Caribbean Music

Music of the Caribbean region differs from island to island. The Caribbean got its name from the term “Carib”, which is the name of an old Native American ethnic group. Today the region is divided into four different parts: Spanish, French, Dutch, and British Caribbean. The Spanish Caribbean consists of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic; the French Caribbean consists of Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana; the Dutch Caribbean contains Suriname, Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, St. Maarteen, and St. Eustatius; and the British Caribbean is the largest and consists of Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Bahamas, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Turks and Caicos Islands. (CLASS NOTES) The Caribbean has a variety of different instruments and genres that make up its music and dancing culture.
Caribbean music has several distinctive characteristics to both its sound and its dancing styles. Their techniques are not predetermined and the musicians improvise as they make their music. Dancers typically do not have a lot of body contact and the waist and pelvic region are the main body of center of attention. Fast rhythmic dancing is a big part of Caribbean dancing. Both music and dancing are influenced from a variety of other worldwide cultures, including African, European, and later Asian. (CLASS NOTES) Caribbean music features complex short combinations of rhythmic patterns. This is demonstrated in video ML 3475 .J88 1995 Vol. 4 : The Caribbean.
One of the most prominent instruments within Caribbean music is the large array of drums, including Steel, Conga, Timbales and Bongo Drums. All these types of drums distribute very different kinds of sounds. The steel pan, also known as a steel drum, is made from oil drums heated and hammered into an instrument with multiple pitches played with