Folk Music of Costa Rica

The Caribbean coast shows a strong African influence in the complex drums songs such as the sinkit. Like it is on the northerly neighbours in the Central America, the marimba is a very well-known instrument and the Costa Rican marimba music is very famous. The recent era groups such as Cantares have helped to promote Costa Rica folk music, and also the leading part of the New Costa Rican song movement.

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Costa Rica’s pre-Columbian people have made a large part of the country’s folk heritage, which include the rare musical scales, certain ceremonial songs and the ocarinas. The Guanacaste region in the Nicoya Peninsula is a home to the popular folk traditions. Also, the Atlantic coast, the African musical heritage is more that is pronounce, and the Afro-Caribbean music such as rumba, calypso and reggae are popular.

Many of the Costa Rica, old instruments such as ocarinas is being replaced by the international instrument such as the accordions and the guitars, there are still folk patterns that is outside the Guanacaste like the Talamanca (canton), Danza de los Huelos and the Boruca tribes Danza de los Diablitos.

Guanacaste is the main place for the Costa Rican folk music, during the pre-Columbian, styles such as the Danza del Sol and Danza de la Luna of the Chorotega was promoted, as well as the olden quijongo (a sing-chord bow and gourd resonator) and the native oboe, the chirimia.

The Costa Rican people never developed a major song or style that became a major part of famous music, but there have been an exception, like the Costa Rican Landscape School of painting in the 1920s. The Andean pena tradition (an international gathering of like -minded people) is strong in Costa Rica, also it is introduced by the settlers from Chile and Argentina.

In the late 1980s some of the local artists and groups became popular for having their own styles and their own materials like Jose Capmany, Café con Leche and Inconsciente Colectivo; while some of them had fans from outside Costa Rica, such as Editus, a Grammy award current jazz band. Around that time the famous Latin genre developed, chiqui-chiqui (which is a combination of merengue, cumbia and other Latin rhythms along with Afro-pop influences) as it was known, was led by bands like Los Hicos, Jaque Mate, La Pandylla, Manatial and La Banda with the well-known classic hits like the La Avispa, EI criticon, EI hula and so on and after losing its popularity around the 90s, chiqui chiqui came back and initiated itself as one of the most famous and recognizable music among the Costa Rican, and some of the Costa Rican hits is with Chiqui chiqui gender.

Hicsos EI hula hula, La Banda La Avispa, Jaque mate EI cangrejo, pandylla EI criticon, Los abejorros La fiesta, Manatial Juieta, Jaque mate EI pipiripaqo, La Pandylla A comer mamey.

During the late 90s to the present era, it has appeared that a newer local pattern is led by the Grandhi, Evolucion, Tango India, Suite Doble, Alma Bohemia, and Kadeho, and all of them have been accepted positively by the Costa Rican youths. There are also metal bands such as the Greco, Advent of Bedlam, Corpse Garden, Catarsis Incarne, and so on. The rock bands starts a new standard to CR’s music with the groups such as Time’s Forgotten, Pneuma and Sight of Emptiness that makes the really high of the albums and the concerts. Also the international community begins to take a look at the Costa Rica where the bands like Time’s Forgotten plays in BajaProg (Rock Festival) and have many of reviews in the best progressive radio, sites, and magazine.

Also, the Costa Rica has become a centre piece for the international metal concerts, the bands like Anthrax, Cannibal Corpse, Gamma Ray, Masterpaln, Kreator, Epica, Therion and Sodom have come to play in the country and also it became better in the coming of Iron Maiden back in the year 2008 with recent concert, the Costa Rica is now known for an important stop for metal bands for instance the metallic, Amon Amarth amd Megadeth. The bands also venture into the reggae and ska that is famous like Mekatelyu and Michael Livingston.

Malpais, a group arising from the Guanacaste-area is one of the central bands of the Costa Rican rock and music scene as today, combining the traditional Costa Rican folk and Latin music with the jazz and rock has met the great success in Costa Rica and its surrounding, for all the display of the rock, electronic or world music, the Latin music is now the most common music genre in some places, and visitors will find  that most Costa Ricans of several generations favour the Latin music (which is the Cuban, Mexican and Colombian).