The word boula can refer to at least four different drums played in the Caribbean music area.
The word boula can refer to at least four different drums played in the Caribbean music area.
In the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean, the boula drum is used in the big drum traditions.
The boula of Carriacou is also a hand drum, now most often made of rum casks. It is also called the tambou dibas, and is used in the big drum tradition. [1] [2]
In Grenada, a boula is a membranophone with an opened-bottom used in a big drum ceremony. [1]
The Guadeloupean boula is a hand drum, similar to the tambou bèlè , and is used in gwo ka and special occasions likes wakes, wrestling matches and Carnival celebrations. It is a hand drum that plays low-pitched sounds and is played single-handed and transversally. [3]
In the Greater Antilles of Haiti, the boula is in the same family as the Manman, Segon, and is the smallest of the three (7-8 inches in diameter and 18 – 24 inches tall) [4] and is responsible for playing an ostinato pattern which really propels the rhythm forward. This drum is played with two sticks, and the base rests flat on the floor. The tone created is high, but somewhat muted. While this drum's parts seem simple, it requires true skill and stamina to play them accurately, especially at fast tempos. This drum serves the same function as the boula in the rada batterie and is played in the same way. Drummers claim that this addition "heats-up" the music.
The boula of Trinidad and Tobago accompanies the stick-fighting dance called kalenda , and is a double-headed barrel drum, played open-handed. [5]
The music of the Lesser Antilles encompasses the music of this chain of small islands making up the eastern and southern portion of the West Indies. Lesser Antillean music is part of the broader category of Caribbean music; much of the folk and popular music is also a part of the Afro-American musical complex, being a mixture of African, European and indigenous American elements. The Lesser Antilles' musical cultures are largely based on the music of African slaves brought by European traders and colonizers. The African musical elements are a hybrid of instruments and styles from numerous West African tribes, while the European slaveholders added their own musics into the mix, as did immigrants from India. In many ways, the Lesser Antilles can be musically divided based on which nation colonized them.
The music of Grenada has included the work of several major musicians, including Eddie Bullen, David Emmanuel, one of the best-selling reggae performers ever, and Mighty Sparrow, a calypsonian. The island is also known for jazz, most notably including Eddie Bullen, a pianist, songwriter and record producer currently residing in Canada. Kingsley Etienne, a keyboardist, while the Grenadan-American Joe Country & the Islanders have made a name in country music.
The music of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines includes thriving music scenes based on Big Drum, calypso, soca, steelpan and also reggae. String band music, quadrille, bélé music and traditional storytelling are also popular.
The music of Antigua and Barbuda is largely African in character, and has only felt a limited influence from European styles due to the population of Antigua and Barbuda descending mostly from West Africans who were made slaves by Europeans.
Big Drum is a genre, a musical instrument, and traditional African religion from the Windward Islands. It is a kind of Caribbean music, associated mostly closely with the music of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Music of Guadeloupe, Carriacou in Grenada and in the music of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
Kont are forms of oral tradition in the Caribbean.
Kaiso is a type of music popular in Trinidad and Tobago, and other countries, especially of the Caribbean, such as Grenada, Belize, Barbados, St. Lucia and Dominica, which originated in West Africa particularly among the Efik and Ibibio people of Nigeria, and later evolved into calypso music.
As early as the 1780s, the word kaiso was used to describe a French creole song and, in Trinidad, kaiso seems to have been perfected by the chantwells during the first half of the 19th century. The chantwells, assisted by alternating in call-and-response style with a chorus, were a central component of the practice called Calinda (stick-fighting).
A bélé is a folk dance and music from Dominica, St. Lucia, Martinique, Haiti, Grenada, Guadeloupe, and Trinidad and Tobago. It may be the oldest Creole dance of the creole French West Indian Islands, and it strongly reflects influences from African fertility dances. It is performed most commonly during full moon evenings, or sometimes during funeral wakes. The dance is also popular in Saint Lucia. In Tobago, it is thought to have been performed by women of the planter class at social events in the planters' great houses, and the dress and dance style copied by the enslaved people who worked in or around these houses.
The shak-shak is a kind of Antillean musical instrument, similar to maracas or shakers. They are played in Barbados, Montserrat, Grenada and elsewhere in the Caribbean. Their uses include Montserratian string bands and the Barbadian crop over festival.
Jing Ping is a kind of folk music originated on the slave plantations of Dominica, also known colloquially as an accordion band. Dominican folk music, jing ping bands accompany a circle dance called the flirtation, as well as the Dominican quadrille.
Chanté mas and Lapo kabrit is a form of Carnival music of Dominica. It is performed by masquerading partygoers in a two-day parade, with a lead vocalist (chantwèl), who is followed by the responsorial chorus (lavwa), with drummers and dancers dancing backwards in front of the drummer on a tambou lélé. The Carnival has African and French roots and is otherwise known as Mas Dominik, the most original Carnival in the Caribbean.
In French Caribbean culture, especially of the Lesser Antilles, the term kwadril is a Creole term referring to a folk dance derived from the quadrille.
The Southern Caribbean is a group of islands that neighbor mainland South America in the West Indies. Saint Lucia lies to the north of the region, Barbados in the east, Trinidad and Tobago at its southernmost point, and Aruba at the most westerly section.
The Caribbean bioregion is a biogeographic region that includes the islands of the Caribbean Sea and nearby Atlantic islands, which share a fauna, flora and mycobiota distinct from surrounding bioregions.
The Caribbean is a subregion of the Americas that includes the Caribbean Sea and its islands, some of which are surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some of which border both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean; the nearby coastal areas on the mainland are sometimes also included in the region. The region is south-east of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern America, east of Central America, and north of South America.
