Music of Puerto Rico | |||||||
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The seis is a type of Puerto Rican Jíbaro dance music closely associated with the décima. It originated in the latter half of the 17th century in the southern part of Spain. The seis is influenced by Spanish, African, and Taino cultures. [1] The Arabian aspects come from Spain, where the Muslims or the Moors had ruled for over 700 years. Like other Jíbaro music, the seis is associated with Christmas, folkloric festivals, concursos de trovadores (poetry-singing contests), and other large celebrations. [2] The word means six , which may have come from the custom of having six couples perform the dance, though many more couples eventually became quite common. Men and women form separate lines down the hall or in an open place of beaten earth, one group facing the other. The lines would approach and cross each other and at prescribed intervals the dancers would tap out the rhythm with their feet. ContentsInstrumentsThe seis was made for a solo voice and accompanying instruments. [3] The melodies and harmonies are simple, usually performed on the cuatro, guitar, bongó, and güiro, although other indigenous instruments are used depending on the available musicians. Spanish instrumentation and harmonies, typically from the Andalusian region, are prominent. In the 20th century, Afro-Caribbean aspects were included through the bongó, syncopated bass, and Cuban rhythms. These were especially used in studio recordings. [4] There are different variations of the seis named after towns where they originated (for example, the seis fajardeño or seis de Fajardo), their composers (an example being the seis de Andino), the specific dance style (such as a seis chorreao), harmonic style (for example, the seis mapeyé), [5] and type of text, which is often improvised ( a prime example being the seis con décima). The seis con décima is one of the types that is not danced to and it's the slowest. The seis mapeyé or le lo lai is always in minor and the lyrics are about nostalgia. [3] Each variation has its own musical tonality and key (major or minor), making it sound happy or sad. [6] LyricsSince the 19th century, the lyrics are about migration, urbanization, love, patriotism, sociopolitics, maternal devotion, the natural beauty of the Puerto Rican countryside and other topics. [7] [4] Migration is an important theme as a massive wave of Puerto Ricans migrated to the United States between the 1920s and the 1950s. These massive migrations started after the American invasion when the economy was changed from an agriculturally-based one to one which was industrially-based, leaving many Puerto Ricans without jobs on the island. The Puerto Rican government encouraged the Puerto Ricans to migrate, especially after World War II. Most Puerto Ricans settled in New York, where Puerto Rican music was played at social clubs, especially Jíbaro music. [3] See alsoRelated Research ArticlesThe music of Latin America refers to music originating from Latin America, namely the Romance-speaking regions of the Americas south of the United States. Latin American music also incorporate the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Due to its highly syncretic nature, Latin American music encompasses a wide variety of styles, including influential genres such as cumbia, bachata, bossa nova, merengue, rumba, salsa, samba, son, and tango. During the 20th century, many styles were influenced by the music of the United States giving rise to genres such as Latin pop, rock, jazz, hip hop, and reggaeton. Puerto Ricans, most commonly known as Boricuas, and also referred to as Borinqueños,Borincanos, or Puertorros, are the people of Puerto Rico, the inhabitants and citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and their descendants, including those in mainland United States. Salsa music is a style of Latin American music, combining elements of Cuban, Puerto Rican, and American influences. Because most of the basic musical components predate the labeling of salsa, there have been many controversies regarding its origin. Most songs considered as salsa are primarily based on son montuno and son cubano, with elements of guaracha, cha-cha-chá, danzón, descarga, bolero, guajira, rumba, mambo, jazz, funk, R&B, rock, bomba, and plena. All of these elements are adapted to fit the basic Son montuno template when performed within the context of salsa. The güiro is a percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines along the notches to produce a ratchet sound. The Music of Puerto Rico has evolved as a heterogeneous and dynamic product of diverse cultural resources. The most conspicuous musical sources of Puerto Rico have primarily included African, Taino Indigenous, and European influences. Puerto Rican music culture today comprises a wide and rich variety of genres, ranging from essentially native genres such as bomba, jíbaro, seis, danza, and plena to more recent hybrid genres such as salsa, Latin trap and reggaeton. Broadly conceived, the realm of "Puerto Rican music" should naturally comprise the music culture of the millions of people of Puerto Rican descent who have lived in the United States, especially in New York City. Their music, from salsa to the boleros of Rafael Hernández, cannot be separated from the music culture of Puerto Rico itself. Hermes Davide Fastino Croatto Martinis, better known as Tony Croatto, was an Italian singer and composer best known for his interpretations of Spanish folkloric songs and music from Puerto Rico. His musical career began as part of the sibling musical group, Los TNT, with his siblings Nelly and Tim. He was also a television presenter. Florencio ("Flor") Morales Ramos, better known as Ramito, was a Puerto Rican trovador, and composer who was a native of Caguas, Puerto Rico. Fans of the genre consider him the king of Jíbaro music. Known as "El Cantor de la Montaña", Morales Ramos had two brothers, Luis ("Luisito") and Juan María ("Moralito"), who also attained major recognition as jíbaro singers. Odilio González, known by his stage name El Jibarito de Lares, is a Puerto Rican singer, guitarist and music composer who has been singing and composing for more than 65 years. He has mostly played traditional Puerto Rican folkloric music, songs dedicated to Puerto Rico's jíbaro. Danza is a musical genre that originated in Ponce, a city in southern Puerto Rico. It is a popular turn-of-the-twentieth-century ballroom dance genre slightly similar to the waltz. Both the danza and its cousin the contradanza are sequence dances, performed to a pattern, usually of squares, to music that was instrumental. Neither the contradanza nor the danza were sung genres; this is a contrast to, for example, the habanera, which was a sung genre. There is some dispute as to whether the danza was in any sense a different dance from the contradanza, or whether it was just a simplification of the name. Through the first part of the 19th century the dance and its music became steadily more creolized. The music and the dance is creolized because composers were consciously trying to integrate African and European ideas because many of the people themselves were creoles, that is, born in the Caribbean; accepting their islands as their true and only homeland. Jíbaro is a word used in Puerto Rico to refer to the countryside people who farm the land in a traditional way. The jíbaro is a self-subsistence farmer, and an iconic reflection of the Puerto Rican people. Traditional jíbaros were also farmer-salesmen who would grow enough crops to sell in the towns near their farms to purchase the bare necessities for their families, such as clothing. Haciendo Punto en Otro Son is a Nueva Trova band from Puerto Rico, founded in 1975. They recorded fourteen albums and performed in Latin America, the Caribbean and United States. The cuatro is a family of Latin American string instruments played in Colombia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and other Latin American countries. It is derived from the Spanish guitar. Although some have viola-like shapes, most cuatros resemble a small to mid-sized classical guitar. In Puerto Rico and Venezuela, the cuatro is an ensemble instrument for secular and religious music, and is played at parties and traditional gatherings. The culture of Puerto Rico is the result of a number of internal and indigenous influences, both past and present. Modern cultural manifestations showcase the island's rich history and help create an identity that is uniquely Puerto Rican - Taíno, Spanish, African, and North American.
Tropical music is a term in the Latin music industry that refers to music genres deriving from or influenced by the Spanish-speaking areas of the Caribbean. It includes the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean coastal regions of Colombia, Mexico, Central America and Venezuela. The Puerto Rican cuatro is the national instrument of Puerto Rico. It belongs to the lute family of string instruments, and is guitar-like in function, but with a shape closer to that of the violin. The word cuatro means "four", which was the total number of strings of the earliest Puerto Rican instrument known by the cuatro name. Andrés Jiménez Hernández, popularly known as "El Jíbaro", is a composer and singer of traditional Puerto Rican folk music and is that music genre's best known contemporary trovador linked to the Neofolkloric movement of the Nueva Canción. Cachi Cachi music, also spelled Kachi Kachi, Kachi-Kachi and Katchi-Katchi, is a term that was coined to refer to music played by Puerto Ricans in Hawaii, after they migrated to Hawaii in 1901. Jíbaro’s Verses were a series of poems written by an educated Puerto Rican creole known by the name Miguel Cabrera de Arecibo, published on June 20, 1820. The poems were originally written as a satirical jab at conservative mentalities in Puerto Rico, but eventually the “Jíbaro’s Verses” became some of the base works for the popularization of the legendary Jíbaro in Puerto Rican culture. Los Pleneros de la 21 is a New York City-based drum and dance ensemble that has been active since 1983. They specialize in Afro-Puerto Rican bomba and plena music and related dance forms. In addition to performing, they run a community-based, not-for-profit educational company dedicated to preserving and celebrating Puerto Rican traditional culture and "fostering the legacy and history of Puerto Rican artistic traditions of African and Creole descent." References
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