At
the time of the Spanish and Portuguese
invasion of South America and
the
Caribbean five hundred years ago as many as
1500 indigenous languages
were
spoken there, matched by at least that many
forms of music. Much
of this music was vocal, commonly heard
in
religious and ceremonial
rituals. Some
cultures had no
musical instruments, yet others had
literally hundreds, including
bull-roarers
(a trumpet made from the horn of an animal,
elongated empty tree trunks
or a
conch shell) measuring from a few inches to
several feet in length;
flutes of
gold, silver, cane, human and animal bones;
skin drums made from logs,
clay or
human bodies; wooden gongs fabricated from
huge logs. The
list is nearly infinite. It is thought that
even
string instruments existed
among some of
these cultures, but this
theory remains largely
debated.
Soldiers
of fortune, missionaries and colonists from
Spain and Portugal formed
the second
wave of immigrants to South America,
beginning with Columbus' first
encounter
with the “New” World in 1492.
History
and heritage aside, this date symbolizes the
colliding of two very
unique,
richly advanced and complex worlds, which
will ultimately bring about
the demise
of the native civilizations of the Americas. Demographers
have
estimated that as many as sixty million
native Indians in the
Americas died
as a consequence of the conquest, war,
enslavement and disease of the
European
Invasion by far the largest – and completely
unrecognized - holocaust in
history. No
European nation, the Catholic
Church or the U.S.
have offered an
official apology to date.
On
the positive side, the
Iberian musical legacy includes
various forms of the ancestor of the guitar
which were known then as
guitarrillos and other European musical
instruments, specially the,
violin, and
military band instruments: trumpet,
saxophone and snare-drum.
The harp was another European
instrument
introduced to the
Andes by Irish Jesuits.
In South
America, various regional guitar-like
instruments evolved molded by the
natives
after the small guitar like instruments
brought by the European
immigrants and
colonists of the time.
The
diminutive Charango (often made from the
shell of the Armadillo) and
the Ronroco
(a larger Charango-like instrument) in the
Andes; the twelve-string
Tiple in
Colombia, the Cuatro in the plains shared by
Venezuela and Colombia;
and the
Viola Caipira and Cavaquinho of Brazil. In
Chile and Argentina, the Spanish guitar has
remained virtually intact
as the
most common musical instrument. In
the Caribbean as in South America many small
string instruments
developed too
such as the cuatro, Bordonua and Timple in
Puerto Rico and the Tres in
Cuba.
All
over Latin America, Spanish troubadour
singing and European influenced
strumming
traditions, like its stringed instruments
and language, persist to this
day, in
barely modified form. As
the
conquistadors prohibited the Indians to
perform their own indigenous
instruments
and music in hopes to acculturate them more
rapidly; as a deterrent for
the
Indians to rebel and as a way to avoid that
the Indians missed their
own ways
the Spanish quickly forced the natives to
assimilate Spanish and other
types of
European secular and religious music.
The
third wave—African slaves forced from West
Africa—also contributed
significantly to the culture, religion and
music of the Americas.
The enslavement of the African people
reached
impressive levels during
the 1700’ with the support of the European
powers of the time and the
agreement of the Roman Catholic Church. Hispanic
Roman
Catholicism allowed African culture and
music in the Americas to
continue
in ways somewhat reminiscent of the African
homeland. Call-and-response
singing was allowed to persist,
contributing to group-cohesiveness; in the
other hand African people
found their
Indian counterparts to be culturally and
musically closer to their own.
Music
among the Indians was also used to
strengthen group cohesiveness, and
was
practiced communally as an intrinsic part of
life itself. So
integral was music weaved within the life of
the
Indians
that, in Quechua, the most important
language of the Andes, a word to
designate
the concept of music did not exist. Not
only were the social functions of music
among Africans and Indians
similar, but
their dance forms were more reminiscent of
each other as well. Both
cultures
used dance and music for courtship, to
celebrate religious fairs and
festivals,
ceremonies, social events and most
importantly as a unique channel to
pass on
discourses of culture, tradition and
history.
The
African slaves and the Indians blended their
races and their music over
the
centuries to create a multitude of rhythms
inspired by the African and
Indigenous mother lands. African slaves
juxtaposed their polyrhythms
(layers of
rhythms in one song) over the indigenous
melodies. At the same time new
musical
instruments such as skin drums made from
logs (like the Andean Bombo),
musical
bows (like the Brazilian Berimbau), stringed
instruments (like the
Banjo in the
U.S.), and xylophones (like the Guatemalan
Gourds Marimba) were created
in the
New World from those that were collectively
recalled from West Africa.
These new musical forms and
instruments can
still be
discerned today. From
the mixture
of Indian, African and European bloods new
races and sentiments came
about. From
Indian and European bloods
came the Mestizo and
from the blend of
African and European the Mulatto was born. Nowadays
the
music, food, clothes, culture and
religion from the area
reflect these diversely rich heritages. Many
aspects
of each of these three and subsequent blends
survived through
the
ensuing centuries permeating the fabric of
what is identified as
Hispanic,
Latino or Latino American.
Even
after the independence wars from Spain,
France, Portugal and England in
which
the European crowns lost almost all of their
territories and colonies
in the
Americas, their influence on the culture,
music and traditions of South
America
continued well into the beginning of the
1900’s. Many
musical
forms and dances were imported into the
Americas towards the
end of the 1800’s such as the Waltz from
Austria, the Mazurka from
Hungary,
the Minuet and Bouree from France, the
Pasodoble from Spain and the
Country
Dance from England. These
musics
and their respective dances had at first
caused an scandal and raised
many
eyebrows in the European courts due to the
fact that earlier types of
music
required their dancers to barely hold hands
and bow respectively to
their dance
partner. The
newer musical forms demanded
that the couple held closer
together on an embrace or that they held
hands together for longer
periods of
time. Such
characteristics were
unseen in previous musical European forms. As
these
made their way into the Americas they were
taken at heart and
latter creolized by the locals. The
descendants of the African slaves and the
Indians aided into the
creolization of
these musics due to the fact that they
resembled more closely their own
musics
originating in the African or Native
motherlands where dances and music
were
more interacting and held couples closer.
During
the early 1900’s as Europe fell into the
tragedy of two consecutive
world wars
the Americas saw the birth of a superpower
and the beginnings of a
fourth wave
of influence. Caused
by the wars,
the political and economic crisis lasted for
over 30 years and
“civilized”
Europe suffered a social, cultural and
economic set back. These
events caused the Americas to stop importing
cultural and musical
influences from the old world and
facilitated the world balance of
power to
gravitate towards the United States. Thanks
to
its role in the second world war and latter,
by virtue of its
political-economic power and its involvement
in the Cold War, the U.S.
encumbered itself into the world dominant
ideology and emerged as the
mainstream
culture exporting society.
The
fourth wave of cultural and musical
influence took shape as the
modern-day
infusion of popular and folkloric culture
from the United States.
Some of the elements of this cultural
invasion
came
in the form of black
music (such as jazz, rock and Funk);
electric instruments, and
modernized
interpretations of North American musical
folklore by such artists as
Bob Dylan
and Joan Baez. The
wave of United
States black music and youth culture of the
sixties inspired the young
revolutionary troubadours of first Cuba and
Puerto Rico, and then Chile
and
Argentina. This
fusion became the
Nueva Trova: the anti-authoritarian
youth-music movement of the
seventies.
The
new genre of the Nueva Trova gained wide
acceptance in South America,
giving
process to the birth of yet another music
form that resembled it.
In Chile and Argentina the overthrown
democratically
elected governments
became an inspiration for a new breed of
nationalist musicians.
The vindication of all that was
native,
national and
aboriginal was the
main goal and thus the New Song Movement saw
its birth during the very
early
seventies as a product of very anti
imperialistic feelings. In the
other hand,
the New Song movement in Chile and Argentina
simply replicated the
process of
modernizing and electrifying ethnic
folkloric music, as it have been
previously
done in the United States during the Folk
Boom of the sixties. The
New Song movement became then a potent
weapon in
the struggle against
the cruel authoritarian military regimes
backed by the U.S. government
and its
anti-leftist cold war sentiment of the
time.
These
voices, mixed with the themes, sentiments
and rhythms of fading
indigenous
cultures, evolved into the electric/acoustic
“Inca-Rock” of South
American
bands such as Los Jaivas, Illapu and Charlie
Garcia, or the more
ensemble
oriented such as Inti Illimani and
Quilapayun or even the popular city
sound
bands such as Carlos Vibes and Maná who now
use these hybrid bicultural
musical
artifacts to alert enormous Latin American
stadium audiences of the
outrages
perpetrated against the rain-forest, the
plains, the highlands and its
inhabitants.
In
recent years the United States has received
a steady influx of cultural
and
musical influences from south of the Rio
Grande which have inundated
the music
industry of Latino American, South American,
Spanish Influenced, Cuban
or
Caribbean inspired music.
Newest
trends on the popular music scene of the
United States have weaved
elements from
North American pop music with elements of
Latin American music and
Spanish
musical forms to ultimately allow for the
emergence of that which is
currently
known as the Latin Music Genre. Such
artists as Santana, Ricky Martin, Jennifer
Lopez, Gloria Stefan and
Marc Anthony
share this interesting distinction. The
new Latino wave has also influenced the
world of Jazz, World Beat, New
Age and
Dance musics where the timbres of Latin
American and Andean instruments
with
their unique musical moods and blends are
mainstays of newer
inspirations as
well as obligated elements of the western
music sonic repertoire.
Today,
many
South American tribal groups are
extinct, and much of the aboriginal music, like
parts of the rain
forest, has
slowly disappeared. In place of the
silenced traditional musical expressions there
are many new ones,
themselves art
forms, attentively responding to the voices of
their cultural, social
and
economic needs. Some are joyful,
some sad or contemplative, but they are always
expressively reminiscent
of a
rich past and vibrantly young as the hopes of
their present.
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