The Music of Latin America

1. The Music of Latin America

3. Socio-Cultural History • Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past knowledge, customs, and arts of a group of people. Its subject matter encompasses the continuum of events occurring in succession leading from the past to the present and even into the future pertaining to a culture.

4. Socio-cultural Histories • Pre-Columbian states of the Aztecs and Mayas of Mesoamerica, and the Incas of the Andes. • Colonialism and Catholicism brought by Iberian culture (Spanish and Portuguese). • Candomblé,an Afro-Brazilian religion involving Christianity and West African religious beliefs and musical practices. Africans who were brought as slaves and escaped.

5. Pre Columbian States • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjhIzemLdos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZL7TY9b1HU

6. A Short History of Latin American Independence • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBw35Ze3bg8

7. Candomblé an Afro-Brazilian religion involving Christianity and West African religious beliefs and musical practices http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr3zQRXzuvY

8. After the Spanish Conquest • The Spanish introduced violins, guitars, harps, brass instruments, and woodwinds which mostly replaced the native instruments. The European instruments were introduced to be used during Mass but were quickly adapted to secular events.

9. Indigenous use of European Instruments • . Indigenous and mestizo peoples learned to play and make these instruments often giving them modified shapes and tunings. In addition to instruments, the Spanish introduced the concept of musical bands, which, in the colonial period, generally consisted of two violins, a harp and various guitars. This grouping gave rise to a number of folk musical styles in Mexico.

10. Mestizo Music • Strophic form –– music that stays the same while lyrics change from stanza to stanza • Copla –– a four octosyllabic-line stanza • Sesquialtera - the combination/juxtaposition of duple and triple rhythmic patterns, both simultaneously in different instrumental parts, or sequentially in the same part; also called hemiola. • Parallel thirds –– the interval from do to mi; or sixths, do to la

11. Marinera • Song –dance genre of peru in sesquialtera rhythm • Couples “handkerchief” dance. • European major scale with tonal harmony • Form AABBCC • Light romantic themes sung in Spanish

12. Marinera Music and Dance • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFR3dknoJh4

13. Yaravi • A slow, sad, lyrical Mestizo song genre from Peru. • Not danced; rather, it is used to serenade a lover, for a serious moment at social gatherings, or to express deep feelings when one is alone. • Unrequited love, leaving family or home, the absence of loved ones.

14. Puñales (daggers) • Mividaescualhojasecaquevarodando en el mundoquevarodando en el mundo
No tieneningunconsuelo, 
no tieneningúnalagoporesocuando me quejo 
mi alma padececantando
mi alma se alegrallorando. My life is a leaf dry that is rolling in the world that is rolling in the world I have no consolation, has nothing. so when I complain my soul singings my soul rejoices crying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m0_OmLyFSA

15. Wayno or Huayno • Andean mestio song-dance genre • Strophic AABB forms • Duple meter varying between and 8th and 16th note figure and 8th note triplet. • Social couples dance with fast foot tapping, subtle flirtatious movements, and the use of a handkerchief waved in the hand. • Closest to indigenous roots of all Peruvian forms

16. Wayno “QuisieraOlvidarte” • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBm17CP6l4g

17. Huasteco ensemble • A Mexican group hailing from Northern Veracruz and Tamaulipas state, featuring violin accompanied by two types of guitars. • Very virtuosic style • Violin, huapanguera (large 8 string guitar), small 5 string jarana • Strummed ambiguously mixing duple and triple rhythms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niFGuW_Aq2A

18. Mariachi • an ensemble type originally from Jalisco, Mexico consisting of two or more violins, vihuela, guitarrón, two trumpets, and various guitars. • Feelings of nationalism spurred the glorification of Mexican peasants around the time of the revolution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9KQbbheFcM

19. MusicaNorteña • Consists of diatonic accordion, bajosexto, double bass and drums. Another important music style is musica, from northern Mexico, which has been the basis for such sub-genres as musica de banda. • arose in the 1830s and 40s in the Rio Grande region, in the southern Texas. Influenced by both Bohemian music and immigrant miners, its rhythm was derived from European polkas, which were popular during the 1800s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa5yF3CO5Gs

20. Jarocho ensemble • a musical group from the rural, southern coastal region of Veracruz state. It includes a large diatonic harp, a 4-string guitar (requinto), and one or more jaranas(a small guitar with 8 strings).

21. It represents a fusion of indigenous (primarily Huastecan), Spanish, and African musical elements, reflecting the population which evolved in the region from Spanish colonial times. Lyrics include humorous verses and subjects such as love, nature, sailors, and cattle breeding that still reflect life in colonial and 19th century Mexico. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2o3ZIKGCms

22. Mestizo Instruments

23. Marimba wooden keyed xylophone, originally from Africa, widely popular in Latin America, still played on the Pacific coast of Columbia and Ecuador http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1URbjNc3VQ

24. Vihuela • a small five-string guitar variant with a convex back, used for percussive strumming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egEDifTfZ_4

25. Guitarrón • a large acoustic bass guitar with a convex back. • Not originally derived from the guitar but from bajo de una http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOyRkpksbqw

26. Charango • Andean ten-string guitar variant smaller than the guitar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok1lbX8MrME

27. Harp • In Latin America, harps are widely but sparsely distributed, except in certain regions where the harp traditions are very strong. Such important centres include Mexico, Andes, Venezuela and Paraguay. They are derived from the Baroque harps that were brought from Spain during the colonial period. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPPRvPdNugw

28. requinto& jaranas • Requinto – smaller guitar • Jaranas – 8 string guitar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWQKSKZ5oiY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTxi1Vl8X8s

29. Native American Musical Values

30. Suyá • Amazonian Indian group with a vocal music culture, maintain a collective style of musical performance at feasts. • They have a repertoire of songs (ngre), which blends unison voices. • they also maintain a repertoire of individually owned songs (akia), which are “shout songs” performed by a numerous of individuals simultaneously juxtaposed. While the resultant sound creates a mixed texture that may be called cacophony in the West, it reflects different conception of the relationship of an individual to the community, the environment, and the cosmos. http://www.folkways.si.edu/anthology-of-brazilian-indian-music-karaja-javahe-kraho-tukuna-juruna-suya-trumai-shukarramae/american-indian-world/album/smithsonian http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQCE4DofORw

31. Pre-Columbian Instruments • Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, indigenous music was played with rattles, drums, flutes and conch-shell horns as part of religious celebrations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDTSSEOy3qw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVinnWp1Pck

32. Other Native Instruments • Teponaztli and tunkul (slit drums), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYvjyNGbqn8 • huehuetl (single-headed drum) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaq2o_OE5mc • siku (panpipes), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1lTXhXTasA • El Condor Pasa • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_gSydN_BYM

33. Other Aerophones • flutes: kena (end-notched) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFUK9KA4zRQ • tarka(duct); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNg6YUyBm5k • wakrapuku(horn trumpet) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eup9VVp1WGI

34. Listening Examples

35. Chunchos of Paucartambo • Two wooden transverse flutes, snare/bass drums • This dance tune is played by two flutes in a loose heterophonic texture. The melody consists of two parts, a short A part (lasting about 6 seconds), and a B part (lasting about four seconds) played twice. The drums repeat a simple rhythmic accompaniment throughout the performance.

36. Cultural Context • The Qhapacchuncho represent the people of the Amazon. They are the guardians of the Virgin. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NIEvua81jk

37. QollasDespedida • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ6USle6iTk

38. Currulao • Many African musical principles are maintained in African American communities of Latin America: cyclical forms, call-and-response, interlocking melodic and percussion parts, and an appreciation of overlapping textures. Many African instruments are employed, featured in the currulao. • The currulao is a popular communal dance of Ecuador and Colombia’’s Pacific coast, wherein men and women court. • marimba, drums, shakers

39. One musician plays a 6-8 rhythm on a drum known as a "cununo”. The Currulao rhythm is created by both striking the skin of the drum with the one's hand and tapping the side of the drum with a small stick.

40. The second musician keeps time on a shaker known in parts of Colombia as a "guasá"(goo-ah-SAH) or "guache"(goo-AH-cheh), which is typically a hollow cylinder made of metal, wooden, or guadua bamboo, filled with light seeds, rice is sometimes used in home-made guasás.

41. But the main instrument of the currulao style is perhaps the Colombian marimba, a wooden xilophone which resembles the African balafon also for the style of playing. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjV1tFsNilg&list=RD6VEbvmomLNI

42. Urban popular music

43. Rumba-guaguanco • Cuban genre, performed by a lead singer accompanied by drums and rhythm sticks. There are two main sections, an initial verse and chorus section followed by a call-and-response section. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJVT_5swkhA

44. Cuban Son • Cuban genre with similar two-part format. The ensemble, comprising tres (a small guitar), piano, bass, trumpets and other wind, and Cuban percussion had international impact in the 1940s and 1950s. Basis of modern salsa style. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsKQalDu4VU

45. Samba • Urban Brazilian African-derived genre connected with Carnival. The huge percussion section, which includes surdo (bass drum), agogo, tamborim (small hand-held drum), pandeiro (tambourine), reco-reco (metal spring scraper), and cuica (friction drum), plays interlocking parts. Sung in call-and-response style. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbORVE2P2hg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQLvGghaDbE

46. Bossa nova • Brazilian guitar-based style maintains syncopated accompaniment patterns of samba but includes more elaborate harmonic schemes. Understated vocal style and sophisticated texts appealed to a middle- and upper-class audience. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FolEno814Gk

47. Cumbia • Afro-Colombian-derived genre traditionally played with either a side-blown reed instrument (pito) or vertical duct flute (gaita). By the 1960s, cumbia was performed by accordions or urban dance bands throughout Latin America and southern Texas. Characterized by interlocking rhythmic parts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l5yTrmo4eU

48. Chicha • Also known as cumbiaandina. An example of the amalgamation of widely disparate musical resources within an urban popular style and of the use of music to construct and express social identity by children of Andean migrants to Lima. The ensemble includes electric guitars, bass, organ/synthesizer, and percussion (guiro and Cuban timbales). Chicha paints a musical portrait of these children, mixing Andean elements (wayno), urban popular music (cumbia), and Western rock (instrumentation). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uglIDVuQA9w

49. Summary • The Latin American continent encompasses many different types of societies, each with their own musical traditions.

50. Mestizo cultures—the mixing of Spanish or Portuguese and Native Latin American lifeways—have become a common denominator influencing many forms of Latin American music.