Music in Puerto Rico

History

The history of the music on the island of Puerto Rico begins with its original inhabitants, the Taino Indians. While very little of their culture is left, perhaps traces of it can be found in some of the percussion instruments currently in use, particularly in the countryside. Some sporadic attempts have been made to revive this native music, but they are neither sustained nor convincing.

Christopher Columbus discovered the island in November of 1493, but the indelible mark of Spanish culture wasn't felt until Juan Ponce de Leon invaded the island in 1508 and established a colony near the current capital of San Juan. The colonists brought with them the musical instruments of the mother country, notably the guitar, a love of infectious rhythms and even some of the scales left in the Iberian peninsula by the Moors.

Musical Instruments

The güicharo, or güiro is undoubtedly native to the island. It is a hollowed gourd with ridges cut into one side. A wire fork is rhythmically dragged over the ridges to produce an unusual percussion sound. It has found its way into many forms of Latin music.

The Spanish guitar with six strings underwent several changes on the island, owing the the lack of native materials and craftsmen to produce authentic instruments. Of the derivatives, namely the requinto, bordonua, the tiple and the cuatro, only the cuatro is used with any frequency today. It has five double strings and produces a unique, rather hollow sound. (A linguistic note: cuatro means "fourth" and refers to the tuning of strings which are a half octave (a fourth) apart.)

For more information and pictures of Puerto Rican stringed instruments, see the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project/El Proyecto del cuatro

From Africa came the tambou, a hollowed out tree trunk covered with a taut animal skin), and the maraca, which is a gourd filled with pebbles or dried beans and shaken to produce rolling sound.

Musical Genres

Even today in the mountains of the island one can hear the unsophisticated musical tradition of the jíbaro, the Puerto Rican word for farmer; perhaps hillbilly would be a better translation. Since many of the early settlers came from the province of Andalusia and from the Canary Islands, remnants of those areas are most noticeable in the culture of the island. Much of the vocal music is derived from poems created extemporaneously according to very strict rules.

Improvisation and Controversia

The heart of much Puerto Rican music is the idea of improvisation in both the music and the lyrics. A performance takes on an added dimension when the audience can anticipate the response of one performer to a difficult passage of music or clever lyrics created by another. This technique in Puerto Rico is called a controversia. A similar dialog creates a hightened appreciation in the classical music of India, or in a lively jam session in jazz.

Décima

The décima has its roots in 16th century Spain and represents the earliest examples of the combination of native rhythms and the lyrics and melodies from the mother country. The word décima means 10th and refers to metrical format of the song: ten improvised couplets of eight syllables each. Two forms of the décima, the seis and the Aguinaldo, are described below.

The rules for the lyrics are complex and particularly difficult to execute since the lyrics are composed on the spot:

• The song is composed of 10 lines, consisting of 5 couplets of 2 lines each
• Each line of the couplet has 8 syllables
• The syllable count is complicated by rules covering adjacent sounds
• The rhyming structure has the form: A B B A A C C D D C

Seis

The seis originated in later half of the 17th century in the southern part of Spain. The word means "six," which may have come from the custom of having six couples perform the dance, although later many more couples are quite common. Men and women form separate lines down the hall or in an open place of beaten earth, one group facing the other. The lines would approach and cross each other and at prescribed intervals the dancers would tap out the rhythm with their feet.

The melodies and harmonies are simple, usually performed on the cuatro, guitar, and güiro, although other indigenous instruments are used depending on the available musicians. The 2/4 rhythm is maintained by the güiro and guitar.

Aguinaldo

The Aguinaldo are similar to Christmas carols, except that they are usually sung in a parranda, which is rather like a lively parade that moves from house to house in the neighborhood, looking for holiday food and drink. The melodies were subsequently used for the improvisational décima and seis.

Bomba

The bomba is a uniquely Puerto Rican experience, with its earliest roots in West Africa. The most authentic bombas are heard in the town of Loíza and along the coast, which was settled by former slaves from that part of Africa. It is a combination of music, singing and dancing which brings to mind, if only unconsciously, the slave system of an earlier period of Puerto Rican history. Behind this, however, is a certain pride of race in an art form that reaches so far back into its African heritage.

Usually a female voice starts the bomba with a wordless call, as an invitation to the chorus and musicians. They respond, establishing a 2/4 or 6/8 rhythm with various percussion instruments. The voices provide the melody without harmony. The dancers enter the cleared space and move about in pairs without touching each other.

The dancers challenge the drummers in a kind of competing dialog, like the controversia mentioned earlier. The drummers respond with a challenge of their own. Sometimes one group of dancers will tempt another group to respond to a set of complicated steps. As the bomba proceeds, tension rises and becomes more excited and passionate. It's not unusual for a bomba ends with all the performers thoroughly soaked with prespiration.

The instrumentation is simple: usually the main rhythm is maintained by a low-pitched buleador, while the high-pitched subidor dialogs with the dancers. More complicated counter rhythms are created with sticks beaten on any resonant surface. A third set of rhythms is maintained by a maraca.

Danza

The origin of the danza is not quite clear, although it appears that it is derived from the Spanish contradanza or "counter dance" which was popular in the island by 1840. It was a very formal dance with many rules with a During the first third of the 19th century the Spanish contradanza or "counter dance" was popular in the island of Puerto Rico. This was a very formal dance with a bastonero or director ordering who would dance, how and when. This really ran against the freedom loving Puerto Rican, who abandoned the strict contradanza for a similar one, the habanera, coming into the island with immigrants from Cuba. Puerto Rican composers quickly started to create music for this dance new to the island.

The first part of the danza, as it was to be called, is the paseo, which had 8 measures of music without rhythm, when the men circled the room in one direction, and the women circled in the other. This afforded young couples the opportunity to face each other, if only briefly, and to conduct some serious flirting. The second part, called the merengue, grew from the original 16 measures to 34, in 1854, and up to 130 even later. Here the couples held each other, in a proper stance and executed turns that looked very much like a waltz. Like the tango in Argentina, the danza was considered rather naughty and was outlawed for a time.

The prohibition didn't work and for a while the sophisticated danza became quite popular. Today only older couples enjoy the danza, probably because it reminds them of another simpler era. Still it is loved by all classes of citizens, as the highest expression of art of the Puerto Rican people.

Plena

Probably the plena originated around the southern coastal town of Ponce, the center of the sugar industry in the early part of the 20th century. In some respects it resembles the corrido of Mexico, the romance of Spain, the calypso of Trinidad, the porro of Columbia and the merengue of the Dominican Republic in that the songs narrates the trials of a simple people at the edge of poverty.

The style of singing reveals the plena's African origin, which became less evident as the sugar cane workers migrated to the city for a better way of life. In the city the plena became noiser and more complicated with the addition of more musical instruments.

Salsa

Latin music on the island today is most widely represented by salsa, which in English means "sauce," or that heady mix of spice that enlivens any get-together. The music is of Afro-Caribbean origin and the term was probably coined first by the Venezuelan radio host, Fidias Danilo.

Salsa appears to have arisen in El Barrio of New York City, where emmigrants from the island settled. It quickly acquired Cuban and African-Caribbean elements that made it emmiently danceable with its hot, insistent rhythms. Today, it is questionable where salsa's center of gravity lies: in New York or San Juan. It is unfortunate that in Puerto Rico the debate between the rockeros, who prefer rock, and the salseros has became part of a class antagonism between the growing middle class on the island, who prefer rock music from the mainland, and the poor who look upon salsa as their personal heritage.

Tito Puente's contribution to salsa cannot be easily measured. He studied percussion at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City before he going on to form his own band, which first introduced its audiences to the salsa sound and beat. In many respects salsa is a catch word that covers all contemporary music with a Latin beat and a big band sound.

As to instrumentation, salsa needs primarily a large battery of percussion instruments, like güiros, maracas, bongos, timbales, conga drums, claves and even a cowbell for the jíbaro sound. Horns play a large part in creating the authentic salsa sound.

Modern

Ricky Martin today is Puerto Rico's contribution to music with a Latin flavor, that comes under the heading of bolero. In the not too distant past enjoying the voice of Danny Rivera was a Puerto Rican's patriotic duty. Jennifer Lopez is another Puerto Rican singer and actress who has attained great popularity. Not even a generation ago Chayanne, whose real name is Elmer Figueroa, was the bright star in the firmament, which evidently has faded considerably.