Listening Assignment Four
Ethnomusicology 20A
This is an example of the “Norteño” style of conjunto music. It alternates between sections of polka and waltz (2/4 and 3/4). Listen for those, and for the instrumentation and vocal harmony. This musical genre is very popular in the border region of northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Instruments employed today usually include the button accordion, bajo sexto (12 stringed chordophone), bass, snare drum and, today, often a saxophone. Serenata Norteña Lyrics in Spanish A sonar del bajo sexto Hace tiempo que te quiero Serenata nortena Por estas que no le estrane Chaparrita de mi vida Serenata nortena Lyrics from http://www.lyricsondemand.com/l/losloboslyrics/serenatanortenalyrics.htm consulted 2/29/08
Read the section on mariachi music in the course reader. This is a classic version of one of the most popular Mariachi pieces that remains in the repertory today. “La Negra” has been called the signature piece of the mariachi ensemble. It is played by virtually every group, danced by Mexican folkloric dance troupes, and requested by Mexican audiences. Mariachi Tapatío de José Marmolejo was one of the pioneering mariachi groups whose early recordings had a profound impact on mariachi playing. The opening section sounds a little like a train pulling out of the station.
This is a huapango (also known as son huasteco), which in live performance often features dancers on top of a wooden platform, who add percussion. This style originated in the Huastec region of Mexico. It typically is performed on three instruments, the violin, the jarana (a local chordophone with five strings), and a huapanguera, a kind of bass rhythm guitar. Los Hermonos Herrera is a well-known conjunto in Southern California, and members of it are also at UCLA—you heard them live in class.
The Son Jorocho is a hard driving traditional music from Veracruz, Mexico. It occupies an important musical niche in Mexico’s canon of National Folklore. Son is a genre of music with a strong rhythm, simple harmonies, and lyrical poetry. Jarocho describes the people and culture of the southern coastal plain of Veracruz, who have left their regional mark on the music for more than two centuries. Since the mid 20th Century, government and private enterprise have used the son jorocho alike as a public symbol of national and regional identity. Sounds of the Veracruz harp and local guitars are the backdrop to television commercials, tourism promotions, and other presentations. This piece, whose translated title is “Woodpecker,” has one of the longest of the repeated rhythmic-harmonic cycles that drive the traditional son jorocho. It begins “Of the first birds that have warbled in this world, the mockingbird and the goldfinch are among the most esteemed, and among the most esteemed is the woodpecker.” (From the liner notes by Daniel Sheehy). The performers of this track are among the best living musicians playing this music. The two vocalists trade verses back and forth. The instruments are the harp, the jarana jarocha and the requinto jarocho.
5. “Flor de Retama” (Huayno) (5:24) written by Ricardo Dolorier and performed by Martina Portocarrero. From Jonathan Ritter UCLA dissertation recording. This is one of the most famous huaynos [a Peruvian musical genre described below and illustrated in a film shown in class] of the Peruvian political song movement in the 1960s. It commemorates a massacre of 14 killed and 56 protesters wounded in clashes with the police in Huanta and Ayacucho in 1969. Ricardo Dolorier composed it and sang it in a tavern in Huanta around 1970. It quickly became popular and continued to be so, even as new violence related to the Shining Path and its repression by Peruvian troops replaced the original event in people’s memories. It is featured in John Cohen’s film, Dancing with the Incas. It was dangerous to sing the song during the era of Shining Path violence and government military action to repress the guerillas. Huaynos are a genre with a fairly long history in Peru and are the only popular music form in the Americas that has grown directly out of an indigenous genre. Found widely in the mountain and city regions, the song texts may be in Quechua, Spanish, Aymara, or other languages. Several kinds of instrument ensembles are used to accompany them. Most Huaynos share a melodic structure of AABB with instrumental flourishes. They usually include a break for some stamping dance steps. In terms of its text, “Flor de Retama” departs considerably a lot from most Huyanos, whose themes usually focus on flowers, love, and personal relationships. Instead of the flower symbolizing love, here it symbolizes “the people” and their struggle and focuses on a recent event (From Jonathan Ritter, A River of Blood: Music, Memory, and Violence in Ayacucho, Peru. Ph.D. dissertation UCLA 2006, pp. 197-199). Recorded live in concert before an appreciative audience in the Teatro Municipal in 1987. English translation (from Ritter) Come, everyone, to see Ay, we are going to see They are at Five Corners Where the blood of the people The blood of the people has a rich perfume Spanish Original
Vengan todos a ver, ¡Ay, vamos a ver! Donde la sangre del pueblo ¡Ay, se derrama! Por cinco esquinas están, los sinchis entrando están
Fuga o salida:
6. “Las caleñas con como las flores” (Cali Women are like Flowers) 4:06 composed by Arturo J. Ospina and performed by The Latin Brothers. From: Greatest Salsa Classics of Colombia vol. 1 (track 14). Discos Fuentes 11005, 2001. Although Salsa developed in New York City and Puerto Rico, it soon spread to other parts of the Americas. Cali, Colombia, for a time called itself the capital of Salsa and held yearly salsa festivals that attracted many fans (extensively described in Lise Waxer, City of Musical Memory: Salsa, Record Grooves, and Popular Culture in Cali, Colombia (Wesleyan University Press 2002). This particular salsa was first released in 1975. It was one of the first salsa hits composed by a Colombian musician (rather than a cover of a foreign artist), and it became an instant hit in Cali, selling 180,000 copies within just one month of its release and winning accolades as the top song of that year's Feria. The song is discussed in Waxer, pages 159-160. The song text is given in both Spanish and English on those pages. Here are the opening words to the song (translation Lise Waxer): Spanish: Caleñas are como las flores Caminando van por las aceras English: Calleñas [women of Cali] are like flowers They go walking over the pavements
7 .Shakira, Estoy Aquí (extended club mix). 9:31 From: Latin Mix USA. Columbia CK 69128 track 3. Written by Shakira-L. Fernando Ochoa. Original version available on the Sony Discos 1996 release Pies Descalzos (18795). Shakira Mebarak (b. 1977) is a popular singer/songwriter born in Barranquilla, a city on the Atlantic Coast of Colombia, to a Lebanese father and a Colombian mother. She began singing, writing songs and performing publicly at an early age, and recorded her first album for Sony Music at 14. In subsequent years, Shakira developed an upbeat style blending American rock, Latin pop and Near Eastern influences textured by poetic lyricism, humor and wit. International recognition throughout Latin America came in 1996, with the release of Pies Descalzos (the recording from which this listening example is originally taken), where Shakira articulated a bold, youth-oriented type of social commentary by addressing topics like abortion, Catholic prudishness, teenage romance, etc. In recent years, Shakira’s cross-over career transitioned rapidly into the realm of American teen-pop stardom, English language dance songs, soft-drink commercials and MTV videos, though she continues to be supported and admired by Colombian fans at home and abroad One of the verses of “Estoy Aqui” follows: Mil años no me alcanzarán A thousand years won’t be long enough
8. Antonio Carlos Jobim, "Aguas de Março” (March Waters), Bossa Nova. From The JVC/Smithsonian Folkways Video Anthology of Music and Dance of the Americas, volume 5, track 10. Bossa Nova is one of the best-known genres of Brazilian music outside of Brazil. It was brought to the rest of the world in the soundtrack of the film Black Orpheus, and translations of many of its important songs have themselves become popular in the United States—like “The Girl from Ipanema.” Bossa Nova (the “new thing” as it was labeled) is a mixture of rhythms and styles of earlier forms of Brazilian music with elements of jazz—in fact is was criticized for being too American; many Bossa Nova musicians spent years in the United States performing and recording. Antonio Carlos Jobim was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1927. A brilliant performer and composer, he has been called “the quintessential figure of the Bossa Nova.” “Aguas do Março” is one of Jobim’s most famous compositions, and reveals his skills as a writer as well as a performer. Recorded in a concert hall often used for classical music, making use of trained musicians and backup singers, this performance takes on some of the formality of European classical concert music. The words do not tell a story, but rather present a sequence of images. (Remember, Rio de Janeiro is in the Southern Hemisphere, so March is in the autumn, not the spring). Even if you don’t understand Portuguese you can listen to the way the voices are creating percussive sounds and interacting. Note how the sounds of the language relate to the basic rhythm. Aguas de Março (Waters of March)English Translation of Portuguese lyricsIt's stick, it's stone It's a shard of glass It's peroba of the field It's wind-resistant wood It's the wind blowing It's the rain raining It's the foot, it's the ground It’s a bird in the sky It's the bottom of the well It's a thorn, it's a nail It's a fish, it’s a gesture It's the firewood, it's the day It’s the house’s design It's a footstep, it's a bridge They are the waters of March It's a snake, it’s a stick They are the waters of March It's stick, it's stone It's a footstep, a bridge They are the waters of March Águas de Março
Portuguese Original"É pau, é pedra, É um caco de vidro, É peroba do campo, É madeira de vento, É o vento ventando, É a chuva chovendo, É o pé, é o chão, É uma ave no céu, É o fundo do poço, É um estrepe, é um prego, É um peixe, é um gesto, É a lenha, é o dia, É o projeto da casa, É um passo, é uma ponte, São as águas de março É uma cobra, é um pau, São as águas de março É pau, é pedra, É um passo, é uma ponte, São as águas de março (Lyrics and translation from http://www.brazzil.com/p08sep01.htm, consulted 2/29/08)
9. Tango Canción. “La Morocha” E. Saborido and A. Villoldo. Performed by Libertad Lamarque with the Orquesta de A. Malarba. From Las Voces Clasicas del Tango: Liberdad Lamarque. Blue Moon BMCD2061. This is an example of the “tango with lyrics” from the 1920s, performed by one of the first female tango vocalists, Libertad Lamarque. At first many of the song texts in this genre of tango were somewhat bawdy, but with the popularity of the genre emerged an expressive singing style. Female musicians first participated in the tango tradition around 1923. The voice is used to express deep emotions. “La Morocha is credited with creating one of the first tango explosions in Europe, sometime around 1906 when Argentine graduates from the Naval Academy carried with them freshly printed music sheets of La Morocha. The nickname "morocha" is commonly used in Argentina to describe women of swarthy complexion with dark hair. The inspiring "morocha" allegedly was one Lola Candales, a professional dancer with a pleasant voice. Enrique Saborido composed the music and Angel Villoldo wrote the lyrics in a few hours on Christmas morning of 1905 at a bar where bohemian artists hung out after hours. There is a nationalistic and somehow chauvinistic undertone in the description of a day in the life of the "ideal" female partner. She is up before sunrise busy boiling the water and filling up the mate gourd with "yerba" to offer the bitter concoction (cimarron) to the countrymen, supposedly on their way to work the land.
Lyrics translated by Ernesto Saborido from http://www.planet-tango.com/lyrics/lamoroch.htm consulted 2/29/08
10. Tango. “La Cumparsita” by G.M. Rodriguez. Performed by Astor Piazzolla and his orchestra. La Historia del Tango vol. 1. Polydor CD 314 511 638-2. Move from 20A 2006 track, #12 to 20A 2008See pages 518-530 of the course reader on Tango before listening to this. It describes a bit of the history of the genre. This specific performance is not described in the text, but other versions are referred to. “La Cumparsita” is one of the most famous, and most often played, tangos in history. You heard a version of it played in class. The version here represents the most popular style of tango in the guardia nueva (“new guard”) style. “La Cumparsita” was first recorded in 1917. It has been arranged and performed by generations of tango players in the ensuing decades. Many arrangements of the song have been created. This relatively recent recording was made by the brilliant musician and arranger, bandoneon player Astor Piazzola. He had a tremendous influence on the Tango toward the end of the 20th century. This is a concert piece, not a dance piece as it was in many earlier arrangements.
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