Other Misc. Islands of the Carribean
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Dominican Republic
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/images/time/caribbean/dominican-republic.jpg
The merengue is a lively, and joyful music and dance from the Dominican Republic. Although it is most prominently known as Dominican, each Haiti, Venezuela, Colombia, and Puerto Rico also have local forms of it. The merengue incorporated European contradance with African elements. The traditional musical instruments used for the Dominican merengue were diatonic accordions, a two sided drum held on the lap called trambora, and a guira, which is a percussion instrument made out of a sheet of metal perforated with a nail, shaped into a cylinder, and played with a stiff brush. The traditional rhythm of merengue is called quintillo, and to purists of the music it can only be a merengue if it is played with the quintillo rhythm When it is said that the Dominican merengue’s origin is Africa, Dominican’s will mostly likely react horrified and will claim the person who said it does not know much about that style of music. A reaction towards Fradique Lizardo was that he is unpatriotic. This is due to the Dominican’s anti-Haitian sentiment, though. Lizardo writes that the Bara of Madagascar perform a dance called “merengue,” and is accompanied by a drum similar to the tambora, which is used in Dominican merengue. People who are Afro-centric tend to share this opinion of merengue, though it is mostly likely a mixture of European and African influences that shaped the dance and music style.
http://www.grandcentralmusic.com/mall/hotdrums/tambora.jpg
This is a trambora, as used by Dominican calypsonians.
Haiti
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It is known that there is a merengue dance style, which is similar to the Dominican merengue. Unfortunately there is not much information about the Haitian style of this dance.
Although today the majority of Haitians are Roman Catholics, a different religion called Vodou (or Voodoo, Vodun) is being practiced in Haiti. This African creole religion is the basis of a number of Haitian music styles. In the spiritual music of Vodou highly formalized percussion is used. The music is supposed make the spirits, Iwa, travel to Haiti and possess a Haitian worshiper. Therefore they are initiated to dance to the music of drums, gongs, and rattles. The songs are often in a combination of Kreyol and languages that are derived from West and Central Africa. The Santeria religion is similar to Vodou just that their spirits are not Iwa, but Orishas and they think the drums sounds make the spirits came, and therefore emphasis percussion. The Vodou religion tries to make the spirits come through the words they say, putting more emphasis on the lyrics. Overall the music of the Vodou and Santeria religion are similar, though and strongly influenced by African religions.
Trinidad and Tobago
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This musical style was derived from an African musical style called kaiso. Nowadays some people actually still call calypso kaiso, especially the traditionalists. It is also used as an encouragement for a performer, similar to bravo. It was brought to Trinidad through the slave trade of Africans by European slave owners. Because the African slaves were not allowed to talk to one another on the sugar plantations, they used music as a means to communicate with each other. Another reason Africans began singing songs was because they were taking from their home, and put in a new environment, robbed from their links to their families and home. The songs the slaves sang were characterized as being highly rhythmic with harmonic vocals. The songs were also used to mock their slave owners and were often sung in a French creole dialect called patois. The songs were normally led by a griot, who was originally a storyteller in West Africa who repeated the oral tradition and history of a village or family. These griots were later became known as chantuelle and were eventually called calypsonians. The 20th century was a new era for calypso. Calypso was recorded for the first time between 1912 and 1914, depending on the sources. The next decade saw the arrival of calypso tents, which were the places where early performers of calypso could showcase their music. Some of the early performers Hannibal, Norman LeBlanc, and Lord Invader. It’s not known if these artists performed in the carnivals that became very popular during that. During the carnival calypsonians competed for awards in contests called picong, where the performers would make disrespectful remarks towards one another in their music. Calypso was also a means expressing themselves and became closely aligned with the independence movement in Trinidad. Some songs were even banned or censore by the British government, so it became a method of underground communication and spreading anti-British colonial information. This style was later known as oratorical calypso. Calypso became very popular when a Jamaican-American singer named Harry Belafonte sold a million copies of his album. It was the first calypso album to sell that many copies. Though he had great success his music was extensively criticized for watering down the sound of calypso.
Annotated Bibliography
[1] It gives a detailed description of how the merengue of the Dominican Republic has been played and it lists many artists who play it too. It is a pretty interesting site, which gives basic information.
[2] This site discusses about the national identity Dominicans have, stating that some are more Euro-centric, and some more Afro-centric, which clears differences people have about the origin of the Dominican merengue.
[3] This site has brief information about different dance and music styles in the Carribean. It is not very insightful, but has some interesting information.
[4] This site describes the origin of calypso, as well as the Golden Age and Decline of Calypso. It has very detailed descriptions of calypso and is very interesting.
[5] This wikipedia page describes all of the music played in Trinidad and Tobago, such as Calypso, Soca, and Rapso. It shows the musical development of the country and how forms of music emerged from another.
[6] This page is similar to the wikipedia page about the Music of Trinidad and Tobago. It shows the development of different musical styles in Haiti and how Africa, and also the US influenced Haitian music in different musical generes.