An ocarina is a “vessel flute” that appears in many parts of the world, but is especially central to music in South America’s Andean mountains. There are many variations, but generally an ocarina is has a small space that traps air, a mouthpiece that enables a musician to blow into the enclosed space, and a number of finger holes for the musician to use to change the tone.
COUNTRY: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
KEY GENRES: Many Andean genres
A tambora is a bass drum that appears in various forms in various parts of Latin America. It is usually a double-headed drum, sometimes carried and sometimes fixed on a stand, sometimes with cymbals attached to provide for varying types of sound.
COUNTRY: Colombia, Dominican Republic, Peru
KEY GENRES: Cumbia, Merengue, Vallenato
There really is no “Amazonian” genre of music–the Amazon is the second longest river in the world and a substantial diversity of people live along its banks and in the forests around it–however, most of the indigenous people who live near the Amazon, make music that finds similar inspiration in nature. For example, the Ticuma, the most populous indigenous group in the Amazon region, celebrate life events with days of dancing accompanied by locally made flutes, rattles made of seeds and a long hollowed log-drum called a “maguaré.” The Yanomami are not known to have a tradition of using instruments to accompany their singing, but since outside visitors introduced flutes they have started making wind instruments out of bamboo or animal bones. Mongabay.com introduces us to the Amazon and some of the people that live around it.
COUNTRY: Brazil, Colombia, Peru
KEY INSTRUMENTS: A capella, hand drums, Flutes
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Porro began as a variant of Cumbia but has developed into a distinct form of music and dance. The style originated as folk music from Colombia’s Caribbean region but has developed into a public and celebratory music and couple/ballroom dance. Some of the most energizing porro ensembles are composed of brass, brass and more brass–trumpets, trombones and tubas aplenty.
COUNTRY: Colombia
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Bombo, Clarinet, Gaita flutes, Snare drum, Trombone, Trumpet, Tuba
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Champeta–also known as “Creole Therapy”–is an highly danceable genre of Afro-Colombian music that finds its inspiration in the historical struggle between the Afro-Colombian population and Colombia’s European-descended upper classes. In the 1960s and ’70s Colombians facing poverty in and around the city of Cartagena blended African rhythms with Caribbean dance music and played this music–LOUDLY!–through speakers known as “picós” in public dance parties. These parties, which also came to be known as picós, served as an emotional release for struggling Colombians, who referred to the music played there–called “champeta” as a reference to the champeta machete used by workers in the fields–as “Creole Therapy.” The ruling class of Cartegena initially attempted to ban picós and critics have labeled champeta as “aggressive” and “tastless,” but Colombia’s youth continue to embrace the genre, alongside related Caribbean genres such as Reggaeton, as a form of class-conscious artistic expression. Learn more: “The Sound of Cultural Struggle.”
COUNTRY: Colombia
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Bass, Congas, Drum kit, Guitar, Synthesizer
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A guacharaca is a Native American percussion instrument originated by the Tairona people of Colombia that has come to be part of contemporary Colombian genres like cumbia and vallenato. The instrument is fashioned from the ridged trunk of a small palm tree and is played with a hard wire fork attached to a wooden handle.
COUNTRYColombia
KEY GENRESCumbia, Vallenato
A bandola is a stringed instrument with a pear-shaped body that’s a close cousin of the mandolin and is a staple instrument in the South American countries of Colombia and Venezuela. A mandolin player can convert that instruments to one of the three kinds of bandola, a “bandola oriental,” by manipulating the bridge and adding four nylon strings to the mandolin’s customary four. See the other two kinds of bandola in action: the four-stringed bandola llanera, and the bandola andina colombiana, which can have a variety of configurations of strings.
COUNTRY Colombia, Venezuela
KEY GENRES: Joropo
The quena is a traditional bamboo or wooden flute used in many kinds of music found in the Andean mountains. A common quena has six finger holes and one hole for the thumb. The musician controls the airflow with both his or her mouth and fingers, creating a naturally rich tone.
COUNTRY: Andes (Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela)
KEY GENRES: Cumbia (Andean Cumbia), Nueva Cancion
FEATURED ON: Niño Colla (AATW: Latin America), Tambobambino (AATW: Latin America)
[Information about the tiple coming soon.]
COUNTRY: Colombia
The charango, a small, high pitched Bolivian/Andean stringed instrument that traditionally was made from the shell of an armadillo, is a staple instrument of Andean music. The charango first appeared in South America in the 1800s, though its exact origin is unclear. Was it a descendant of the vihuela, which the Spanish brought with them when they colonized? Did indigenous musicians who had learned to play Spanish vihuelas and guitars create such a small instrument in order to be able to hide it when Spanish authorities prohibited them from performing their own music? Whatever its origins, the charango’s bright sound has become a characteristic of several Andean genres, like Andean Cumbia, Huayno and Pasillo
COUNTRY: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
KEY GENRES: Cumbia (Andean Cumbia), Huayno, Pasillo
FEATURED ON: Niño Colla (AATW: Latin America), Tambobambino (AATW: Latin America)
