Brazilian gaucho music (in Portuguese música gaúcha brasileira or música nativista), denotes the traditional music of Southern Brazil, especially the one of Río Grande do Sul state, whose population has a strong ancestry of European countries like Portugal, Germany and Italy. The word gaucho refers to the countryside and farm people.
Among the main musical styles of gaucho music there are: milonga, chamamé, chamarra, polca, vanera (with the variants vanerão y vanerinha), bugio, rasguido doble and rancheira.
The songs of gaucho music present themes of the folk traditions of the gaucho: field, farm, horse, moral values, regional cuisine, women. The music is built in a slow, intimate manner, with lyrics abundant in metaphors. Some representative artists have been Teixeirinha, José Mendes y Gildo de Freitas, Dimas Costa, Gaúcho da Fronteira, Porca Véia.
Some of the musical instruments used in the genre are accordion, guitar, violin and bombo legüero.