Argentinian music
The Argentine music is nourished by influences of several cultures. Although the majority of the country's residents are of European descent, Caribbean and black African influences have also been introduced into styles such as tango . The music of the indigenous people has also influenced numerous dances and song forms.
Aboriginal music
The music of the indigenous people of Argentina is comparatively little known, but it is still played and sung in the various Indian communities. The styles are very different among the various groups. A few singers and groups (especially the Mapuche of the southern Andes and the Kolla in the northwest) are also commercially active, especially since the mid-1990s there has been a revival of traditional pre-Columbian music, whereby the simpler production of sound carriers (e.g. by means of CD burners ) supported this trend.
Northwest Argentina
The music of the highland Indians from northwest Argentina has left a lasting influence on today's folklore music in the region. It differs only slightly from the traditional highland music of Bolivia and Peru .
String instruments were not known until the arrival of the Spaniards, instead the music is limited to wind and rhythm instruments. Many modern folk groups play pieces of music from the Indian traditions with mixed Spanish instruments, e.g. B. with guitar and charango , while other bands, the so-called bandas de sikuris , limit themselves to reproducing these pieces as faithfully as possible. Most forms of music are dance styles that were used to conjure up traditional deities such as the pachamama . A particularly different style is the copla , which also lives on in the folklore movement: a slow chant similar to a recitative, accompanied only by a drum.
The overtone melody is characteristic of the entire region : the melodies and chords consist of the overtones of a fundamental.
Patagonia
Even the music of the Mapuche from the southern Andes, whose culture later spread throughout Patagonia, has no pre-colonial stringed instruments. In the past, the single-string musical bow kunkullkawe (cunculcahue) was crossed with a second bow. In addition to singing, wind and percussion instruments now play a key role. The Trutruca is known , an alphorn-like instrument from the Colihue tree trunk. The Pifilka is also an aerophone, but with its bright sound it takes on melody tasks. The instrument was originally made from human bones, in particular from the skeletons of fallen enemy warriors; however, today it is made of wood. The most important rhythm instrument is the Kultrún , a kind of wooden drum , which is particularly important in the music of the shamans, in which it is assigned healing functions. The Kultrún is often painted with blood ; it is thereby associated with war and violence as well as with female fertility (associated with menstruation ). In addition, the cascahilla , connected bronze bells , is important in the dances.
As with many other animist groups, music has a religious meaning among the Mapuche. It plays a role especially in the celebrations that are held once a year. These contain both rhythmic dances and religious chants, the tailes , which are performed a cappella .
Among today's Mapuche artists, singers Beatriz Pichi Malén , Luisa Calcumil and Juan Namuncura stand out.
Northeast
In the northeast of Argentina the most important Indian groups are the Toba , Wichí and Guaraní .
The Toba cultivate repetitive music, which consists of constantly repeating elements and has a ritual character. Chants performed by choirs play a major role and are accompanied by percussion instruments made from pumpkins, the tapaga ; there is also a single-stringed, bow-struck box lute called nowikw , which belongs to the type of West African ngonis , and the drum patequi . The music of the Tobas, which today is hardly known outside of the tribal community , was brought back into the folklore scene , especially through Mercedes Sosa , who reinterpreted isolated chants of Toba music, and through the Tonolec group , who mixed them with electronic elements brought in.
The Guaraní's music is also largely repetitive and is based on just a single chord and a simple binary clock system. At ritual music events there is a strict division of roles, so the shaman takes over the singing and is accompanied by the women at octave intervals. The men take on recitative interludes and beat rhythm instruments such as the maraka (rattle) and the ywira'i , a long stick. The children are also involved in the events, they dance and beat the takuapú , a rhythm instrument made from a long bamboo stick. There is also a type of pan flute and a simple recorder , the mimby . Far better known than this original music, however, is the chamamé , which arose from the guaraní rhythms and the European polka in the colonial era.
The Wichí, on the other hand, have almost completely lost their autochthonous music after they were Christianized by missionaries in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A group of young Wichi called Sacham , accompanied by the musicologist Sergio Aschero, tries to revive the musical traditions.
Art music
After gaining independence in 1816, a music scene slowly began to develop in Argentina that was still heavily influenced by Europe. Initially, the Iluminismo , a movement that particularly emphasized the national symbols, dominated the entire culture and thus also the music. In the first half of the 19th century, the national anthem of Argentina, the Canción Patriótica , which stylistically belongs to the late classical period, was created. It was composed by Blas Parera , a Spaniard who emigrated to Argentina in his youth.
It was only after the beginning of the 20th century that a well-known art music scene developed, especially in Buenos Aires. Its best-known representative was Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983), who in his early works (what he himself called “objective and subjective nationalistic periods”) initially combined European currents with Argentine folk music, but later switched to Expressionism . Although he has composed numerous concerts and other lengthy works, his most famous work became the short toccata when it was covered by the rock group Emerson, Lake & Palmer .
Another famous composer is Mauricio Kagel (1931–2008), who is mostly attributed to the German music scene, since he moved to Germany in 1957. Kagel, who was particularly active in modern music theater and wrote numerous politically influenced works, is one of the most important composers of new music in the second half of the 20th century.
At the intersection between classical and popular music is Lalo Schifrin , who is best known as a composer of film and television music. He penned the theme of the television series Kobra, Take Over (also heard in the Mission: Impossible trilogy). Schifrin makes use of both classical and jazz influences in his works .
The best-known interpreters of contemporary classical music are the pianist Martha Argerich , who despite her well-known aversion to publicity, won several Grammys , the opera singer Marcelo Álvarez , one of the most famous tenors at the turn of the millennium, the conductor Daniel Barenboim and the chamber music ensemble Camerata Bariloche .
Martín Palmeri (* 1965) combines European church music with Tango Nuevo and has been a frequent guest in Europe as the conductor of his works since 2005.
folklore
Main article: Folklore (Argentina)
Folklore or música popular are a number of styles of folk music in Argentina that have been influenced in particular by Spanish, but also by Eastern European music. Three main styles have emerged over the centuries: on the one hand the Andean folklore of the west and northwest, which is comparable to the folk music of Bolivia , Peru and Chile and also contains Indian elements, and on the other hand the folklore music of the Pampa region, which includes a series of dances which are very similar to Spanish folk music, and the folklore of the littoral, the most famous exponent of which is the chamamé and which have been particularly influenced by the Eastern European musical traditions.
Folklore is still very popular, especially in small and medium-sized towns and in the country. Festivals of this type of music, for example in Cosquín ( Cordoba Province ), Cafayate ( Salta ) and Humahuaca ( Jujuy ) attract thousands of visitors, and in the big cities too, peñas , restaurants or bars with live music, are frequented by all age groups . Among the countless folklore groups there are also numerous ensembles that modernize folk music by creating a rocky flair with electric musical instruments .
The folklore of the pampas is strongly linked to the gaucho tradition. Gaucho-typical art forms such as the Payada (an impromptu rhyme) and the Zapateo (a kind of Schuhplattler ) have inseparably mixed with dance styles such as the Zamba and the Chacarera . The gauchos typically speak short payadas lasting less than a minute, only to be followed by a zamba or chacarera and make way for the next gaucho. Even if the gaucho no longer exists as a profession, its cultural traditions and thus also the music are still alive in the rural population. Musical instruments of this folklore form are the bombo , a large drum covered with a cowhide, the guitar and the charango , a mandolin-like stringed instrument; the violin and harmonica are also less common .
Andean folklore is a typical mestizo form of music: it includes Indian, European and black African elements. The type of music popular in Argentina differs only in details from the style widespread in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and northern Chile. It is characterized by a large variety of woodwinds, including numerous types of flutes such as the quena , which gets its typical sound through overblowing. Together with the pan flute (Sicus), the quena is the most widely used melody instrument in Andean folklore and therefore gives it its typical sound. Furthermore, the rhythm of these styles is often very varied and sophisticated, especially in dances with clear black African influences such as the Saya . Another characteristic element is the overtone melody , in which the melodies mainly consist of the overtones of a fundamental, as well as partly pentatonic (five- tone scale).
The folklore of the littoral is also part of the mestizo music. It combines Eastern European and Indian elements. The best known styles are polka correntina and chamamé , both derived from polka . The line-up consists of a double bass (in the newer versions an electric bass ) and an accordion , the guitar is less present, while newer groups often have a keyboard or synthesizer.
Urban styles of music
Some cities in Argentina have produced their own styles of music that are still popular today. The best-known direction is the tango from Buenos Aires (or the entire coastal region of the Río de la Plata ), there is also the Trova Rosarina from Rosario and the Cuarteto from Córdoba .
tango
Tango originated in the coastal cities of the Río de la Plata, especially in Buenos Aires, but also in Montevideo, Uruguay, as well as in La Plata and Rosario towards the end of the 19th century. The music is a mixture of Caribbean (especially the Cuban Habanera ), Black African ( Candombe ) and European elements, whose special characteristic is the rhythm, which is characterized by numerous syncopations , the tempo of which can vary greatly within the individual pieces. At first, dance was frowned upon by the upper and middle classes, until it became a fad in Europe around 1900 and then became popular again in Argentina.
In the years 1915 to 1940 the tango was by far the most popular form of music in the La Plata area. Singers like Carlos Gardel became folk idols who are idolized by their fans to this day. After the Second World War, however, the tango lost its popularity until the new guards of Tango Nuevo breathed fresh life into it and combined it with elements of jazz and classical art music. The best known composer of this form is Astor Piazzolla .
Tango has also been combined with rock music since the 1980s and with electronic dance music since the 1990s . Electrotango became a fad especially around 2001/02, which was also popular with younger Argentines.
Today tango is particularly popular in film music , especially in works that have the city of Buenos Aires as their theme. Otherwise it has almost lost its status as a folk culture: compared to other styles of music, only a few bars in Argentina's major cities play tango live today, including many with a decidedly tourist background. However, there are a few tango discos, which are mainly frequented by older Argentines and mainly play the classic tangos from the first half of the 20th century. The same target group also consumes the Tango radio programs, which are still quite popular. Since 1996 there has also been a Tango television channel.
Trova Rosarina
Far less known than the tango is the Trova Rosarina, a music style that originated in Rosario in the late 1970s from the Canto Popular Rosarino and is mainly based on rock music, but also on folklore, jazz and tango. It was cultivated by a group of songwriters who worked closely together and often performed together. The style was named after the medieval forms of singing that were cultivated by court singers, the so-called troubadours (see also Nueva Trova ).
The style was initially represented by a small group of musicians, the most famous of which are Juan Carlos Baglietto and Fito Páez . Later, several bands that followed a similar mixture were also given this term. After the late 1980s, the style was not forgotten, but its popularity declined. However, he influenced Argentine rock music to this day. Fito Páez, in particular, is now more labeled with the rock music label than with the Trova Rosarina.
Cuarteto
The cuarteto, which developed between 1940 and 1980 in Cordoba, occupies a special position in the Argentine music scene. It is a fast dance based on a simple piano riff (the so-called tunga-tunga ) and originally arose from a synthesis of European folk dances (particularly Paso Doble and Tarantella ), but also took numerous elements from Caribbean musical styles such as the over the decades Merengue and rock music. It got the name Cuarteto (Spanish for quartet ) from its original line-up: piano , double bass , violin and accordion, but today numerous wind instruments as well as electric guitar, synthesizer and keyboards are used.
In the early days, the cuarteto was the music style of the poor on the then still rural periphery of Córdoba. With the rise of Carlos Jiménez , who is probably the most famous cuarteto interpreter to this day, from the 1970s, however, he soon became popular with the population of the more centrally located districts and the middle and upper classes, even if the cuarteto is still deepest in the Working class is rooted. Jiménez was also the first to use wind instruments at his concerts, thus laying the foundation for the “Caribbeanization” of the style, which eventually led to the cuarteto merenguero or merengueto .
Since the early 1990s, the cuarteto has also become popular in other regions of Argentina, since performers like Rodrigo mixed it with pop music and modernized the sound. Nevertheless, the style of music is still the most popular in Córdoba, where several bailes , mass events with live music take place every week , as well as in the neighboring provinces of Catamarca, Tucumán and La Rioja.
Rock and pop music
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Main article: Argentine rock and pop music
A diverse rock and pop music scene has developed in Argentina since the 1960s. Today the culture of the rock nacional is one of the predominant youth cultures.
Classic rock and blues rock
The rock scene in Argentina emerged around 1967, especially in the cities of Buenos Aires and Rosario. There, influenced by the USA, a youth culture had developed that emulated the ideals of the hippies and thus protested against the right-wing extremist policy of the military dictatorship (1966–73). After Anglo-American rock music was initially consumed, local rock groups such as Los Gatos increasingly appeared on the scene in the late 1960s . The first heyday between 1969 and 1976 was followed by the next military dictatorship in 1976-83 , which proceeded even more repressively against the rock scene and thus drove numerous musicians into exile. Others, like Charly García , who is often referred to as Argentina's most famous rock musician, gained great popularity during this period. Only after democratization in 1983 was the rock scene able to expand unhindered and also to become a successful commercial music movement.
Classic chord schemes and melodies, often influenced by the blues, dominate the rock nacional of Argentina to this day. Groups like Pappo's Blues , Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota , Los Ratones Paranóicos , Divididos and Viejas Locas attract tens of thousands to their shows. In the 1990s rock rolinga became a success, supplementing the sound with simple texts describing the lives of the poor young people and taking up the influence of the Rolling Stones in particular .
Heavy metal, punk and alternative rock
Alternative styles of rock music have had a comparatively difficult time finding an audience in Argentina. Thus, especially after the democratization in 1983, numerous heavy metal groups emerged, of which only a few became commercially successful. The sound of these bands - the best known are Rata Blanca and Almafuerte - can hardly be distinguished from the groups with American influences, although some bands occasionally took up folklore elements. The development in metal-influenced independent directions such as grunge , crossover and nu metal , whose local exponents have only attracted a limited audience to this day, was also very restrained . In the late 1980s, some hardcore groups such as Minoría Activa , DAJ , and Otra Salida emerged in the Argentinean underground ; and these styles quickly became popular among young people in the early 1990s, but the majority were limited to consuming Anglo-American productions.
The development of punk rock was somewhat more successful . The first bands appeared as early as the 1970s and were mainly influenced by the pop style of the Ramones . The punk scene experienced a major boom in the 1990s, when some groups such as Attaque 77 and 2 Minutos were able to rise to the top division of Argentine rock bands. Even if punk rock has so far not come close to classic rock in terms of sales, these bands have been able to establish themselves permanently in the scene.
At the turn of the millennium, the alternative pop / rock band Babasónicos was probably the most successful outside of Argentina.
Reggae, Ska and Latin Rock
In the second half of the 1980s, Jamaican styles such as reggae , rocksteady and ska, and to a lesser extent dancehall, also became popular in Argentina. The pioneer was the Italian-Argentine band Sumo , which presented reggae in a local guise at the beginning of the decade. In the beginning, the bands tried to copy the sound of the original reggae. It was not until around 1990 that an independent development began, influenced by foreign groups such as Mano Negra , which mixed reggae in particular with Latin American styles (e.g. merengue and cumbia ). Another group of bands combined the sound with punk rock. This eventually led to a very diverse scene, which also includes so-called Latin rock , as many bands did not commit to one style, but experimented in different directions.
Today the reggae scene in Argentina has consolidated. Numerous bands such as Los Cafres , Los Pericos , Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and Karamelo Santo have regular chart successes. Unlike most rock bands, several reggae bands in Argentina have also become known to a niche audience in Europe.
pop music
Pop music in the narrower sense can be roughly divided into two groups: on the one hand in the styles that were influenced by Europe and North America, on the other hand in the so-called boleros , a typically Latin American style.
North American-style pop became popular in Argentina as early as the 1970s. It was the only style of music among rock and pop styles that was tolerated by the military dictatorships. The disco sound in particular and later synth pop dominated the discos for a long time; local bands like Virus and Duo Pimpinela were also able to rise to stars. In the field of tension between pop and rock was the band Soda Stereo , which rose to become one of the most famous bands in South America in the 1980s with their poetic lyrics and sound influenced by psychedelic rock . In the 1990s things got a little quieter in this direction, until a new wave of interpreters like Adicta and Miranda towards the end of the decade ! breathed new life into pop.
If these bands were and are part of the “alternative” scene, Latin American pop in the style of the boleros, on the other hand, is a style with a very massive audience that older Argentinians also consume. On the one hand, these are slower, sentimental titles that were influenced by both American pop and classic bolero , and on the other, faster dance-oriented genres. Well-known performers are Diego Torres and Emanuel Ortega .
Since the 1990s, so-called teen pop has also produced its own bands in Argentina, many of which have their origin in TV series and casting shows . Her style is a mixture of classic Anglo-American teen pop, influenced by dance and funk, and local elements, and boleros are also often found in her repertoire. Well-known exponents are Erreway and Bandana .
Electronic music
The house music scene came to Argentina in the late 1980s, shortly after the acid house wave hit. At that time the band The Sacados was quite popular. However, it was not until 1993, with the emergence of the dance floor wave, that genres of this type could become permanently established. One of the most famous DJs in the early stages was DJ Dero , who made a name for himself with a fusion of tribal house and dance elements. The Argentinean techno and house scene slowly emerged around the Oval clubs in Buenos Aires and El Sol in Villa Allende (Córdoba). At the same time, bands like Klaus John's started experimenting with alternative ambient and trip-hop sounds, so that the scene soon became very diverse.
The most famous DJs and producers around the mid-1990s were Diego Ro-K , Aldo Haydar , Carlos Alfonsín and the collective Urban Groove . Shortly afterwards, the rise of Hernán Cattáneo from Buenos Aires began , who was able to establish himself in the global scene towards the end of the decade and is one of the most popular Progressive House DJs today ; it was voted number 6 by readers of the prestigious DJ Magazine in 2004. The DJ Martín García , who worked with Cattáneo, also became internationally successful from the beginning of the 21st century.
Today the scene in the big cities is very active and diverse. In addition to the well-known artists, there are more experimental projects such as Altocamet , Escobar and Zort . One of the latest developments, starting around 2005, is the emergence of a mash-up scene that creates its own sound from electronic elements, cumbia villera and hip-hop . The main exponents here are Villa Diamante , Daleduro and Frikstailers .
Música Tropical
In Argentina, the variants of the Colombian cumbia are called Música Tropical , a dance style distantly related to reggae, which is now almost more popular than in its country of origin. Since the late 1970s, there has been a scene that is particularly rooted in the rural population, especially in the littoral ( Santa Fe , Entre Ríos ). In the 1990s, the music also became popular in the cities, with its own forms such as the Cumbia Romántica and the Cumbia Villera. Many of the Argentine cumbia styles are influenced by the so-called cumbia andina or chicha , the Peruvian variant of the cumbia, which is slower than the traditional cumbia and incorporates elements from Andean folklore such as the huayno , a popular form of song.
Cumbia Santafesina
In the province of Santa Fe, the cumbia was already popular in the 1970s. The musician Juan Carlos Denis founded the group Los del Bohio in 1976 , which was characterized by the fact that, in contrast to the Colombian cumbia, the guitar was the main instrument here . In the period that followed, this new form of play was mixed up with the traditional cumbia. The best-known exponents of this hybrid form are now Los Palmeras , who also introduced isolated electronic elements to the music.
Bailanta
As Bailanta is called in Buenos Aires and the cities of the littoral nightclubs where only cumbia and Cuarteto be played. These nightclubs often have live shows by bands of the styles mentioned. Around the Bailantas, today's scene of the Música Tropical developed in the 1980s, when inland migrants from eastern Argentina preferred to introduce the already very popular forms of cumbia in the cities.
Cumbia Romántica
The Cumbia Romántica is a mixture of the traditional cumbia sound with pop music. It became popular in the early 1990s when the Bailanta movement spilled over into middle-class youth. Around the style direction a separate fashion wave formed from around 1995, which was particularly influenced by the band Ráfaga . She combined old Spanish costumes with suits from the glam rock movement during her performances .
Numerous groups of the Cumbia Romántica were put together at castings and therefore had an image in large parts of the music scene that is comparable to boy groups .
Cumbia Villera
The Cumbia Villera emerged largely in response to the Cumbia Romántica in the late 1990s. The first texts dealing with the culture of the villas miserias , the culture of the slums of Argentina, came from the Amar Azul group around 1997 . Their keyboardist Pablo Lescano built the group Flor de Piedra in 1999 in order to break away completely from the cumbia romántica scene. The band combined cumbia, folk elements with techno and trance sounds; the lyrics dealt with the explicit life in the slums.
In 2000 and 2001, numerous other bands with similar ambitions emerged ( Damas Gratis , Los Pibes Chorros ), the sound became increasingly independent and electronic. From 2002 the boom decreased again somewhat. Now bands like La Base began to mix the musical structure of the Cumbia Villera with less explicit, romantic lyrics. This trend continued in the middle of the decade with Néstor en Bloque and Agrupación Marilyn . Today a further commercially oriented pop music style has developed from this former protest music.
literature
- Donald S. Castro: The Argentine Tango as Social History, 1880-1950. The Soul of the People. Edwin Mellen Research University Press, San Francisco CA 1991, ISBN 0-7734-9923-7 .
- LA Lloyd: Dances of Argentina. Max Parrish, London 1948.
- Victor Gesualdo: Breve Historia de la música argentina. Yenny, Buenos Aires 1999, ISBN 950-620-129-3 .
- Pablo Alabarces and others: Entre Gatos y Violadores. El rock nacional en la cultura argentina (= Colección Signos y Cultura 3). Colihue, Buenos Aires 1993, ISBN 950-581-243-4 .
- Fernando D'Addario among others: Música Argentina. La mirada de los críticos (= Libros del Rioja. Ensayos. ). Universidad de Buenos Aires - Centro Cultural Rector Ricardo Rojas, Buenos Aires 2005, ISBN 987-1075-47-2 (anthology).
credentials
- ↑ Música Mapuche, at Cruzada Patagónica ( Memento of the original from October 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Spanish)
- ↑ Mapuche culture ( Memento of the original from November 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Spanish)
- ↑ Asociación Toba ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Enciclopedia de Misiones ( Memento of the original of September 4, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Argentinian school portal on Guaraní music
- ↑ side of Sergio Aschero
- ^ Douglas A. Lee: Masterworks of 20th Century Music. The Modern Repertory of the Symphony Orchestra. Routledge, New York NY et al. 2002, ISBN 0-415-93846-5 , p. 169.
- ↑ La Gaceta via the Trova ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ La Trova Rosarina marcó una época ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , La Razón
- ↑ - ( Memento of the original from February 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ DJ Mag Top 100 2004
Web links
- Short report on the new music scene in Argentina, by Daniel Varela and Marcelo Aguirre
- Música Clásica Argentina , database of classical Argentinian music, with composers and works (Spanish)
- Brief outline of the Argentine folklore
- Argentine Tango Portal
- Tango database (Spanish)
- Directory of Traditional Argentine Instruments (Spanish)
- Classification of Argentine Traditional Musical Instruments (Spanish)
- Directory of Argentine Indian cultures, with descriptions of the music (Spanish)