Central American Countries

From WolfWikis

African Influenced Music in Central America

General Information

• African musical influence is everywhere throughout a lot of Latin America, especially in Brazil, the Caribbean coastal areas, and the West Indies. From the early colonial period, African's natural desire for song and dance influenced Latin American music. African slaves were allowed to keep their traditional customs with 'confraternities' which were given to them by their colonial masters. In these 'confraternities', which were also known as 'negro chapels', African slaves sang and danced to keep their traditional customs alive.

• The features of African music included call-and-response singing, polyrhythms, repeated musical figures, and improvisation from repeated short phrases. For example, call-and-response structures were incorporated by the Negros into church music. African instruments, which were primarily percussion, included long drums such as congas, iron gongs, maracas, marimbas, and claves.

Marimbas

• One of the most common instruments throughout Central America is the marimba. It can be found in any country, but each country has its own marimba style. "A marimba is any kind of xylophone with wooden keys. The percussion instrument consists of different sized wooden keys arranged from large to small on top of a frame, which are struck with a mallet of some kind".

• Using various parts of wood from the Africa, the marimba first made its appearance in several locations of Latin America. It is documented that the first marimba in Central America dates back to 1680 in Guatemala. It is also assumed that the marimba must have been in use there before that time period.

Musical Instruments

• There were other instruments, besides the marimba that had an African influence on Central America. Idiophones, which are a form of percussion, are said to have African ancestry. These percussion instruments are either used to hit each other, shaken, or rubbed, as opposed to making a vibration sound using their own bodies.

• In lay ritualistic ceremonies, religious processions, and religious feasts, African drums in Latin America had a very specific role that was assigned to them.

• String instruments, usually of different musical bows were also brought over from Africa, generally used for the vibration of gourds. In Costa Rica the bow strings were strung with either vegetable fibers or metal strings.

Panama

• In the early sixteenth century, Sevillians of African descent derived a common vocal style, which is today known as Panama's folklore music.

• Although it is uncertain, the mejorana is thought to have originated in Panama. The mejorana is played on a mejoranera, which is a small five stringed guitar, and is played with percussion music. The mejorana is also known for its African quality-a blend of two meters-an accompaniment in triple time and the melody in duple. Its tune is composed of short, repeated phrases of a well-known African melodic technique. Also in Panama, there is the mejorana-poncho, which is very similar to the mejorana because it too makes some use of duple and triple rhythms when played together.

• One of the most recognized African-derived music in Panama is called the tamborito. It is basically women's music and is accompanied by drums. This music has many African features, including how the lead drummer guides the choreography and the way in which the musicians, dancers, and audience members interact with the music. The lyrics of most tamboritos illustrate strong Africanisms. An Africanism is a characteristic of African traditions or cultures. In the tamborito, the call-and-response method is quite generally used and it is seen frequently with short melodic phrases.

• An example of a tamborito lyric:

                                   Mi mama me dió un consejo,
                                   No comer conejo viejo.
 English translation:              My mother advised me,
                                   Don't eat old rabbit.

This example shows the common quality of many tamboritos and their serious and rude meanings.

• An example of a call-and-response lyric:

                                           Y mueve la colita
                                           Tio Cayman
                                           Como una señorita
                                           Tio Cayman.
 English translation:                      And move the slip
                                           Tio Cayman
                                           Like a young lady
                                           Tio Cayman.

El Salvador

• El Salvador retains its musical traditions from indigenious cultures from around the Central American region before colonization and Spanish conquest. The popular music of El Salvador has integrated indigenous and African style instruments, including those such as small percussion, gourds, scrapers, flutes and wood drums.

Costa Rica

• Alongside the Atlantic coast, African music is more prominent. The marimba instrument and marimba music are very common. Afro-Caribbean music sytles such as rumba, calypso and reggae are also very popular.

Belize

• The marimba and other forms of percussion music instruments were brought to Belize from Africa. As a result of African music influence, the brukdown was created. Brukdown may have originated from broken down calypso, which refers to some similarities between brukdown and Trinidadian calypso music. It was developed from the music and dance of loggers. One of those forms is called buru. In nature, buru was often satirical and eventually evolved into a more urban style, which is played using a donkey's jawbone, drums, and a banjo.

• Over the years, brukdown has taken on more of a modern form. New instruments such as congas, bass guitars, and electric guitars have been added. Today, brukdown is quite a popular music style in Belize and can be played using a banjo, guitar, drums, dingaling bell, accordion and an ass's jawbone, which is played by running a stick up and down the teeth.

Honduras

• One group of people who live in Honduras, called the Miskitos, have their own unique mix of indigenious, African and European music. Their musical instruments include the caramba, and the well-known marimba.

• Garifuna music has taken a huge toll on the people of Honduras. The Garifunas are descendents of escaped Nigerian slaves who were deported from St. Vincent to Central America, especially Honduras in 1802. These people isolated themselves from the dominant social system of the time, and in turn developed a unique culture that carried out into the twentieth century.

• There are many differnt forms of Garifuna folk music and dance. Some examples consist of the chumba, and the hunguhungu. The hunguhungu is a dance done in a circle to a three beat rhythm, that can also be combined with punta. The Garifuna's have songs that are typical to each gender. For example, women have rhythmic a cappella songs, entitled eremwu eu and abaimajani. Laremuna wadauman is an example of a typical work song for men.

Nicaragua

• One of the popular instruments brought to Nicaragua was the marimba. One form of the marimba, the marimba de arco, is especially common in Nicaragua. The marimba de arco is made of rubber strips, twine, nails, and five different types of wood. The first type of wood is used to make the frame that will hold the keys and the resonators. The second type of wood is known as bejuco and it is very thick and woody. Its purpose is to form the arco (the arc or hoop). The third is used for the keys. This is the most important choice when making a marimba and it's most likely the only wood that varies from instrument to instrument. The fourth type is called resistant cedar wood and it is usually called tubos, or tubes because of their shape. The last type of wood is called papamiel and it is used to make the bolillos, or mallets.

• Two stringed instruments always accompany the marimba de arco when it is played. On the left side of the marimbero, the marimba player, there is a guitar, and on the player's right side is a guitarilla, which is a small four stringed guitar.

Guatemala

• The national instrument of Guatemala is the marimba. Beginning around the sixteenth century, Guatemalan folk music becomes evident with a strong influence of the music from the Spanish and the West African immigrants. In Guatemala, the marimba is the most significant instrument because it is used to play a variety of styles of music, which consist of folk and popular music.

• There are three types of marimbas in Guatemala. The first is called the marimba de tecomates which means "marimba with gourds". This form has a hoop or arc of wood that is attached at each end of the frame. To play the marimba de tecomates, a single musician sits inside the hoop of the instrument. The marimba de tecomates had twenty-eight keys made of heavy, dense hardwood. The second type of marimba is known as the marimba sencilla. Sencilla means plain, simple, or easy, which infers that the marimba sencilla doesn't have as many notes/keys. One to five players can play on a marimba sencilla. The marimba doble is the third type of marimba. The marimba doble is a marimba with two rows of keys. It can be found in any big city in Central America except in Panama and Belize. Every marimba doble has the same characteristics, except that in Guatemala, the upper row of keys are set directly above keys on the lower row.

Marimba music

Bibliography

• 18 Sept. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki>.

Wikipedia provided me with information on African music in each country in Central America. I found plenty of information about Panama, Honduras, Belize, and Guatemala, but hardly anything about Costa Rica and El Salvador.

• 18 Sept. 2007 <http://users.wpi.edu/-arivera/music.html>.

This website gave me information about the different types of African percussion instruments. On this website, there wasn't really a whole lot of information on African influenced music in Latin America.

• 18 Sept. 2007 <http://www.realadventures.com/central-america.htm>.

This map of Central America is a very good one because it shows every country. It would have been nice maybe to see some cities, but it's a fairly good map overall.

• 23 Sept. 2007 <http://images.google.com>.

Google had some great pictures of the different types of marimbas found in Nicaragua and Guatemala. However, when I tried looking up specific instruments, such as a gourd, the pictures weren't all that great.

• 23 Sept. 2007 <http://youtube.com>.

Youtube provided me with plenty of videos about marimba music and I had a variety to choose from. Honestly, I couldn't find any flaws because there were just so many videos all related to marimba music.

• 24 Sept. 2007 <http://www.lafi.org/magazine/articles/salvador.html>.

The site was pretty useful in giving me information about African influenced music in El Salvador. The site's primary purpose wasn't necessarily about the music, but more along the lines of El Salvador's history, so it really didn't contain much information on my topic.

• Fletcher, Peter. World Musics in Context: a Comprehensive Survey of the World's Major Musical Cultures. 2001.

This book was very helpful to my topic. It provided me with general information about African music during the colonial era of Latin America. I wish this book had given me more insight about this information according to each country, and not just Latin America in general.

• Fraginals, Manuel Moreno. Africa in Latin America. 1984.

This book was a little useful to me because it gave me information on African musical instruments other than the marimba. The flaw I found in this book was that it hardly elaborated on each musical instrument.

• Roberts, John Storm. Black Music of Two Worlds: African, Caribbean, Latin, and African-American Traditions. 1998.

I found this book to be very informative and it gave me plenty of information concerning the African music in Panama, along with Colombia. The one flaw I had with this book was that sometimes it didn't give me the english translation for some of the spanish tamborito lyrics.

• Schechter, John Mendell. Music in Latin American Culture: Regional Traditions. 1999.

This book was helpful in providing me with information on the different types of marimbas in Guatemala and Nicaragua. The only flaw I found with this book was not giving me enough information on each type of marimba.