Friday, July 4, 2014
Module 2
This music is that of the Afro-Cuban decent and is called son. This piece is called "Aquella Boca" and is recorded by a very popular group from the 1920s called Sexteto Habanero. The son is a type of music that originated in the Cuban province of Oriente and then eventually spread to other areas. The typical instrumentation of the son is the guitar, tres, claves, bongos, marimbula, botija, and maracas. The rhythmic pattern that is played is called the guajeo.
While this type of music is native to Cuba, its influence has spread to other forms of Latin music over the years and has drawn influence from African music that was brought to the Caribbean during the years of the slave trade. As Wade (2013) suggests, there are four basic classifications that instruments can be put into based on how the sound is produced; idiophone, membranophone, chordophone, and aerophone. The instruments used in the son are primarily percussion and string instruments and can be placed into the idiophone, membranophone, and chordophone classifications. There are not any aerophones (wind is used to produce sound) in this early form of son music. Later versions of son incorporate brass instruments which would be considered aerophones.
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The vocals here are quite interesting to me. While it is clear from the pictures that all the members are male, the timbre of upper voice is high enough that it makes one wonder if it is a male or female. I realize that this could be distorted somewhat due to the age of the recording. The vocal harmony used is almost all parallel 3rds, with a similar sound to the corrido and mariachi examples we just had in our listening CDs.
ReplyDeleteJenna,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed listening to your shared video. I agree with Steve that the harmonies do sound similar to the mariachi and corrido examples from the text. I think the percussion techniques are very interesting as well. The percussion instruments play relatively simple patterns, but the Cuban feel is very present. Towards the end of the song, there was a part that sounded a little bit Italian to me, which was surprising! It's so amazing how all of these different styles influence each other in some way or another.
Yes, Steve and Joanna, son jaliscience and son jarocho are derivatives of this music, as is salsa, so it makes sense that you are hearing the similarities. This rhythm pattern is new to me, Jenna - thanks for providing this background information in addition to stating the required elements.
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