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” ... ... middle of paper ... ...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.
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Show MoreThe word tango is most likely from African origin and referred to popular music and dance celebrations that the slaves performed throughout the Caribbean and Atlantic coastal regions. The genre overlapped with milonga, candombe and the Cuban habanera. During the 20th century, around the time that the urbanized samba emerged in Brazil, the tango emerged as an independent dance genre. The rioplatense tango arose in poverty stricken areas known as arrabeles in the outskirts of Buenos Aires and Montevido. The compadrito was a quintessential early figure that emerged out of the arrabales; his dress and behavior mocked the elite, posing as an arrogant bully. He blended gaucho and immigrant characteristics and spoke lunfardo (a dialect with references to the criminal underworold). Most people considered him vulgar and disreputable but many secretly admired his provocative sensuality. The first stage of tango history is known as Guardia Vieja and lasted until 1920. During the period, the tango emerged as a genre of instrumental music based on a three-part form with different sections. The Guardia Veja ensembles had one violin, flute, guitar, and bandoneón (an accordion-like instrument of German origin associated with the tango that is also used in contemporary traditional music ensembles. It has 38 buttons in the upper and middle registers and 33 buttons in the lower register. What is argued to be the most famous tango ever written was “La cumparsita” (“The Little Carnival Procession”) by Gerardo Matos Rodriguez in 1917. Early tangos used rhythms related to the habanera and milonga in duple meter, but bandleaders began to slow the tempo and adopted a quadruple meter with sharp accents during the 1910s. The marcato and sincopa characterize...
Oct. 29: Puerto Rican Music Between Rafael Hernandez and Rafael Cortijo. Guest Lecture by Prof. Lise Waxer, Music Dept., Trinity College
Latinoamericanitas, 1976. Print. Vélez, Germám. Phone Interview. February 10th, 2011. Waterman, Richard Alan. Folk music of Puerto Rico . Washington: Library of Congress,
In 1922, one of Spain’s greatest writers organized the “Concurso de Cante Jondo”, a music festival. They did this to stimulate interest in the different styles of flamenco and other dancing. They were falling to oblivion as they were regarded commercial and, therefore not appropriate for cafés. This led to the “Theatrical Period” (1892-1956) also known as “Flamenco Opera”. The café cantantes were replaced by larger venues; this affected flamenco a lot and became very popular, but also caused it to fall into commercialism. A new type of flamenco dancing was born. This period has been considered a time of complete untraditional dancing.
This production was based on the Cuban dances and music from the 1950’s to today’s style of Cuban dance. Not only did Lizt Alfonso incorporate Cuban dance in this production, but she also weaved ballet, flamenco, and Afro-Cuba
Thomas Turino, Moving Away from Silence: Music of the Peruvian Altiplano and the Experience of Urban Migration. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1993.
Manuel, Peter Lamarche. Caribbean Currents: Caribbean music from rumba to reggae. Philadelphia: Temple University Class, 1995.
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.
Morales, Ed. The Latin Beat: The Rhythms and Roots of Latin Music from Bossa Nova to Salsa and Beyond. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo, 2003. Print.
The Folklorico group presentation I was honored to observed was the “Grupo Folklorico Juventud” from North Salinas High School. I decided to attend to this presentation because I use to be part of this Folklorico group. I also enjoy watching the dances for the reason that I believe they are beyond beautiful. It is amazing how a simple dance could transmit so much information while representing a region from Mexico. From my observation experienced, I noticed every region has different movements and customs for a reason. While observing the presentation I noticed most women used long skirts to create different shapes. They usually create the eight shape, half a circle or an entire circle which is created when the dancer does an entire spin while holding and moving their skirt. The skirt is also moved in different levels, such as high, medium, and low. The two levels that are used in most of the dances is the high and the medium level. While dancing the men and women usually do the same steps and movements. All the dances include “zapateados” which are known as foot dances or stomps. The “zapateados” are usually done with different parts of the feet such as the toe, heel and the sole of the feet. The dances include “zapateados” with different sections of the feet because every part creates a different sound. Most of the dances also include jumps and turns. It is extremely important for the
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.
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. ...
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...
Arnold, Denis, ed. The New Oxford Companion to Music. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1983.
2. The Argentine Tango As Social History, 1880-1955: The Soul of the People (Latin American Studies, Vol 3)