COUNTRY: Cuba
KEY GENRE: Conga
When you’re about to head out onto the street in Santiago de Cuba to participate in a conga comparsa during Carnival and you realize you’ve left all your customary percussion instruments at the office, you’re well within your rights to grab a frying pan and a stick and make music!
There are no frying pans in this “kiddie comparsa,” but there may as well be:
The bombo is a bass drum that appears throughout Latin America in a variety of contexts and musical styles, from Ecuadoran bomba music to Argentinian folk.
COUNTRY: Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, Uruguay
KEY GENRES: Bomba (Puerto Rican), Bomba del Chota, Conga, Murga, Porro
Timbales come in sets of two shallow, high-pitched drums, to which a percussionist often attaches other instruments like cymbals, cowbells and claves. Timbales appear in Latin musical genres from salsa to mambo to reggaeton. Sometimes a percussionist hits the top of the timbales, other time s/he keeps time hitting the sides. A little bit about the timbales, Enjoy a timbale solo, or two, or three.
COUNTRY: Cuba, Puerto Rico
KEY GENRES: Plena, Salsa
Is the bongo “the most Cuban instrument?”That’s what SalsaBlanca,com argues, and who’s to say they’re not right? The bongos, two small drums attached to one another that a percussionist can use to provide rhythmic accompaniment to most any Cuban music, originated in Cuba and became a staple drum for both changui and son. Watch the bongs in action in Cuba, and see how they fit into Havana son.
COUNTRY: Cuba, Puerto Rico (U.S.)
KEY GENRES: Salsa, Son, Salsa
The tres is a stringed instrument that is both musically and culturally significant in Cuba. The tres, whose name derives from the fact that it has three sets of two strings, plays an essential part in changui, a genre that is central to the development of Afro-Cuban music.
COUNTRY: Cuba
KEY GENRES: Changui, Son
FEATURED ON: La Colorá (AATW: Latin America)
A marimbula is a Latin/Caribbean percussion instrument that appears to be a cross between a cajon and a mbira (thumb piano). The marimbula has its roots in Africa but first appeared in Latin America in Cuba in the 19th century. Musicians used the thick metal strips that are attached to its wooden front to play bass notes in a developing genre of Afro-Cuban music known as changui. The instrument spread across the region and today appears in genres of music such as Dominican merengue and Mexico’s Son Jarocho.
COUNTRY: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico
KEY GENRES: Changui, Merengue, Son Jarocho
FEATURED ON: La Guacamaya (AATW: Latin America)
The guiro is a staple percussion instrument found in many Latin-American types of music. Traditionally it is made of a hollow gourd with parallel notches cut into a side; musicians play it by scraping a wooden stick along the ridges.
COUNTRY: Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico (U.S.) and many others around the region
KEY GENRES: Plena, Salsa, Samba, Son and many more
[wpspoiler name=”Meet Afro-Cuban Rumba” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]
COUNTRY: Cuba
About the Cuban Rumba:
http://www.bailasociety.tv/public/439.cfm
Rumba:
Rumba — not to be confused with “rhumba,” which was a term that Americans used to describe Cuban music in the ’30s — began in the mid-1800s as a form of gathering and dance music performed by African-descended laborers. According to Latin Music USA, “Rumba was originally performed on everyday objects to avoid the ban on African instruments. A wine barrel was played like a drum, a wooden crate was tapped on with spoons, and the shipyard’s hardwood dowels were struck together (and became an instrument: claves).” About the rumba | Learn the 3-2 rumba claves | Learn the 2-3 rumba claves | Rumba Yambu on YouTube
[wpspoiler name=”Los Van Van perform Temba, Tumba, Timba” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]
TIMBA is upbeat dance music that developed in the 1990s as a synthesis of Cuban jazz, rock, rumba, disco and funk. It’s a”street level” form whose lyrics focus on urban issues among Cuban youth. TIMBA has a similar tempo and rhythm to salsa and uses many of the same instruments, but the instruments are used somewhat differently. For example, so says Wikipedia’s entry on timba, “Salsa bassists have standardized on bombo-ponche bass tumbao. This is sometimes used in TIMBA, but much more often a clave-aligned tumbao is used, and it is often specific to the song in question, while the bombo-ponche tumbaos of salsa, by definition, always use the same rhythm from song to song. Most importantly, TIMBA bassists stop and start their tumbaos, one of the defining aspects of timba gears. In salsa, the bass tumbao is omnipresent.” Couldn’t be clearer! Seriously, while salsa bands rarely have a drum kit with a kick drum, in timba a drum kit is essential, or at least a timbale player adds a kick drum, which s/he plays while standing. Also, TIMBA is known for “crossing the clave,” meaning that some of the instruments may be playing the 3-2 clave while others will simultaneously be playing the 2-3 (look above for an overview of clave). Scandalous. Listen to La Timba Loca for an example.
Son, which means “sound” in Spanish, powerfully forged African rhythms with instruments and folk melodies of Cuba’s Spanish community. Son music arose in the early 20th century, became known internationally in the ’30s and ’40’s when conjunto ensembles added instruments like conga drums to the mix, and fell from popularity when Cuban big bands playing a variety of styles began to draw tourist crowds in Havana the ’50s. Son worked its way into many other forms of Cuban music and all but disappeared as its own distinct style until about two decades ago when a group of well-known Cuban musicians recorded an album of classic Cuban music, including some son songs, called “The Buena Vista Social Club,” inspiring an international son revival.
COUNTRY: Cuba
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Bass, Bongo, Claves, Guiro, Maracas
SONG ON AATW: LATIN AMERICA CD: Los Pollitos
About Cuban son | About son conjuntos
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