Preview

Caribbean Music and the Influence It Has on the Caribbean Music

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
757 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Caribbean Music and the Influence It Has on the Caribbean Music
African music and history of African music in the Caribbean;
Identify and list some of the common African influences/features found in Caribbean folk and popular music.

African music: music of the music of the Africa diaspora was refined and developed during the period of slavery. Slaves did not have easy access to instruments, so vocal work to on new significance. Through chants and work songs people of African descent preserved elements of their African heritage while inventing new genres of music. The culmination of this great sublimation of musical energy into vocal work can be seen in genres as disparate as Gospel music and Hip hop. The music of African diaspora makes frequent use of ostinato, a motif or phrase which is persistently repeated at the same pitch. The repeating idea maybe rhythmic pattern, part of the tune, or a complete melody. (wikipedia, 2013) The History of African music in the Caribbean : without a doubt the influence of black African music has spread worldwide and has a profound effect on music virtually everywhere. Caribbean music especially started to be influenced by the African heritage when slave trade was originally brought to the Caribbean and the Americas. There are different genres of music but the steel bands, calypso, and reggae. Listening to Caribbean music can definitely have a very positive affect on your mood. It will give you a real “good feeling” and help highlight your day. For the most part the music stemming from the Caribbean is happy, vibrant and “fun like.” The unique sound of steel drums (or pans) takes your mind straight to the Caribbean. Instantly you think of palm trees, spectacular long sandy beaches, hot sunshine days, long cool drinks and everything at your disposal to make your life easier and more tranquil. Steel pans (drums) have roots in Africa but its home is definitely in Trinidad. Steel pans evolved in the 1930’s replacing the original banned tamboo bamboo. A bamboo was originally cut to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Caribbean Crucible reading provides a summary of how music originating from the melting pot of cultures in the Caribbean evolved and developed. In turn, this foundational understanding helps reader’s understand why music originating from the area has become widespread or mainstream even though “well-under 1 percent of the world’s peoples” (1) are form the area the music originates from. The author creates this foundation by walking reader’s through how the blended cultures of dark-skinned Indians, Africans, and some Europeans merged musical styles through creolization in order to make a unique brand of music that took elements from each culture. Whether it be African polyrhythmic beats or the popular songs or dances demonstrated by Europeans,…

    • 132 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    text 6

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The purpose of this text is to try and have an influence on the way Caribbean culture is viewed…

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The beginnings of the Ska genre can be traced to the island nation of Jamaica in the mid 1950s. Initially, it was defined as “a kind of ham-fisted combination of American rhythm and blues and Caribbean folk styles, such as calypso and mento” (Selvin). This melting pot of sounds was credited to the fact that post World War II, the inhabitants of Jamaica were able to listen in on American radios due to American soldiers’ stationings. Tourism and other outside forces have always had an influence on Jamaican music, with textbooks coining that “Caribbean musics have participated in significant ways in globalized networks of music-making… that have historically emerged in response to travel in the Caribbean” (Nettl 345). With Jamaica’s music culture being accepting and adapting to outside instrumentation and styles, they were able to create a genre that appealed the to United States as well.…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In these popular areas across America, we see popular music from the carribean develop there such as merengue, salsa, and reggae, which is also listened to around the world. According to the reading, some of the expression seen in Caarribean music, preserve elements of music and dance, which brought to the region hundreds of years ago from Africa, Spain, and many other nations. Regions like Africa played a huge part with it’s influence on music in the Hispanic Carribean, including it’s popular classical culture and music traditions. The reading also explains that both regions use music to tell their strories. For examp;e telling stories that involves the issue of dominace of the european nation, cultural contact, and…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Like religion, many elements were fused together with those of the Europeans. Nonetheless, some aspects of African culture are extremely distinctive. Dances, folk tales, music, magic, and language patterns of West African culture [7] are examples of this assumption. Music, specifically, played a major role in the preservation of African culture in the New World.…

    • 2781 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Right from the beginning, the song had a noticeable blend of different styles of music, from Oriental, to folk, to southern gospel and reggae. This was further emphasized through the many different people from all over the world singing the same song in their own style or with their own instruments. From India, to Israel, to the Congo, to South Africa, the different styles and cultures were evident even in small snapshots. The mixture of different instruments, from the sarod, to guitars, to bongos, to drums, mixed with people of different ethnicities, nationalities, and languages, showed how everyone was unique but still able to connect through a…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Music is part of every culture, regardless of how different they are. The Haitian Music Industry holds a wide range of artists not many people had the chance to hear about. As a result, I decided that most music articles I’ll put out, will be about an underground Haitian artist. Hoping that one day, they will get the clout they deserve.…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mande is which is the language used in African polyrhythm music culture is a branch of Niger Cango language family. Niger Cango contains 40 languages spoken by 20 million people concentrated mostly in areas including Sengal,Gambia, and Northern and eastern sierra leona . There are much less users of Niger Cango in areas including northern areas of Ghana , togo and Benin and in southern Niger and southwestern Nigeria (Bendor-Samuel 2000). The Niger Cango language began to spread around 7000 BP. The last estimation of niger cango language is 1400, all considered separate languages and not dialacts and each language contains several dialects.This shows that niger cango is a huge language family.One of the scholars of the 20th century suggested that the niger cango language is firstly spread in the area of the niger and benue rivers.( Bendor-Samuel 2007)…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything,” quoted by Plato. Music is a way in where you can escape all things in life. It’s like your exit out of all matters. You play it when you’re mad, sad, happy, or just simply need a little uplifting. There are different genres of music. You have pop, rock, classical, R&B, hip hop, contemporary gospel, jazz, blues, and much more. However, gospel has been transformed throughout time. Stated by Dr. William Reynolds, “Christian song is never static, never quite the same from one generation to another” (Doucette 6). It’s common for each generation following the next to change the sound of how a song was…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The most used african american core value carried from africa is oral tradition. Oral traditions were used many years ago, such as songs. Songs were song amongst African Americans ans passed down to family members and children. Modern oral tradtion today is music. According to Dr. Giddings “conventions include rhyming, repetition, tonal techniques, phrase and concept…

    • 1260 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    often hidden. An example is in the song "Gospel Train" with the lyrics, "Get on…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Historian of African Americans stated that, “African American involvement in the nation’s music making has influenced every genre of American music,”(Brooks). Slaves cultivated their own style of music.…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cited: Time Period: Early 17th Century to Modern DAy. (2007, March 31). Retrieved April 14, 2013, from Cultural Diffusion of African Music into American Music from the Time of the Slave Trade: http://www.writework.com/essay/cultural-dif…

    • 2439 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    African American Culture

    • 1998 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The impact of West Indian slavery on the cultural landscape of the Caribbean cannot be under estimated or taken for granted. In the entire discourse on West Indian slavery, it is often taken for granted that the discussion centers solely on enslaved Africans. However, slavery brought to the region not only African but Europeans (Spaniards, French and British) and consequent to its abolition, there was the advent of the east Indians. We see the impact of their influence in the names of places; the foods we eat; our music and dance; our arts and craft, gender and sexuality. As these and other anecdotal evidences are examined and the academic contributions of others are analysed, Caribbean culture will be clearly defined and its origin established. Slavery and its attending impact upon Caribbean culture have been both positive and negative as remnants of the social/class system of the “plantocracy” linger and take deeper root in the Caribbean community, in general and the Jamaican landscape, in particular.…

    • 1998 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Music and literature have always helped shape civilization. People have always written and sang about the times. Socio-political conditions have always had strong effects on people. This is especially so with African Americans. African Americans have been through some rough times, dating back to when they were torn from their homeland of Africa to become slaves, all the way up until the present where African Americans are still somewhat oppressed in some areas. However, many African Americans found music and literature as an escape. These medias allowed them to express themselves and say what was in their hearts in minds without the fear of being blasted for it. While of course throughout history there have been some things that are controversial, music and literature have become the ultimate forms of expression.…

    • 3387 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Better Essays