Joropo is an ever-evolving style of folk music and dance found in Venezuela that fuses strains of music from the nation’s African and European past to form a distinctly Venezuelan música criolla (“creole” music). Colombian-Venezuelan musician Claudia Calderon’s website offers an introduction to joropo and provides excerpts of different styles of joropo music.
COUNTRY: Venezuela
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Bandola, Cuatro, Harp (arpa llanera), Maracas
[mappress mapid=”16″ center=”-8, -60″ zoom=”3″]
Guaracha is a form of music with bawdy lyrics originally meant to accompany dances that blended Spanish and African moves. The guaracha appeared first in Spain and became a staple of Cuban theater groups that toured Puerto Rico in the 1800s, which would play clever guaracha songs between acts of their performances to keep the audience entertained.
COUNTRY: Cuba, Puerto Rico (U.S.)
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Bass, Bongo, Congas, Cuatro, Guiro, Maracas, Piano, Tres, Trumpet
[mappress mapid=”16″ center=”-8, -60″ zoom=”3″]
The cuatro is a small Caribbean and South American stringed instrument that descended from the Portuguese cavaquinho. “Cuatro” means “four” and most cuatros have four strings, though the instrument is adapting to its frequent use in several genres of music, from bawdy Puerto Rican guaracha to lively Trinidadian parang.
COUNTRY: Puerto Rico (U.S.), Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela
KEY GENRES: Guaracha, Joropo, Llanero, Parang, Plena
Plena, also nicknamed “el periodico cantado (“the sung newspaper”), formed as a distinct Puerto Rican musical genre in the late 1800s when sugar cane plantation laborers, manual workers and former slaves moved to the urban areas and communicated the news of the day to each other through music and dance. A plena ensemble consists of a variety of percussion instruments such as guiros, congas, timbales, maracas and panderos (small tamborines), as well as a 4-stringed Puerto Rican guitar known as a cuatro. The plena has no fixed rhythmic form, but, unlike bomba which is primarily African, weaves in a multitude of rhythms from Puerto Rico’s Spanish, African and Taino cultures. Enjoy the plena by grooving along with these gentlemen, who obviously are celebrating after having just came back from a great day together shopping at the red shirt store.
COUNTRY: Puerto Rico (U.S.)
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Accordion, Bass, Cuatro, Guiro, Pandeiro, Saxophone, Trombone
SONG ON AATW: LATIN AMERICA CD: La Luna
[mappress mapid=”16″ center=”-8, -60″ zoom=”3″]
