Caribbean folk and popular music are a mixture of West African and European (primarily Spanish) influences. West Africans who were brought as enslaved people to the islands of the Caribbean made music with percussion instruments such as drums, bells, and shakers. They brought their unique musical style elements as well: special tempo-setting rhythms (time lines) played by claves or bells, multi-layered and syncopated rhythms, and songs in call-and-response formats. Europeans brought with them the guitar, Spanish dance forms, and a Western European use of harmony.
The styles of Caribbean music vary from island to island. In Cuba, the most important style of music is the son (sohn), a rural style of songs for dancing. It includes mambo dance music, among others. The ending of most Cuban sones features a quick alternation between a soloist improvising a "call" and the rest of the group playing and singing the "response." Another popular Afro-Cuban dance is the rumba, which became popular as an American ballroom dance in the 1930s.
The Dominican merengue is a dance form that is also popular in Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Venezuela. Accordions, drums, and marimba are frequently used in ensembles that play merengue dance music.
Jamaican reggae, popularized by a group called Bob Marley and the Wailers, was preceded by styles called Ska and Rock steady.
Puerto Rican musical styles include the bomba, which uses a call-and-response format and has drum accompaniment, and the plena, which is a ballad (story song) style similar to some found in Mexico.
Calypso developed mainly in Trinidad and Tobago. It is a popular style of song that often contains comical social criticism and satire. A less well-known style is tamboo bamboo, which involves using stamping tubes made of bamboo. Trinidad and Tobago are also known as the birthplace of steel drum bands.
Caribbean Musical Instruments
Conga drums: Cuban barrel-shaped, one-headed hand drums, played in sets of two to four
Bongo drums: a set of two small one-headed drums held between the knees and played by hand
Timbales: a set of two one-headed metal shelled drums played with a stick
Steel drums: also known as "pans," are made from oil drums heated and hammered into an instrument with multiple pitches played with rubber-headed mallets. Steel drums are often played in bands of many instruments.
Claves: concussion sticks made of Cuban hardwood, which often play a time line, or tempo-setting rhythm
Maracas: gourd rattles played in pairs throughout Latin America
Guiro: a notched hollow gourd played with a stick
Tamboo bamboo: hollow bamboo tubes hit or stamped on the ground
Tiple: In Puerto Rico, a small instrument of the same general type as the Cuatro,with four or five single strings
Other instruments used in the Caribbean Islands today include the violin, electric bass, acoustic bass, trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and the six-string Spanish guitar.
