Silver Land Ballads E-Book

Maher Asaad Baker

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 86

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Music in Argentina is true to Argentines' hearts and spirit. "Silver Land Ballads" is devoted to assessing and describing the formation and development of different kinds of folk and popular music in Argentina. Knowledge and analysis of how Indigenous, Spanish and other peoples' cultures created varieties of music related to Argentina's past and the present. From the tango of the bars of Buenos Aires at the end of the nineteenth century to the rock that proclaimed itself against dictatorship, this book will concentrate on Argentine music and its rhythms, instruments and themes. It analyses zamba, chacarera, chamamé and other folk dances and their regional and cultural characteristics. It also deals with the relations between circulation between Argentine music and trends globally, and how circulation works in both ways to give and receive inspiration. This book shows that from the origins of tango in the La Boca neighborhood in Buenos Aires to the present-day digital cumbia, Argentina sounds continue to echo in listeners' memories.

Leseprobe

Maher Asaad Baker

Silver Land Ballads

© 2024 Maher Asaad Baker

ISBN Softcover: 978-3-384-37328-1

ISBN Hardback: 978-3-384-37329-8

ISBN E-Book: 978-3-384-37330-4

This work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. The author is responsible for the contents. Any exploitation is prohibited.

Cover image designed by Freepik

Contents

Introduction

Argentine Music Origins

Folklore

Tango

Rock Nacional

Cumbia

Festivals and Celebrations

Influences and Exchanges

The Future

Disclaimer

About the Author

Introduction

Music in Argentina has energetic music that has captured and assimilated its music into Argentinian society. The majority of folk music forms that described the regional division of Argentina were located in the vast territory of this state. From the joyful notes of the Andes to the sensual notes of the Pampas one can notice that music has been the voice of Argentina a long time ago.

Regarding the people of Argentina, music is not only an art; it is that art that defines people and compels them to embrace the chronicle of their nation.

It is for that reason that Argentinian folk is about everything that people have to deal with in their lives, and has been narrating it through its melodies for years. The dances include; the sad milonga and mournful, zamba which inclines to love, chacarera—fecundate of joy and so on and the aspects of emotion it covers are love, loss of a loved one, joy and the like. The themes are based on the real life of ordinary people of Argentina mostly struggling with poverty, political strife and so on. Hence, folk songs involve people’s perception and in return provide a voice to many who can otherwise not be heard. In this respect, they preserve the image of the people with a certain rather raw naturalism that has no equal.

It thus remains a positive correlate of the rite of customs in Argentina with a bidirectional relationship. For instance, there is such a musical rhythm as the Malambo which can be characterized as rather classical and at the same time inspired – it is used in the wild and vengeful dance called the Malambo, which is performed at the folk festivals. The last elaborate event prior to the Lent season is carnival; there are magnificent dancing and music shows, that involve salsa and samba. Other fragments of religious culture also have folklore elements, e.g., Catholic processions accompanied by bagpipe and drum music. In both of these examples, the ‘novel’ or ‘Gili’ is used to create the spirit in all celebrations irrespective of its elaborateness in Argentine society. From this perspective, all these practices of folk music have at least some references to some events of some past generations and hence they are beneficial.

However, folk music in Argentina has intrinsic cultural importance; however, it benefits from institution. In Argentinean schools, music and dance are part of the learning curriculum so that children are taught education in music right from their initial years at school. Other forms of local music groups are also sung in the communities where the preserved Argentine folk music is taught to the young generation by the elders. They have the aim of maintaining really valuable types of folk music within the tendencies of globalization. Thus, the culture and tradition of the earlier generations remain in Argentina societies in as much as the songs and sounds are inherited from one generation to the other.

Argentine music can be viewed as the origin of a link for a state that is so heterogeneous. Other folk genres that have also emerged in the territory of Argentina are equally welcomed as people’s property and something impossible to ignore when talking about the incipience of the story belonging to all the Argentines.

Despite the fact that every region of Argentina has its distinctive timbre, it is possible to state that there is only one unifying thread running through the entire culture of this country – the desire to take up an instrument and begin to play on it. But songs as simple as those that emanate from the remote parts of Argentina are always considered to be part of Argentina folklore even with some of the songs origin dating back to indigenous or foreign origin. When the migrants took their instruments as well as dances to the cities, forces in the urban societies were crossbred. Argentine folk genre was, therefore, made from all these forms of music that were characteristic of the region. This has meant that through music, the diverse cultures in a country that in one way or another is very diverse has been able to find a common ground.

This is how the socio-cultural change has always impacted on the political periods in the history of Argentina in as much as folk music is concerned. The New Argentine Song of the 1960s–1980s are political protest songs contrary to the mainstream that led to the rebellion of the Argentine citizens against the military dictator. Such passionate and such powerful words turned into the songs of the fight. Regarding the present day, other political activities including poverty and human rights also provoke traditional music. Since freedom and equality are related to the people, for the most part, Argentine folk music, and social justice issues have a song.

Differences in culture and geographical characteristics of the Argentine territory contain a wealth of various types of folk songs that, firstly, are different depending on the region. Paired indigenous wind and percussion elements of Huayno music derive from the northern Sierras or Andes. Payada is marked by reciting ballads typical for gaucho cowboys of the Pampas grasslands. The Colombian immigrants brought into the northeast their cumbia dance tunes. The following are some examples showing how regional folk genres negotiate individual characteristics of the locals in Argentina. Globalization on the other hand is a force that attempts to unify musical dialects and merge them, attempts at preserving musical dialects are ways of making sure regional identity and culture are not dormant.

The omnipresence of music in daily life confirms Argentina’s status as a musical nation: tango beats in Buenos Aires streets, carnival rhythms in hot and wet provinces, and sting sounds of bagpipes in the cold vastness of the south. In this concert of which each rumor is the note, it is possible to distinguish the spirit of the Argentine people. The brief given here paints only a rudimentary picture of the culture that forms part of this kaleidoscope and is so huge. But it is that, which even refers to the Argentino style of folk music, is the ability to convey the experienced emotions – both good and bad – at a pitch higher than the linguistic. These songs remained forever preserved in the loving heart and through it closed a past that adds nutrients to the heart of Argentina.

Argentine Music Origins

The music of Argentina is such a lovely and diversified tune that has blended with different agencies of the society due to diversified periods of history. If one wants to look at the roots of Argentine music then one has to turn towards the lens to early colonial days and the meeting ground of the Euro-Indian cultures. This synthesis of these musically different sectors rendered new avenues of rendition that define Argentina's music at present. Analyzing the historical and cultural backgrounds of this kind of interaction allows obtaining information about the development of Argentina’s music and its impact on modern music.

European colonization of the area in the 16th Century brought the seeds of massive transformations to the current Argentina music. European colonizers especially the Spanish and Portuguese brought together with them musical instruments and styles that were very easily adopted by the people of the region. The guitar, violin, and harp which were formerly important musical instruments in the Americas region, began to assume new importance in the new transformation of the musical productions of the region. These European instruments, which were backed up by the new techniques, merged thus with the indigenous rhythms and melodies to produce what can be termed as the new cultural music.

From the colonial masters, therefore, came a substantial impact on the local music traditions. The Spanish and Portuguese authorities thus imposed on the Indigenous people their taste in music, which in turn were clearly articulated into tropes of formalism and aesthetic structures that would have been alien to them. These changes in the European way of doing things caused the slow assimilation of these features into the already existing indigenous ones. The fusion of the musical forms became a symbol of the rich and rather contradictory social and political context of colonialism and its effects on the arts.

Having combined both indigenous and European cultures the catholic church had an influence on the musical culture in Argentina. During colonial times the Church was one of the most important centres and sponsors of art and the main driving force behind the development of various forms of music. This they achieved through the introduction of choral music and religious compositions which were so predominant in the earlier years. Religious institutions such as churches and cathedrals also emerged as primary makers and concertizing spaces of music, that was sung in worship and festal events.

Sacred music was used for religious education as well as for entertainment. Other forms of music also emerged in Argentina: for example, the Gregorian chants, polyphonic choral works and hymns were transplanted and transformed in Argentine soil to feed into the evolution of the Argentine liturgical music genre. Through these compositions, not only did the devotees have a medium of worshiping God but, the transitioning music culture was enriched with European music assimilation thereby influencing the subsequent music culture of the region.

reciprocally, the work of imperialism reveals the interpenetration of European and Indigenous contrariness in the formation of new musical forms and genres in Argentina. Native music, oriented on the native instruments like the drum and flute and the rhythm, gradually incorporated new elements from European music like, for instance, disharmony and melodic lines. These two formed a blend that generated new musical genres that were a mix of the original cultures of the area and the colonial masters.