The Internet Travel Guide "Getting to Know Cuba"

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Music

If there is anything that reflects the Cuban mentality, it is music. Musical styles that are currently world-famous, such as rumba, mambo, cha-cha and salsa, originate from four basic elements.

The genuine rumba is one of the originally black dance styles that is celebrated in a large circle from which individual dancers come forward. Claves and drums are the only instruments used. Today's commercialized form of rumba and other fashionable dances like mambo developed when melodic instruments were included. The modern salsa developed out of the Cuban son music, which is characterized by antiphonal singing by a singer and a chorus.

Brass ensemble on the market square in Santa Clara

The danzon is the most popular dance on Cuba today. Although it had difficulty gaining acceptance by the upper class, it developed further into the cha-cha.

The trova originally consisted of sad and beautiful ballads performed by travelling singers. The subjects of the lyrics changed during the time of the revolution as they were used as propaganda, but the musicians later returned to their original subjects.

Musicians at night in Trinidad

The traditional Cuban rhythm section consists of three musicians: The bongocero maintains a basic hammering beat, sometimes improvises contrapuntal to the singer and occasionally changes to the cowbell. The conguero contributes to the basic rhythm but also plays solo. The timbalero plays variations of the most essential rhythm on drums and claves. The clave, which is comprised of two bars, is the center and the heartbeat of son and rumba. Thus a complex, polyrhythmic sound pattern is created that to European ears sounds like a hopeless muddle but that is actually structured very strictly.

The masters of son, the 80 year-old pianist Ruben Gonzales, Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo and colleagues have been touring the world since their breakthrough with the Buena Vista Social Club and have gone from one triumph to another.

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