Glst 490 - Genre Presentation

Olivia HillOct 26, 2010

Joe Arroyo – En Baranquille me

quedo

Why Salsa Music?

Interested in world music including Latin American (salsa, bachata, merengue, reggae, and reggaeton)

Love the Spanish Language

Memories of travelling in Central and South America

Enjoy Salsa Dancing

History of Salsa Music

Salsa music is a fusion of traditional African, Cuban and other Latin-American rhythms that traveled from the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico to New York during the migration period of 1940 to 1970.

In its early days, salsa music was referred to as “Afro-Cuban Jazz,” but due to poor political relations with Cuba in the 1950s, afro-cubano music became known as salsa.

Terms latin jazz and salsa are sometimes interchangeable.

Origins of Salsa

Son, Danzón, Cha cha cha, Mambo, and Tango are other syncretic music varieties fused in Cuba through Cross-fertilization.

Musicality

Like the Cuban son, salsa songs begin with a melody (songlike section) followed by a montuno (call-and-response vocals, instrumental breaks and jazzy solos).

Four main factors differentiating salsa from other latin music:

Instrumentation

The trombone carries the melody, while the rhythm is generally provided by claves, congas and timbales.

Horns are typically either two or four trumpets with at least one saxophone or trombone.

most important instrumentation in salsa is the percussion: claves, cowbells, timbales and conga.

Finding the Salsa Dance Beat

SalsaDancing

Salsa is a syncretic dance; Its movements originate in Cuban Son with influences from Mambo and Afro-Cubano dance.

Even though New York created the term "Salsa”, it did not create the dance.

Salsa is similar to Mambo in that both have a pattern of six steps danced over eight counts of music.

Salsa music and dance is governed by the clave rhythm.

Salsa is generally a spot dance.

New York vs. LA Style Salsa

North American Salsa has two major types of Salsa dance with distinct tempo differences.

Los Angeles style breaks on the first beat "On 1" and New York Style breaks on the second beat "On 2".

New York Salsa is heavily influenced by Mambo and Jazz instruments from its early growth stage.

Los Angeles style is born from more recent developments in Latin-American musical hits of the late 1980s and 90s.

Videos

Cuban Salsa

UBCO Salsa Addicts

Joe Arroyo - Yamulemao

Celia Cruz

Los Van Van

Volare

Dirty Dancing - Havana Nights

Questions?

1) If you were to pick two main roots for Salsa music, what would they be?

2) What was the name given to salsa music prior to tensions with Cuba?

3) What four percussion instruments are commonly found in salsa music?

4) Key differences in dancing New York vs LA style salsa? How do their origins differ?

References

Alba, Luis. "dancedancedance.com." The History of Salsa & other Latin dances. Web. 20 Oct 2010. <http://www.dancedancedance.com/history_of_salsa.html>.

"Find the Salsa Beat Practice Soundtrack." Addicted 2 Salsa. Web. 21 Oct 2010. <http://addicted2salsa.com/videos/lesson/the-basic-salsa-dance-beat-practice-soundtrack>.

Ilich, Tijana. "Salsa - From Cuba to New York to You." About.com: Latin Music. Web. 21 Oct 2010. http://latinmusic.about.com/od/genres/p/PRO09BASIC.html>.

"National Geographic." Salsa Music. Web. 25 Oct 2010. <http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/view/page.basic/genre/content.genre/salsa_781/en_US>.

Waxer, Lise. Situating Salsa: Global Markets and Local Meaning in Latin Popular Music. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.