although selftaught. Few musicians in Euskal Herria have listened to as much music as he has. The amount
of records in his house is unbelievable, enough to drive you crazy. And hes interested in all the
genres. You can even find zarzuela there. If you ask him how can zarzuela be of interest for a

trikitilari and hes able to prove that indeed hes found very interesting things. In the past few
years hes not as technical, hes become more melodic. Its getting harder to play his pieces
with just the trikitixa. But hes reached a point where hes felt the need to go back to his
beginnings. And when nobody expected it, when we were all expecting the opposite, he comes
up with a show which is some sort of recapitulation that has nothing to do with what he had
been doing in the recent years. Hes going back to the roots and he will play a fandango or an
arin-arin again. Obviously he will play that fandango or arin-arin his own way. Kepa never plays
a piece the same way twice. We also introduce some small variations, we all do, but what Kepa
does is something else, hes able to add a completely new part, hes able to change the key
and use keys that sound extremely strange to the rest of the trikitilaris, but he does it with
astonishing ease. I think hes reached the full potential of the instrument, at least
harmonically. He might be able to do new things, but hes reached the limit in that aspect.
With the twelve buttons on the left side there arent that many more things you can do than
what he does, especially when he plays solo, because when he plays with a band he has a bass
player, but when he plays solo, as he is doing now, he does unthinkable things with the bass
lines. I consider myself an innovator but every time I see him I get a slap on the face. He
doesnt need great bases, you give him a tiny melody and he does a full piece.
-

But couldnt others like Tapia do the same?

Tapia is able to do the same thing with his style, but maybe Tapia is more identifiable; he has
influences from tex-mex, Quebec music, rock, blues With Junkera I wouldnt be able to find
the references. Sometimes I suspected his references could be in the musicians hes
collaborated with, and Ive tracked down those musicians but I havent been able to come to a
conclusion. The rest of us leave some clues and sometimes we confess our sources. With Kepa
its impossible to find those clues. Hes music is so personal that his formulas are imitated and
there are groups and trikitilaris that are plain Xerox copies. I think there are many chameleons
in music nowadays who move with the wind and today they play folk, tomorrow triki-latin or
triki-mex and the day after, triki-rock. I think all that is valid, but it would be good if from time
someone went against the grain. One of Kepas merits is that: he goes against the grain. Now
that everybody is playing with a band, he steps on the middle of the stage by himself and that
is forcing you to be innovative. If two years ago you would have told me that Kepa would play
solo again, with the trikitixa, the tambourine and the singing, I wouldnt have belived it
because tradition is a little bit stigmatized and there is a narrow margin in tradition to do
something new, but Im convinced he can do something new with such few elements. I will
play Sakabi and Auntxa again, but not like they did. He could play like them if he wanted to,
but he wouldnt enjoy it. He wants to play with those pieces, he wants to unleash the devil
inside. However attempting that on his own seems like a somersault, like bungee jumping. To
stage a show, not a fair but a show, with a trikitixa in his hands seems crazy, but he can do it.

JOSE MARI SANTIAGO MOTRIKU: I accompanied Kepa for the

first thirteen years of his career
Neighbor in Errekalde and childhood friend, Motriku played the tambourine with Kepa Junkera
and Iaki Zabaleta at the time of the championships and the first recordings. Hes one of the

people that know Kepa better. He played tambourine pretty much by chance. The three of us,
Kepa, Iaki Zabaleta and me, belonged to the same group of friends.
They knew each other better because they all studied accordion with the same teacher. I
started learning how to play the tambourine to play with Errekaldes Kezkalariak troupe in the
first participative festivities in Bilbao, in 1980. With the troupe we went from the bullfighting
ring to el Arenal. Iaki had a solo trikitixa performance at the plaza Santiago with the Beti Jai
Alai group because Euskal Dantzarien Biltzarra had organized a dance show there and they
asked me if I could accompany him with the tambourine. I played with him for two nights.
Those were my first performances. Days later, Kepa and I decided to join the Beti Alai group,
he says.
Kepa started playing the piano accordion in a fanfare at the Beti Alai for the souletin dances.
We started playing the alboka. I remember Tilio used to take us to Leon Bilbaos house to
tune the alboka. He would wax it and then hed pluck one of his chest hairs and put it in the
opening he would repeat this ritual every time we visited him. In fact, Kepa learned how to
play the alboka on his own. The trikitixa came later. I had an uncle, Migel Olabarrieta from
Basauri who had a Royal at his casero, manufactured by Celestino Rodriguez. That trikitixa
sounded really bad. At Beti Alai there was a Larrinaga that Iaki used to play. When Iaki
bought a Soprani, then Kepa started learning with the Larrinaga, says Motriku.
The three of them started playing in the Beti Alai group shows, in the intermissions, during
the time where the dantzaris where changing clothes. But when they were 15 or 16 they
started going out to the Duranguesado. Tilio would call us to play in Iurreta or at the Pilastra
festivities, in Durango. Soon after, the three of us, Kepa, Iaki and me, started playing in many
fairs in the Markina and Durango areas.
By the time of the first final of the Euskal Herria Championships in 1982 (Kepa was
accompanied by Ramos and Iaki Zabaleta by Motriku) they were already broken in. By the
time we got to the final in 1986, we were already known in Gipuzkoa also. Back then Iaki
played the base melody and Kepa improvised. At 17-18 years of age he had already started
improvising. He loved it and he was very good at it. If Kepas participation at the 1986
Txapelketa was a shok, it was because he played new pieces. You have to keep in mind that
Martin or Laja played other peoples pieces, like Pepe Yantzi, for example. There were two
major breakthroughs in that edition of the txapelketa: Kepa with his new pieces and the Tapia
and Leturia duos. There was a general feeling that we should have won. It was the first time
they also scored the kalejira and I lost my train of thought and forgot the lyrics to a song I was
singing. Its been almost 30 years and people still tell me that we should have won that final,
he says.
In Motrikus opinion, the 1988 Championship final was something completely different. They
changed venues for the final. Up until 1986 they took place in the Carmelo Balda ball court in
Anoeta with 3500 people capacity. The 1988 final was held in the cycle track and more than
8000 people attended. It looked like a football game between Real and Athletic, people with
horns and tremendous expectation. And this time our proposal was really groundbreaking, and
I think the jury punished us harder. It was a small revolution, we broke all the molds, we even
messed with the tempos. The three finals Ive participated in marked an evolution that has

continued along his career. I actively participated in that evolution for 13-14 years. After that,
even though Ive lived outside Euskal Herria for more than twenty years for work reasons, Ive
still been in touch with him.
Jose Mari Santiago Motriku is an engineer and is now general manager of a company from
Lezo that belongs to the AMCOR multinational corporation. Its a packaging company and the
years Ive been away Ive worked in company restructuration, Ive been a general manager in
Burgos, Barcelona, Italy, Norway, the United States and South America. Trikitixa gives me the
chance to change worlds, to go from the business world which has very strict rules, to the
trikitixa and its people who have another train of thought. I think its great to have that
chance, he adds.
He played recently with Laja in the Aristerrazu fair in Aia. We prepared a three hour
performance for two months, with more than thirty pieces, most of them with vocals. To me it
was a way to catch up and fulfill a dream of mine, playing with Laja. Now I enjoy trikitixa in a
different way. I had known Laja and Epelde for a long time, but ever since I returned to Euskal
Herria a year and a half ago, Ive rekindled this friendship and to me that is a gift. They are
from Belatxikita, from Amorebieta, and we get together at the casero from time to time, he
says.

Martin Aginagalde:

Kepa marked a style that the young

musicians adopted very quickly

His relationship with Kepa Junkera dates back to the time when they started going to the
Gipuzkoa fairs to meet the leading figures of that territory. I remember the first time Kepa
went to the championship finals, it must have been 1982, Eleuterio Tapia won and the day
after he said he was glad because at least hed beat those kids from Bizkaia referring to Kepa
and Motriku. Neither Laja nor I participated in that championship. I participated again in the
1988 final and I remember three couples were tied for first place and then Joseba Tapia
dedicated his fandango to his uncle Eleuterio Tapia who had passed away recently and I said to
myself that we werent going to win. Joseba won deservedly, Kepa was second and I cant
remember if we were third of fourth. Kepas performance was so innovative that it generated
tremendous expectation. There was a guy who stepped on the aisle and started dancing some
sort of rock and roll to Kepas pieces; it was mockery in bad taste that people applauded and at
the same time whistled at Kepa. Kepa marked a style that clashed with the taste of the
majority at the time, but it settled very quickly. People went from whistling at Kepa, especially
the younger ones, to copy his style. Both before and after the final, Kepa, Zabaleta and
Motriku played the Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa fairs again and again. They used to drive a Ford
Transit van. But I remember that once he told me he didnt see himself going from fair to fair,
year after year for long and he retired, or better said, we went on to do other things, to set
himself other challenges, says Martin Aginagalde.
We get the impression that the history of trikitixa advances in jolts, and the txapelketas were
the perfect showcase for these advances. Laja brought a refined style and technical perfection.
Martin also added some innovations. I used to play minor chords in the bass after playing
major chords, I used trikitixas tuned in G major and I changed part of the configuration of the

instrument, giving it 47 bass keys like the accordion, to broaden the possibilities of the
instrument. Its easier to sing to a trikitixa tuned in G major and soon that model became very
popular, he says.
Martin Aginagalde won the txapela at the trikitilari championship in 1979 with his uncle
Egaazpi and was one of the leading figures of trikitixa together with Laja. But when he won
the txapela he was teaching trikitixa classes in Larraul, first in his casero and later on in an
apartment. He outgrew the apartment and opened the first trikitixa school and shop in 1982 in
Villabona. He also wrote the first triktixa teaching method. Wed all learned how to play the
instrument individually, facing the teacher, but that method didnt work for classes with many
students. You couldnt dedicate a full hour to each student. In a music convention celebrated
in Barcelona I had seen a barrel organ with numbers on the keys. Taking that simple idea I
perfected a method that was soon adopted in all the schools.

XABIER BERASALUZE LETURIA: I profess the same admiration

for Tapia and Junkera.
Xabier Berasaluze Leturia entered the trikitixa world when he was more than twenty years
old, after trying with other instruments. In his house in Villabona they listened to classical
music all the time. He studied four years of piano, ten of guitar and he approached the trikitixa
because he went to the fairs with his friends, he had always liked to dance. I didnt have a
tambourine in my hands up until after the military service, he says. He studied trikitixa under
Eleuterio Tapia when one day, when his teacher got sick, his substitute came over, his nephew
Joseba who told him the following week he had a performance in Itsasondo and he didnt have
a tambourine player. It was 1984. He accompanied Joseba Tapia in three or four fairs until the
trikitilari had to do his military service. When he came back from military service, he told me
that there would be txapelketa in 1986 and asked me if I wanted to go. Im one of those
people who always say yes. He chose some pieces by Pepe Yantzi and we prepared some duos,
because by that time we were already singing duets in the fairs. It was one of the innovations
in that championship. We should say that before us, the Trikitixa de Zumarraga had already
used duos in their sung pieces, although in their case the duo was song by two tambourine
players, says Leturia.
In 1987, both Kepa, Zabaleta eta Motriku and Tapia eta Leturia recorded. We ran into each
other at the Elkar recording studio. They recorded during the day and we recorded at night,
because during the day I was working at the Kutxa. We went partying a few times. Weve
always gotten along with Kepa really well. Wed sometimes coincide with him at some fairs
and festivals. Between Laja, Martin, Kepa and Tapia they played all the towns. Some people
are surprised by that friendly relationship because among the trikitizale audience there had
always been a rivalry between Kepa and Tapia supporters, he says.
After the 1985 txapela, they both leave Euskal Herria to play in Europe and America. Up to
that point, trikitilaris went to the USA in delegations organized by the Basque government, but
we started building other bridges, thanks to the relationship with other folk artists. The 1988
final catapulted us, both Kepa and Motriku and us, to the trikitixa elite. I think from a musical
point of view, both artists, Kepa y Tapia, are very unusual figures. I was aware that playing

tambourine with Tapia was a gift. They dont just show themselves off, they give you room to
do a lot of things with your instrument. Its like playing in a jazz band, where every band
member has room for freedom, he says,
In the 90s they experimented with tex-mex for two years, integrating Mikel Artiega, bass, and
Leiza, drums. They went on to a four year long rock phase extending the band with a guitar
player, Batis, who came from Akelarre. Ive been listening to all types of music since I was
young, from classical and contemporary to jazz. I personally found the rock genre to be very
rewarding, but for some of our fans it was a shock. During that time we recorded two albums
with fair repertoire and two rock albums who allowed us to use harsher texts on the brink of
provocation, something Joseba Tapia had always liked. And in the meantime we also
strengthened our relationships with the rock bands of that era, says Leturia.
In 1998 they recorded a double live album with trikitixa repertoire, with the intention of
reconnecting with the audience they had left behind. Joseba Tapia recorded Apoaren
edertasuna with Koldo Izagirre, and recorded another album of Bizkaia songs with Leturia.
We had a strong relationship with Quebec. There I learnt foot stomping with Boutine
Sourriante and we adopted the usual format of their bands, integrating mandolline, violin and
piano. We recorded an album and played numerous shows with a dancer on stage. Now Tapia
is on a singer-songwriter phase, he adds.
The relationship of Tapia eta Leturia with Kepa Junkera has always been cordial. We went to
dinner together every time we played at the same fair. In reality, the problem was the jury that
had to decide on the 1988 final almost flipping a coin. Kepa was very technical but Tapia had
strength and connected with the audience. Proof of our good relationship is that the trikitxa
Tapia was awarded, he gave to Kepa. Ive always admired both. Both started from tradition to
open new roads and at the same time they give freedom to the members of their groups. We
had the advantage of being right in the middle of the trikitixa map, the press in euskara and
the radio stations opened their doors for us, he says.
Leturia has collaborated with Kepa Junkera several times. Once Zabaleta and Motriku were
away, Kepa called me to ask me if I could accompany him and we played a few fairs together,
which goes to show we got along really well. I remember we collaborated again this one time
when we had to play at Baqueira for a whole week. Tapia tore a ligament on the ski slopes. I
called Kepa, I told him what had happened, I told him there was no pay but they would treat
us like kings and he went for it right away. We spent a week together with all expenses paid.
He had just released the album with Pereira and was preparing Bilbao 00:00, he remembers.

Imanol Urkizu:

One day in Betely he played us a recording that

sounded like fusion jazz, thats when Kepa started to take off
Born in Orio, in 1962, Imanol Urkizo belongs to a generation that has experimented with new
formulas to regenerate and modernize trikitixa. But he admits that Kepa has always been
ahead.
-

How did you start with the trikitixa?

I started pretty late in the world of trikitixa and I did it playing the tambourine. I was finishing
my military service when a friend who knew that I had played tamboril before, called me on
the phone asking me if Id like to try with the tambourine. I said yes without thinking twice. It
was an invitation to accompany trikitilari Miren Etxaniz, who didnt have a tambourine player.
Once I finished my military service, I went to Mirens house and they played me several
panderista videos, so I could choose the one I liked most, and I chose Imanol Iturbide. At first
he didnt want to teach me. He said he didnt teach anyone, that he didnt have the patience
and he wasnt good at it. But we went to someone who knew him well and he finally accepted.
The first time I went to his house, we sat in the dining room; he put the tambourine in my
hands, pressed play on the record player and started playing a kalejira. I couldnt follow him, I
didnt hit a single beat and I asked him if he could play slower. He said no, he didnt know how
to play slower and I should try to follow him. That day was a disaster, but two weeks later I
visited him again, he saw me play and he said I was already better than him and told me not to
come back. Thus ended the Iturbide lessons. Then I understood why he didnt want to teach.
He played really well but he really didnt know how to teach. From then on I had to manage by
myself. I played for hours while I listened to Laja and Landakandas records. Two months later I
debuted as a panderista in the Arrasate festivities. Laka and Landakanda also played there. It
was an unforgettable day for me. Ramon (Landakanda) told me: You are paying too much
attention to what youre playing; you have to make the tambourine play itself. Dont overdo it
so much, you have to sound simple and natural. This advice became my motto al throughout
my career as a panderista.
-How did you meet Kepa Junkera?
I met him on the day of my debut. I went to Arrasate with Miren Etxaniz and besides Laja and
Landakanda, Kepa, Zabaleta and Motriku were also there. That day we went to Arrate Irratia to
record a few pieces and then went to Eibar to have some drinks. We met them there but we
didnt really initiate a relationship. I started getting to know him better after the first
txapelketa that I attended accompanying Martin. I was very tight with Tapia and Leguria
because we lived in nearby towns, but Kepa, Zabaleta and Motriku came from Bizkaia and I
hardly knew him. Motriku used to spend long stretches away from home because of work and
Kepa and Zabaleta started calling me to play with them. They were two great musicians; they
were beyond of what I had known in the trikitixa world. Kepa in particular opened a few doors
for me and helped me broaden my vision of music and know new styles. Even today I identify a
lot with Kepa and I think my playing style coincides with his.
- It must have been weird for you to see the arrival of trikitilaris from Bizkaia.
They came to Gipuzkoa gladly. People got used to it early on and didnt give much importance
to the origin of these trikitilaris. The real incursion happened at the txapelketa. It was a very
special moment. I was accompanying Martin. Tapia and Leturia also participated. When we got
to the dressing rooms, Martin told me: Take it easy Imanol, this will be a breeze. It was at
that moment when Kepa played a chromatic scale that left Martin pale as a ghost, he got really
nervous and couldnt get over it. He didnt do his best on stage and we placed fourth. He had
been very impressed by the scale he heard in the dressing rooms. Kepa should have won that
txapelketa but the jury wasnt ready to evaluate his innovations. J.L. Ansorena was one of the

members of the jury and he was the only one who gave Kepa and Motriku a perfect ten. He
had a broader concept of music and he realized what was going on. The problem at the
txapelketas is that the scores from all the members of the jury are added up and that sum
decides the winner.
Today I participate as member of the jury at txapelketas, but with an educational purpose.
Once they finish their performance, I like to tell them what aspects they have to improve. But
its a difficult job because its very competitive and there are many rivalries at the
championships. Back in the day, after the txapelketa you had the chance to record an album,
you got hired at fairs now there arent that many chances. Although something has
improved: theres an air of camaraderie between the participants. I remember last year after
the final in Orio, I encouraged some panderistas to form a group because it would be a new
experience. And so it happens that Kepa has prepared that group. I congratulated them. The
world of tambourine needs initiatives like these.
-

What is Kepas contribution to trikitixa?

Young trikitlaris play Kepas pieces today and will continue to do so in the future. Kepas
contributions are numerous: he created a music style and he also created a repertoire without
precedent. When he left trikitixas traditionally strict space, he allowed the instrument to
breathe and he opened the way to the txalaparta or the tambourine. His influence is
notorious in the entire percussion field. Tapa broke some molds too, but Kepas case is
different, because he took the trikitixa to unsuspected grounds. I remember the piece Nondik
jo Maurizia? he took to the txapelketa. People started whistling during his performance and
some mocked him dancing rock in the aisles. They said that wasnt trikitixa. Six months later,
the sons of the people who criticized Kepa played that pieces and many of his other pieces.
What was contrary to tradition became tradition. That fandango is one of the most popular
amongst the youths participating in the txapelketas.
-

His international projection is also important.

I would say that Kepa has worked the hardest to make our traditional instruments known
internationally. And the odd thing is that he hasnt presented those instruments as relics to be
collected but as just as another music instruments. His work in this field is huge and hes still
working on it, and hes a huge success wherever he goes. Kepa has always been very brave at
opening new roads. Hes always said that when we go up on stage, we mustnt imitate the way
we play at a fair, we have to play for people who are sitting down. I think it came to a point
where he got bored of fairs and he started looking for other formats. He never said it, but I
think you could tell. He started playing a fandango and you could tell that the arrangements he
was doing werent for dancing, they were for something else. I think he realized the fair format
was already exhausted and he started looking for less travelled roads.
-

You could also tell with Triki Up.

I remember one day we were both in Betelu and Kepa called Zabaleta and me to go to his van.
He played a recording and said let me know what you think about this. It was a surprise for
us. You could hear a sax, but it had nothing to do with the sax Gelatxo used in his groups. We

thought that was fusion jazz. It also had the bass guitar, which introduced different rhythms.
After listening to Kepa we realized that was the way that would break the chains of tradition,
and thats when he took off. When I listen to his records now, I can tell that at that moment,
Kepa was already forging his future projects. But theres something strange in this trajectory:
Hes going back to his roots, both with rhythm and musical forms. Hes still innovating and
doing new things, but going back to tradition. Its like he had finished a long journey and was
now retracing his steps.

XABIER SOLANO: I was ten years old at the 1988 championship, but
Kepas style impressed me
Born in Ereozu in 1978, he started playing the instrument early on and by 12 he was already
participating in the championships. Member of Etzakit first and currently of Esne Beltza, hes
been part of several Fermin Muguruzas projects and hes one of the trikitilaris that has
travelled the whole wide world with his soinu txikia the most.
-

How did you start playing the trikitixa?

I started playing the trikitixa at 9 years old because my father told me so, as I didnt know
much about the instrument. Although I have to admit that one day he took me to San Pedro de
Aia so I could see a live performance and I liked it very much. But until I was 8 or 9 years old I
wasnt too sure. You could say that I came into this world blindly and later on I got the hang of
it. During those years I lived in Ereozu and I had some qualms about leaving my element to go
to the classes Martin taught in Villabona. My sister used to go with me in the beginning and
she would sit by my side during class, which usually lasted an hour. I guess she got the bug in
those classes and started studying trikitixa too. My first teacher was Azkonobieta and after
that I started with Martin.
-

What method did you use?

I started studying trikitixa with the number method, but during that time I also started
studying music theory with Imanol Kamio, in Ereozu, and I was able to change methods. I
studied music theory and harmony with Kamio and I was able to continue my music studies.
The number method is ok to play traditional trikitixa and a standard repertoire, but if you want
to broaden your view, music theory and harmony are indispensable. Later on Ive had to learn
how to play other instruments in order to apply to trikitixa what Ive learnt with them.
Do you remember the 1988 championship?
Yes, I remember it because it was the first I went to. It took place at the Velodromo. I was
about 10 because I hadnt played the trikitixa for that long, but I was very impressed by what I
saw that day. I went with my uncles. I was very excited to see the championships even though I
didnt know any of the participants. I was especially impressed by Joseba Tapia and Kepa
Junkera. I liked Tapia and Leturias freshness, but Kepa Junkeras ability and his innovative style
impressed me a lot more.

Youve also known the txapelketas

I started participating when I was 12 years old and I kept doing it until I turned 16. In the
beginning I had nobody to go with and I asked a neighbor, Jon Mari Beasain, who now plays
guitar in Esne Beltza. We started rehearsing for the Garai championship and placed second.
After that first experience we participated in many other txapelketas in Hernialde, Zerain,
Oiartzun, Zarautz... Between my sister and me we have 24 txapelas at home. Once we were
invited to the junior world championship held in Italy. The possibility of playing such a stage
was enough of a reward for us, but we also managed to win the txapela. It was an
unforgettable experience.
-

But it was outside the championships where several members of your generation
shone.

Once we saw the decline of the championships, we decided to form a band. We were about 16
years old. Jon Mari played the guitar and Ander Barrenetxea played the drums. We got in the
fair and wedding circuit. We played just about anything. Soon after Aitor Zabaleta joined us on
bass and we created Etzakit. I like playing in a band better than solo. We recorded a demo, the
people from Elkar liked it and we recorded our first album when I was 16. For us it was
amazing. We were very young and we were already filling venues and earning our first salaries.
It was a time I remember dearly, because everything happened in a very festive environment.
The phenomenon we starred in was named triki-pop, but I think what set apart what we did
was the festive environment. We played arin-arin and fandangos and people danced nonstop.
There are very few fairs left today and probably too many groups for very few venues.
-

Kepa Junkera pioneered the international expansion of trikitixa. Youve also

travelled the world with the trikitixa. How has it affected you?

Its a very special task for any trikitilari. Sometimes we get the feeling trikitixa is over exposed
in Euskal Herria. Many times we serve as mere ornaments in festivities programs, as
sometimes they book trikitilari performances without taking it seriously. We should demand
suitable and dignified spaces for trikitilaris, keeping in mind the importance of trikitixa in our
most recent history. I have the impression were more recognized abroad. In Japan, for
example, they see a trikitilari playing and they freak out.
-

Yourre getting a lot of success with Esne Beltza.

I think the key to the success of Ense Beltza isnt trikitixa. In our band, trikitixa is just another
instrument. For Kepa Junkera and Joseba Tapia trikitixa is the core instrument of their records
and live performances. That isnt the case with us. However, Ive started to discover the
potential of trikitixa very late, when I started learning how to play other instruments. Also, the
experiences lived with musicians like Fermin Muguruza have helped me rediscover trikitixa.
One thing is learning how to play pieces with the trikitixa and a very different thing is learning
to know the instrument itself.
-

But you still admire the generation before yours.

When they taught me how to play a piece, they always told me who wrote it and they always
had some anecdote to illustrate the life of that trikitilari; thats how you ended up admiring
them. Many of the young trikitilaris now have no interested in knowing the figures of
generations past and theyd rather play whatever piece is popular now. I find it hard to believe
there is no interest at all. But thats what us teachers are for: we have no choice but to teach
them what they like to play and every once in a while alternate them with something from the
traditional repertoire. When we recorded Esne Zopak, we went to several trikitilaris and
they all gave us a warm welcome, they told us stories and anecdotes it was very special to go
into the world of traditional trikitixa.
-

Do you have any projects for those young trikitilaris that are starting to excel?

Im preparing a book with my sheet music, so my students can have a repertoire to choose
from. Ill publish it with sheet music but also with numbers, as there are still many students
who follow that teaching method. You have to keep in mind that there are many students with
no professional goals, they play trikitixa just to enjoy themselves and we have to make things
easy for them.

SORGINAK SORGINAK SORGINAK SORGINAK

The names are different. Their names arent Romualda, Mikaela or Martzelina anymore. They
are Amets Ormaetxea, Maria Lasa, Alaitz Eskudero, Leire Etxezarreta, Garazi Otaegi, Eneritz
Aulestia and Irati Gutierrez. But they belong to that saga of women who in the mists of time
enlivened the gatherings with the help of a simple tambourine and their voice, and later
accompanied the great trikitilaris. Their ages go from 15 to 18 and they started studying
tambourine and trixitixa very early on, some of them when they were only 5 or 6 years old.
Three of the members of Sorgiak are from Arrasate. The rest are from Zizurkil, Zarautz and
Deba. There was no precedent in their families, but they have a few or many members that are
fans of trikitixa. Maria Lasa and Alaiz Escudero already have their own groups. Marias band is
called Gugaz, formed by three girls and a boy. Alaizs band, Ezten Giro, is formed by four girls,
two trikitilaris, a guitar and drums. They are fair bands with some success.
All of them participate in the championships, as panderistas or trikitilaris. Some of them,
Maria Lasa for example, has competed in a championship with her own pieces. They practice
every day. Garazi Otaegi even admits to practicing on Sundays. They all admit trikitixa is a
festive instrument and it facilitates going out with friends. But its something more than that,
Garazi confesses that sometimes when she feels sad, playing can change her mood.
They are all very excited about living this experience with Kepa Junkera. Its a different way of
playing the tambourine. In the fairs, we base everything on strength. On stage with kepa, the
style is subtler, more contained, more elegant. Kepa tells us hes interested in simple and wellkept rhythms, says Eneritz Aulestia.