Central America, Colombia, and Venezuela

Mina Drum

a large drum from Barlovento, an African-Venezuelan region on the northeast coast of Venezuela. Constructed from a tree trunk, the mina is more than six feet long; it is propped up on one end and played both on the sides and on the skin-covered head

Cumbia

an African-Colombian music and dance genre that has spread from the Caribbean coast throughout almost all of Hispanic America. Cumbia originally was used as a term for the conjunto de gaitas, then was applied to several related Colombian music and dance forms

Mestizo

an adjective referring to racial or cultural hybridity, usually a European and indigenous mixture, or a noun referring to a person of mixed-race ancestry

Conjunto de Gaitas

an afro-colombian music and dance genre that spread from the Caribbean coast in modified form to national and then continental popularity under the name cumbia. The term gaita refers to an indigenous flute, a pair of which are accompanied by drums and usually by singing

Diantonic

refers to music based on a selection of eight pitches within an octave and equivalent to the white keys on a piano

Colombia

Coast, Llanero (Plains), Coffee Region Aires de Campo Book MoLA Chapter 4 *Listen to Smithsonian Folklife Festival Colombia videos Chirimia La Contundencia with Zully Murrillo (Coast)

Arpa Llanera

a harp with 32 gut or nylon strings, found in the Colombian and Venezuelan Llanos. The arpa llanera gives musica llanera its distinctive sound and provides the harmony, melodic solos, and a great deal of the rhythmic foundation

Gaita

1)a long cane duct flute, played in pairs in Colombian gaita 2)traditional, rural-based music from the Colombia's Caribbean coast, more accurately known as the conjunto de gaitas 3) a Colombian urban popular dance form that combines conjunto de gaitas and Caribbean popular music influences 4) a Venezuelan musical genre from the northwest state of Zulia, currently popular nationwide during the Christmas season

Tambor

Afro-Venezuelan dance and music from the coastal Choroni region that has gained national popularity

Ladino

In Guatemala, the equivalent of mestizo, denoting mixed Amerindian and European race and culture

Cumbia

Popular in colombia Easy to learn the dance Brings european and indigenous people together The flute is the most prominent instrument in the genre Drums are also important Maracas: are also part of this genre The dances are usually performed and danced to at night by couples and the women have many candles performed usually around them . Gaita macho(male), gaita hembra (female) There is a difference in the amount of holes on the two flutes Example: los Gaiteros de san jacinto- "fuego de cumbia"

Marimba de Tecomates

a 25 key diatonic (one row) marimba constructed in the form of an arch and now found only in rural Mayan areas. Named for the resonators suspended under keys that are made from different-sized gourds, or tecomates

Bambuco

a Colombian song form, primarily of European background, first called cancion colombiana. It started as a trio of different guitar-type instrument from the interior provinces and was reinterpreted by big bands for urban audiences in the 1930s-1940s

Movimento Urbano Acustico (urban (urban acoustical movement)

the Venezuelan Urban Acoustic Movement, an ongoing attempt to unite the many musicians who interpret traditional repertoire in a semi- Euroclassical style

Canto Necesario

the specifically Venezuelan name for a genre of music with lyrics of social consciousness; most often called nueva cancion (new song) in the rest of Latin America

Furro

a friction drum from northwest Venezuela used in traditional gaita de fulia and gaita music. The player strokes a stick protruding from the drum skin with a damp cloth to produce a resonant "grunting" sound

Marimba Sencilla

a diatonic marimba found in rural and urban Mayan areas and some ladino populations in Guatemala as well as other regions. It is named for its single (sencilla, simple) row of keys

Marimba Doble (grande)

a large, chromatic marimba developed at the end of the nineteenth century. With the addition of a row of keys like the black keys on a piano, the marimba doble can be used to play urban and cosmopolitan music. It is especially popular in Chiapas, Mexico, and cities in Guatemala, often accompanied by drum set, bass, and sometimes horn sections. The marimba doble was the prototype for metal resonator vibraphones and buzzless marimbas now used worldwide

Tun

a mayan slit drum made from a hollowed tree trunk. An "H"cut into one side creates two tongues of wood, each of which produces a tone when struck with a rubber-tipped mallet. Essentially the same instrument is called teponaztli in Nahuatl in central Mexico and in Central America south of Mayan Guatemala

Joropo Llanero

a music and dance form of the Colombian and Venezuela Llanos. It features the Venezuelan cuatro (a small guitar-like instrument), maracas and usually a diatonic harp

Liberation Theory

a reform movement within the Catholic Church that rose in prominence in the early 1960s in reaction to the rapid rise of Protestantism, especially in Latin America. Named from the influential 1971 book A Theology of Liberation by Peruvian Gustavo Gutierrez, the movement's primary leaders were young priests who called for a closer relationship between church and followers that included working for social justice

Guitarilla

a small Nicaraguan guitar with four metal strings that accompanies the marimba de arco. The guitarilla is strummed, adding rhythmic support to the music

Cuatro

a small guitar-like instrument with four nylon strings found throughout Venezuela or a traditional string instrument from Puerto Rico. it consists of five courses of metal strings, most of them doubled to produce a bright, twangy sound

Maracas

a small handheld idiophone that may have indigenous of African origins or both. Consist of roundish spheres of wood or dried leather that have seeds or pellets inside. The instrument is shaken to produce percussive sounds

Polo

a song form from Sucre state on Venezuela's eastern coast featuring a chordal pattern systematically alternating between major and minor tonalities

El Sistema

a system of community-based, European classical orchestras in Venezuela, consisting primarily of economically disadvantaged youth, with an emphasis on communities of color. The most advanced musicians graduating from El Sistema play in the internationally recognized Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra

Rock en Espanol Movement

a term that can cover any type of rock or rock-related music in Spanish- speaking Latin America (and even Spain). In the 1990s the term was used especially to describe the new fusion of traditional vallenato and other forms with rock in Colombia

Serial

a twentieth-century technique of musical composition in which pitches and sometimes other parameters- such as dynamics, rhythms, and tone colors-are arranged in repeatable series, providing internal organization and coherence to a work that has no tonal center and possibly no sense of beat or meter

Vallenato

created by combining nato (born in) and valle the term refers to the name of a song and dance genre and ensemble from the rural northeast of Colombia; the music is also popular in western Venezuela. Ensembles include lead and backup singers a button accordion, a caja and a guacharaca, a gourd scraper

Musica Tropical

literally "tropical music" a generic term in South and Central America for dance music based loosely on the cumbia, or for salsa music

Culo'e puya or redondo drums

thin cylindrical drums hung from musicians' neck and played in set of three; from Barlovento, an African-influenced region on the northeast coast of Venezuela