Cuban music is a mix of native, Spanish, African, Haitian, and British influences.
The music of Cuba has been influenced by a convergence of different cultural backgrounds, and it includes contributions from the indigenous inhabitants of the island, Spanish Catholics, African slaves, Haitian-African immigrants and the British Navy. The cultural intersection of each group has produced the rich sound of today's Cuban music.
Founding of Cuba
When Christopher Columbus claimed the island for the Spanish crown in 1492, the approximately 250,000 Taino Arawak and Ciboney people on the island already had musical traditions of their own. The Taino Arawaks' "areito," for example, involved hundreds or even thousands of participants dancing in concentric circles around musicians playing güiros, maracas and slit-drums.
Within 20 years, the Spanish had established settlements on the island by fighting and eventually enslaving the natives. As they fought against the Spanish and dwindled in numbers, their traditions died with them. The only surviving specimen of pre-Spanish Cuban music is the "Areito de Anaconda," though the origins of this particular composition are suspect.
By 1543, with only 3,000 indigenous Cubans left, the Spanish imported more than 1,000 Africans to work as slaves on plantations and in copper mines. An influx of hundreds of Spanish colonists throughout the 1550s brought more dance and musical forms such as the fandango, zapateo, zampado, retambico, canción and zarzuela to the growing nation. By the 1580s, a lack of skilled white musicians in Cuba pushed orchestras to enlist black and mulatto musicians, further increasing the island's unique mix of influences.
Religious Influences
In 1523, Pope Leo X ordered a Catholic church built in what was then the country's capital, Santiago de Cuba. This began the domination of Catholic church music in Cuba. By the end of the 1600s, the Spanish government had passed a law banning the performance of secular music in public religious venues, relegating secular music to secular public venues. In 1728, Dominican friars founded the University of Havana and with it established a center for the instruction and performance of Cuban religious music.
When Haitian immigrants arrived in Cuba in the late 1700s, they brought with them African-based religions, including santeria. By the early 1800s, santeria had become more visible in rural areas, particularly in eastern Cuba, where the Haitian immigrants had first arrived.
Influences of the 18th Century
When the British Navy occupied the city of Havana for 10 months in 1762, they introduced the city to British-manufactured pianos, clavichords, flutes and stringed instruments. By the end of the 1700s, the arrival of 20,000 African slaves--imported to work on plantations--and thousands of Afro-Haitian immigrants, who were fleeing the Haitian Revolution, brought a new influx of African traditions to Cuba.
Influences of the 19th Century
The early 1800s saw the largest importation of African slaves in the island's history--161,000--as well as an increase in the popularity of European musical forms, such as the waltz, in urban Cuba. In rural areas, more Cubans began practicing the African-based santeria religion. The danzón, which first appeared in Cuba in the 1870s, would become Cuba's national dance until the 1930s. By the end of the century, the popular dance known as the rumba had begun to appear in lower-class urban black neighborhoods of Cuba.
The Son Cubano
The "son cubano" is considered by some to be the most influential form of music to come out of Cuba. "Son de la Ma Teodora," the earliest known song in the son cubano style, first appeared in the 1570s. No one knows who composed it, but son cubano would rise to prominence in the early 1900s and be the foundation for several styles of popular Cuban music, including salsa, chachachá, mambo, charanga, and bolero.
The son cubano has defied some attempts to classify it. There is no single meter or rhythmic pattern that characterizes the music, nor is a particular instrumentation required. What has come to characterize son is the performance style, referred to as "anticipated bass," in which a bass rhythm pulse precedes the expected downbeat, creating a "push."
The Trio Matamoros are considered the founders of modern son, defining the sound for the early 1900s. Miguel Matamoros formed the trio with Rafael Cueto and Siro Rodríguez in 1925, and they stayed together until 1969. As the form became more popular in urban Havana, son cubano ensembles grew from three-piece bands--featuring tres, guitar and maracas--to sextets, which consisted of musicians who played tres, guitar, bass, marimbula, maracas and clave. Vocals were performed by the maracas and clave players. By the 1920s, the sextets became septets with the inclusion of trumpet players.
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