Latin American Music

This week we listened to three Latin American pieces: "Santo Domingo" by Los Cumbiamberos de Pacheco, "Huayno" by siko band and "Tin Tin Por Tin Tin" by Joao Gilberto.

The first track, "Santo Domingo", is an example of "cumbia" style music and is a very typical style of Latin American music and may be what is generally thought of when someone thinks about Latin American style music. This style of music likely began in Columbia and has European, African and indigenous influences. Since its beginnings, cumbia has spread all over Latin America and has become a popular style of music. As drums are one of the most important aspects in this style of music, the African influence can be heard in the percussion used within the piece. Indigenous musical influences can be heard in the wood wind instruments used, namely the flute in this piece. The beat of this piece makes it very ideal for dancing, which is an extremely important element of cumbia style music. This music reminded me a lot of the samba style of music we have been learning about in class, mainly in terms of the percussion and rhythm of the piece.

The second song, "Huayno" comes from the Andes in South America. Huayno is the name given to both the style of music and the style of dance in the region. This style of music is thought to have originated in Peru and it represents a combination of traditional folk music and modern rhythms from big cities.   In this piece, and in Andean music generally, many ski panpipes are used. The panpipes in this piece play interlocking rhythms which create a melody. The style of interspersed notes between two musicians playing the panpipes in a piece is called a hocket. Percussion and guitar are also present in this song.

"Tin Tin Por Tin Tin" by Joao Gilberto is an example of classic bossa nova music. Bossa nova is a popular style of music that came out of Brazil and is closely related to samba music. Bossa nova is derived from samba music but puts more of an emphasis on the melody of the music and less emphasis on percussion. It is also influenced by jazz music. Bossa nova was developed and became popular in the 1950s and 60s. Bossa nova pieces generally include classical guitar and drums and percussion. This piece also includes a orchestral background element. Joao Gilberto is considered one of the most influential bossa nova artists. Before listening to this piece, I recognized Joao Gilberto's name from a record my parents own of his music, in collaboration with Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto on vocals. I was excited to listen to one of his own pieces as I had grown up and loved listening to his album with his wife and Getz.

I enjoyed listening to all of these pieces, but I think that I most enjoyed the music by Joao Gilberto. There is something that is so relaxing about bossa nova style music, and I think I was a little bit impartial to his music in the first place because I had grown up listening to another album of his so that piece was very nostalgic for me.

Sub-Saharan Africa

This week, we listened to three music selections from Sub-Saharan Africa. The first song is called “Atsia Suite” and it is performed by the Ewe people of Ghana. The second selection is “Choral Song” from the Congo. The last piece is called Music for Divination by the the Aka Pygmies located in the Central African Republic. All of these songs have different sounds to them but they also share some similarities even though all of the pieces come out of different countries. 

Something that I learned this past week that I found to be really cool about Sub-Saharan African music is how music and dance is used in so many different social contexts in the region, and how music and dance is an extremely crucial aspect of community. Music is not just used for entertainment purposes, it is a highly important form of tradition, spirituality and expression. 

The first piece, "Atsia Suite" seemed to by played with only metal instruments until the middle of the song when drums come in. The higher pitched instruments play the same rhythm over and over again throughout most of the piece, which is called ostinato. The lower instruments play a pattern that does not stay consistent the entire time. These instruments played on the beat through some of the song and then towards the middle began being played on off beats. It was hard for me to hear any sort of structure in this song, but there very well could have been because my ears have been trained to songs that usually stay very consistent in their rhythm. 

I really enjoyed listening to the second piece, "Choral Song". There was definitely distinct rhythm in this song, but it was only through voices. The singers chanted throughout this song in differing pitches, holding some words out lingering than others. I loved the harmonies in this song and the way that the voices blended together. 

The final piece, "Music For Divination", started out with only voices too. The singing reminded me a bit of the Tuvan throat singing we had been listening to in class mixed with yodeling. About four measures into the song, drums join in with the singers along with people clapping, making in polyphonic. I could really picture this song being performed in some kind of community setting, with lots of people joining in to sing and drum and dance. The rhythm in this song seemed to stay mostly consistent, especially when listening to the people singing and clapping. The drum rhythm seemed to maybe have little sections were it may have been improvised a little bit. 

I most enjoyed listening to "Choral Song" and "Music For Divination". I think that this is because those two songs had a more consistent rhythm than "Atsia Suite", which just seemed kind of random rhythmically to me and made it kind of hard to listen to, plus it was really long compared to the other two songs. I have really enjoyed learning about the interesting culture that makes up Sub-Saharan African music!