Overview of Music in Cuba

A huge numbers of the African slaves and European (mostly Spanish) settlers came to Cuba and brought their own form of music to the Island, the European dance and the folk music includes the zapateo, fandango, paso doble and retambico. Later, the northern European form such as minuet, gavotte, mazurka, contradanza and the waltz came among the urban whites; there were also the settlers of the Chinese indentured labourers later in the 19^th century.

source of picture: www.thecubaexperience.co.uk

Fernando Oritz, which is the first greatest Cuban folklorist that described Cuba’s musical technology as arising from the interplay (transculturation) between the African slaves settled on a large sugar plantations and Spaniards or Canary Islanders that grew tobacco on a small piece of farms. The African slaves and their offsprings made many drum instruments and preserved songs they had known in their homeland. The most significant instruments were the drums of which there were formerly about fifty different types, recently only the bongos, congas, and bata drums are frequently seen (the timbales are descended from kettle drums in Spanish military bands). Also, the significant, which are the claves, two short hardwood batons and the cajon, a wooden box, formerly made from crates. Claves are still used often, and cajons (cajones), which is use widely during the era when the drum was banned. In addition, there was also other drum instruments that were are used for African-origin religious ceremonies. The Chinese settlers contributed the corneta china (Chinese cornet), a Chinese reed instrument which is still played in the comparsas or carnival groups of Santiago de Cuba. The great contribution of the instrument to the Spanish was their guitar, but even more significant were the tradition of the European musical code and the techniques of the musical composition. Hernando de la Parra’s archives gave some of his earliest available information on Cuban music; he said that the instruments like clarinet, violin, and vihuela, were the few professional musical instruments that are played by professional musicians at that period. One of the earliest is the Ma Teodora by a freed slave, Teodora Gines of Santiago bumba crotch de Cuba who was well-known for her songs, the piece is said to be similar to the clergy European forms and 16^th century folk songs.

The Cuban music has its principals that originated from Spain and West African, but over the period it has been influenced by different genres from different countries, the important is that of France (and its colonies in the Americas) and the United States. The Cuban music has been hugely powerful in other countries.

The African accept and practice certainly influenced the music of Cuba, the polyrhythmic drumming is an essential part of the African music, as melody is part of the European music. Also, in the African tradition, drumming is always combined to song and dance, and in a particular social setting. The result of this meeting of the European and African cultures is that most Cuban well-known music is creolized. Its creolization of the Cuban life has been happening over a period, and by the 20^th century, the elements of the African belief, music and dance were well combined into a famous and folk forms.