El Juego Chirimbolo

Traditional children’s song from Ecuador

A fall visit between PIO! editor Brigid Finucane and international dance expert and CMN member Sanna Longden turned into a spontaneous dance tutorial that included this singing game. Sanna writes, “‘El Juego Chirimbolo’ is played by young children in Ecuador. Chirimbolo is a kind of nonsense word that refers to some sort of contraption or machine movement. A traditional singing game, it was presented to US educators by Elizabeth Villarreal Brennan. The object is to do it faster each time the game repeats.”

Brigid passed the song on to Alina Celeste, and Alina presented it, to much acclaim, at the 2016 conference Round-Robin—another example of CMN connections!

The recording is provided by Alina Celeste, who sings it in the key of G, while the notation provided is in the key of C. Also be sure to watch this lively video version with Alina and 123 Andres.