At the end of the nineteenth century in the cities of Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay a new genre of music was evolving. This new genre of music eventually came to be called the Argentine Tango. Tango music evolved from the interaction of many different cultures, and it continues to evolve and branch out into many subgenres. Beginning around 1880 the first traces of the Argentine tango were beginning to fall into place. (History 2005) This occurred through the convergence of music of the many cultures which were found in the area. Immigration to Buenos Aires was prominent at the time, and the mestizaje—racial mixture—that took place between the Argentineans and the immigrants lead to the creation of the tango as music, dance, and poetry. (History 2005) However, even after the Argentine tango was established it continued to change as time progressed.
The Argentine tango has changed and evolved over time, and thus it has been categorized into different periods. The first was the pre-tango period in during which the foundations of the tango were noticed and began to come together, but did not quite form the tango yet. This period began in 1880 and lasted until 1895. (Rivera 1976: 10) The works produced during this time were still Spanish tangos, Cuban habaneras, milongos, and pre-tangos. (Rivera 1976: 10) The next period in the Argentine tango’s timeline is the Old Guard which lasted from 1895 to 1917. (Olsen and Sheehy 2000: 395) During this period the tango came together and began to gain some structure. The first tangos created were tangos criollos, which in English translates to Creole tangos. (Romay 2000: 26) The instrument used for the tangos criollos was predominantly the piano. One such tango is “El Choclo” ...
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...iones, 1996.
“History of the Argentine Tango.” All About Tango. 2005. AR Tourism, LLC. 11 May 2009.
Olsen, Dale, and Daniel Sheehy. The Garland Handbook of Latin American Music. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000.
Real, Juan, Francisco Jiménez, and Raúl Lafuente. La Historia Del Tango: Carlos Gardel. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Corregidor, 1977.
Rivera, Jorge. La Historia Del Tango: Sus Orígenes. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Corregidor, 1976.
Romay, Héctor. El Tango y sus protagonistas. Buenos Aires: Bureau Editor S.A., 2000.
“Tango Music.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 10 May 2009, at 11:32 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 11 May 2009. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tango_music>
Zucchi, Oscar, Héctor Ernie, and Luis Sierra. La Historia Del Tango: El Bandoneón. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Corregidor, 1977.
The Tango Blast is a clique that started forming sometime within the 1970s-1980s as a result of incarcerated Hispanic males banding together to protect themselves from previously established prison gangs, such as the Texas Mexican Mafia; the phrase “tango” is actually an acronym for “Together Against Negative Gang Organizations”. Members like to represent themselves with things associated to the cultures of the cities
The tradition still takes place today in many areas of Mexico. However, some parts of Mexico do the dance a little differently. The dance is more common in the central regi...
Cumbia originated in the coastal region of Colombia in the early 1800’s. There were three predominant cultures in Colombia at that time: the indigenous peoples, the Spaniards, and the African slaves. The cumbia began with the essential instrumentation of the tambor drums and the gaita flutes, which derive from both indigenous and Congo-based African roots. The genre was entertainment for the slaves, beginning as a courtship dance. It later became an outlet for national resistance and protest as Colombia was contesting for its independence. The music was able to diffuse throughout the nation, spreading from the coast, primarily for the reason that many African populations were scattered in various regions. Barranquilla, a port city in Colombia, was the core of where the music became established and played for the masses, and where instruments such as horns and bass began to be incorporated into cumbia, giving it a more Latin feel. As cumbia evolved and spread to Mexico around the 1930’s, it changed from the influence o...
Music comes in many shapes and forms, and has been a magical element of inspiration and encouragement throughout time. The art of music derives from many different things, such as culture and traditions. One such type of music is mariachi music, deriving from Mexican culture and traditions. Mariachi music is often an upbeat rhythm, consisting of a band of up to six to eight violins, two trumpets and a guitar. Unlike modern music and other music bands alike, mariachi bands lack in numbers when it comes to band size. Though they are small, their music brings great significance and life to the places they perform and the people that they touch with their joyous music. In this paper, I will be comparing the culture and style of mariachi music to twentieth century modern music.
Released in 1997, Buena Vista Social Club immediately became an international success and won a Grammy Award in 1998. Around the world, especially in U.S. where the album was welcomed most heartily, Ry Cooder was considered the hero of Cuban music (Hernandez 65). Being the producer of the album, Cooder was assumed to discover a “lost treasure” in Cuban culture. However, Tanya Kateri Hernandez, in an article about Buena Vista Social Club, revealed that Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, not Cooder, was the person “who masterminded and facilitated the collaboration.” (Hernandez 62). Also in this article, it is noted that Juan de Marcos Gonzalez “implicitly acquiesced to Cooder’s propagation of the colonial myth for the purpose of ensuring the commercial success of the collaboration.” (Hernandez 64). Other musicians in the Buena Vista Social Club ensemble followed Gonzalez’s step, as there was hardly another choice for them.
During my visit, I was able to observe different dances that were very interesting. Two dances that caught my attention were the “Toro Mambo” representing the state of Sinaloa and “Payasos of Tlaxcala” representing Tlaxcala. The “Toro Mambo” from the region of Sinaloa is one of the most popular dances in Mexico. The dance is really interesting for the reason that it represents a story in where a bull would dance on a place known as the “mambo.” In this folk dance the dancer do movements at the same paste while trying to imitate how the bull would dance. In this dance the women wear long colorful dresses to represent joy and in order to move the skirts higher. In contrast, the men wear light color shirts and jeans that matches with their partner. In the other side the dance of the “Payasos de Tlaxcala” represents a story of a festival in the region of Tlaxcala. To perform this dance men and women dress like clowns in colorful outfits to amuse the people in the festival. During the dance, the dancers try to satisfy the public by putting humor in the dance and doing crazy movements. This dances are both very great and enjoyable to watch. It is amazing how you could learn so much in a little bit of time and in a beautiful art
The instruments used for this song is of a standard rock band; lead vocalist, electric guitar, bass guitar and drum kit. The genre for this song is determined by the steady and yet simplistic instruments used in this version. An interesting note is that the chorus is in the genre of rock but the verses combine the genres tango and reggae. This could be because merging these three different styles of music attracted the attention of youth more with rock being rebellious at that time and tango and reggae having a heavy beat for that time period. ...
Thomas Turino, Moving Away from Silence: Music of the Peruvian Altiplano and the Experience of Urban Migration. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1993.
Rhythm is the pattern of music. It is one of the key characteristics to define music as what it is. Rhythm is valuable, and in both Cuban and West-African music, it is one of the most crucial parts of their music. Cuban music can be separated into many different sub-categories, one of them being the Son Cubano, a type of music that originated in Cuba, and is heavily influenced by African music. Son music has very few characteristics that fully developed by itself; the music has strong hints of Spanish guitar, melody, monophony and lyrical translation with African percussion and rhythms, all merged together to show that the music had developed traits that it had borrowed from other cultures, mainly Africa. This clearly demonstrates the distinct similarities between these two nations, and how one adapted a part of the others music. Another interrelation is how both culture's music is quite simple; no complex harmonies or complicated reading of music, but with decidedly trickier rhythms. In West-Cuban music, they have an element called polyrhythm, which means multiple or opposing rhythmic patterns played at the same time. Usually, there are multiple drummers to play the separate parts, so in the end it c...
Manuel, Peter Lamarche. Caribbean Currents: Caribbean music from rumba to reggae. Philadelphia: Temple University Class, 1995.
Last Sunday I went to jazz bar in Manhattan and I listened “Latin Jazz?E Latin jazz is “a fusion of African and indigenous rhythms from the entire Latin American Diaspora with the language of jazz?E It was first known as coop, but you are now familiar with it as afro-Cuban. When talking about afro-Cuban jazz, it is difficult to not mention certain turning points in history that made this music possible. The roots of much, of the music might be traced back to African Cuban slaves. In Cuba itself, music and dance are so essential to national character that you can not disentangle them from the country’s history. “The story of Latin jazz music is thus one of religions and revolutions, power and liberation, the collision of civilization?E In the United States we can never completely understand our own music, without referencing it to Cuban music. There are various characteristics that can define Latin jazz ranging from the savant grade to more popular forms. Some forms of popular music that most people are familiar with would have to be the mambo, salsa, cha-cha, and afro-Cuban jazz. These types of music were originated from north America, but to elaborate further, Latin immigrants can to new York and brought with them distinctive rhythms that blended together. Theses types of music and other music are contagious and an evolutionary process. No one person can take the credit for Latin jazz of any form of music that comes into the united s...
Since the early sixteenth century, the Island music scene was greatly influenced by the Spanish presence, which included a variety of European extraction with instruments including drums, harp, bells, the guitar and harpsichord, among others. Religious ceremonies introduced for the decade of 1670 an organist and choirmaster, which were part of religious services of the ‘Cathedral of San Juan.’
"Music is a common experience and a large part of societies. In fact, anthropologists note that all human communities at all times and in all places, have engaged in musical behaviours. Music as a mode of human activity is a cultural phenomenon constituting a fundamental social entity as humans create music and create their relationship to music. As cultural phenomeno...
Arnold, Denis, ed. The New Oxford Companion to Music. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1983.
Kuss (2004) explores the idea, “in some measure to the eradication of essentialisms and to critical reassessments of the infinite ways in which cultural representation still relies on criteria and conceptual frameworks developed within the Eurocentric sphere of influence, including some models of cultural criticism stemming from vastly different historical experiences.” Firstly, one of the most popular Latin American genre is mestizo music’s. “One prevalent feature found in this genre of music is the emphasis on chordophones, such as guitar, harp, and mandolin (Thomas, 2011). This genre of music is more rhythmically based, fast-paced, with a strong instrumental performance and a strong vocal presence. Some general features of this genre is the prominent use of costume. Moving into the twentieth-century brass bands and various types of accordions became more popular (Thomas, 2011). “During the colonial period, missionaries used music and costumed dances to attract indigenous peoples to Christianity” (Turino). This genre can be seen throughout Latin-America, and specifically in Mexico and Chile sine the influence of the Catholic church has grown. This genre involves a combination of