Like many other countries in Central and South America, music is an integral part of Costa Rican culture. In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a major celebration in Latin America that is completely silent.
The country’s music derives mostly from Spanish and African music, but is also influenced by the surrounding countries, like Mexico, Cuba and Jamaica.
Downtown San Jose Costa Rica Street Music
Popular throughout Central America, the marimba is the national musical instrument of Costa Rica. This video shows some street musicians in the capital city of San Jose in action.
Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today’s playlist is curated by Music Library associate Melanie and features some music by artists in (and from) Richmond, Virginia (aka RVA).
RVA All Day
An utterly non-comprehensive utterly Richmond-y sort of playlist. Featuring music old and new in MANY genres.
Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! To day we feature a collection of Riot Grrrl music curated by Music Library Associate Melanie.
Riot Grrrl
Riot grrrl began in the early 1990s as a DIY, feminist punk movement. Riot grrrl saw girls as a “revolutionary soul force” with the power to disrupt the status quo; rejecting social constructs of how women were supposed to look and behave; and zeroing in on personal and political discussions of sexism, sexuality, sexual violence, female empowerment, racism, ageism, homophobia, fat shaming, and able-bodiedism.
The riot grrrl movement allowed women their own space to create music and make political statements about the issues they were facing in the punk rock community and in society.
This playlist is inspired by the Music Library’s current exhibit: “Girls to the Front: The Riot Grrrl Revolution” which you should come to the library to take a look at should you have the time or inclination.
It features riot grrrl music from the 1990s(ish), and tracks by fellow travelers, antecedents and descendants.
The Māori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. Their folk music traditions are often integrated with poetry and dance. Here’s a brief overview of Māori music culture past and present:
Taonga pūoro
This picture displays several traditional Maori instruments belonging to master practitioner, Horomona Horo. The instruments are from bone, wood ,shell and gourd. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taonga_p%C5%ABoro
Taonga pūoro are the traditional musical instruments of the Māori and consist of a variety of blown, struck and twirled instruments made from hollowed-out wood, stone, whale ivory, and bone.
The sounds of the instruments were intended to mimic the sounds of the natural environment such as insects, birds, water, trees and wind and were connected with religious practice. According to Wikipedia, the Māori viewed music related to their creation story where “The Gods sang the Universe into Existence.”
Here is a short video on taonga pūoro featuring Māori instrumentalist Richard Nunns:
Today, taonga pūoro are most frequently used at Māori ceremonies and also by New Zealand composers, such as Gillian Whitehead.
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Haka
The Te Aka Māori Dictionary defines haka as a general term for “vigorous dances with actions and rhythmically shouted words” and/or the performance of these dances. Haka are sometimes described as challenges. They are used to make a point, honor someone/something, tell a story or express an emotion. They are performed by both men and women.
Kapa haka is a term for Māori action songs like haka and groups that perform them.
Here is a short video on kapa haka produced by NPR:
And here are a few song styles performed by kapa haka groups: Waiata are songs are sung solo or in unison, usually lullabies, love songs or laments. Waiata is also a Māori verb which means “to sing.”
Poi are (usually) women’s dances involving the swinging of balls, about the size of tennis balls, attached to cords and its accompanying music.
A karanga is a formal, ceremonial call and response at the start of a pōwhiri (welcome ceremony). Karanga are carried out almost exclusively by women and in the Māori language.
*** Contemporary Māori Music
Māori musical heritage continues to have an impact on New Zealand music and culture. Western instruments like guitars are frequently employed with traditional instruments today and indigenous sounds are melded with many different styles of music such as pop, jazz, classical and hip hop. Māori traditional instruments are sometimes used by contemporary composers, musicians and artists.
Here are a couple of fun video examples of Māori music melding with western forms for your enjoyment:
* “Poi E” by Pātea Māori Club was a NZ hit single in 1984 and is still beloved today. (Note that poi as described above are featured in the video!):
* Here is a classical piece featuring taonga pūoro written by contemporary Māori composer Gillian Whitehead:
* And for contrast, here is a thrash metal song released in 2019 by the group Alien Weaponry:
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Here are some items from our collection that will give you more information on Māori music:
Our exhibit highlights items (both physical and streaming) from UR’s collection as well as information about traditional Chilean instruments and dance. It also includes thumbnail biographical info on several Chilean musicians.
Here’s a little info on the music with some links to items in the library’s collection and a few video clips for good measure!
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The traditional music of Chile is a rich mixture of Spanish and Pre-Columbian influences.
Some of the traditional instruments commonly used in Chile include Andean instruments such as
* The charango – a small stringed instrument of the lute family. It was traditionally made from armadillo shell, but is more commonly made of wood today. It has 10 strings.
The Cueca is considered to be the “most traditional music and dance of Chile” and is officially the country’s national dance. While cueca’s origins are not entirely certain, indigenous, African and Spanish influences are evident.
It is a partner dance which is indented imitate the courtship of a rooster and hen. Men usually wear a traditional Chilean cowboy costume while women traditionally don a flowered dresses with an apron.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Chilean songwriters like Victor Jara and Violeta Parra used the tonada as a foundation of the “Nueva Canción,” explicitly political music that blended Chilean folk music with progressive politics, similar to the way Bob Dylan and Joan Baez led a political folk revival around the same time in the U.S.
The foundations of nueva canción were laid by Violeta Parra (1917-1967) who was a popular folk singer-songwriter and musicologist who researched and recovered the poetry and songs of rural Chile.
Víctor Jara (1932-1973) was a legendary Chilean folk singer and political activist who also pioneered nueva canción. His activism led to his murder by the Pinochet dictatorship in 1973.
Jara’s life and work continue to be celebrated by Latin American artists as well as globally known bands like U2 and The Clash. The 2018 documentary film The Resurrection of Víctor Jara is a great introduction to his life and legacy and is available to UR students, faculty and staff as a streaming video resource.
Here’s a trailer for the documentary:
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Claudio Arrau (1903-1991) was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire, especially the works of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms.
He is widely considered to be one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.
Here are a couple of library resources about his life and work:
Ravi Shankar was a master of the sitar and composer and one of the best known Indian musicians in the world. His rich musical career spanned nine decades and he spent much of his career bridging the gap between the musical cultures of West and East.
Born in 1920 to a Bengali Brahmin family, Shankar was the youngest of seven brothers. At the age of 13, he joined his brother Uday Shankar‘s Compaigne de Danse et Musique Hindou (Company of Hindu Dance and Music) as a dancer and spent several years touring India and Europe with his brother’s group. The extensive touring allowed Ravi to learn about Western classical music and jazz while he travelled.
In 1938, Shankar gave up dancing to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After completing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer – working several genres including for Indian films like The Apu Trilogy and serving as musical director of All India Radio.
During this period, Shankar founded the Indian National Orchestra, and composed for it; in his compositions he combined Western and classical Indian instrumentation.
Sitar of Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920–2012). Commissioned by Shankar from the instrument maker Nodu Mullick in Calcutta. Made in 1961. (Gift to the British Museum from Shankar’s family )
Concurrently, Shankar’s international fame was on the rise. In 1954, he performed in the Soviet Union. In 1956, he played his debut solo concerts in Western Europe and the U.S. Within two decades, he was probably the most famous Indian musician in the world.
Shankar was not one-dimensional and his great genius was his openness to other musical traditions. His liberal musical outlook brought him into musical collaborations with a diverse set of musicians. He was so confidently grounded in his own tradition, that he felt unthreatened and completely secure in presenting it to the world as well as by collaborating with others. This is most remembered in his teaching of, and collaboration with the Beatles, above all George Harrison (who became Shankar’s student).
Guitarist George Harrison poses for a portrait with Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar in circa 1975. Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Ravi Shankar also worked with classical musicians like Yehudi Menuhin, Zubin Mehta and Philip Glass. He composed music for several films, including Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, for which he received an Academy Award nomination and also composed three concertos and a symphony for sitar and Western orchestra as well as pieces pairing the sitar with the Western flute and the Japanese koto.
Lata Mangeshkar is the best-known and respected female singer in the history of Indian film music. She is probably best known as a playback singer for Bollywood films. Playback singers often record songs for use in films.
The Indian Hindi-language film industry is referred to as Bollywood and is based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and is one of the largest centers of film production in the world. The word is a portmanteau of “Bombay” and “Hollywood”. The most popular commercial genre of Bollywood is the masala film, which freely mixes action, comedy, drama, romance, and melodrama along with musical numbers. Masala films can generally be considered musicals. Indian cinema has been the largest producer of musicals in the world since the 1960s, when it exceeded America’s musical film output. Playback singers record songs for the film soundtracks, and the actors lip-sync said songs for the cameras.
Poster for the 1947 Hindi film Aap ki sewa mein which features an early example of Mangeshkar’s work
Lata Mangeshkar is said to have recorded more film songs than any other singer. She has recorded songs in over a thousand (!!) Hindi films and has sung songs in over thirty-six regional Indian languages and foreign languages, though primarily in Marathi, Hindi and Bengali.
Music really has been the driving force in Mangeshkar’s life. Her father Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar was a classical singer and theatre actor. She received her first lessons in music from her father and was performing as an actress in her father’s plays by the age of five. She is the elder sister of singers Asha Bhosle, Hridaynath Mangeshkar, Usha Mangeshkar and Meena Mangeshkar, all accomplished musicians and singers in their own right.
In 1942 when Mangeshkar was 13, her father died of heart disease and Lata immediately joined the Bollywood film industry as an actress-singer to help support her family.
Here is a Youtube clip from Azaad a 1955 film which features Mangeshkar’s voice:
Lata Mangeshkar has received many awards and honors during the course of her career. India’s highest award in cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, was bestowed on her in 1989 by the Government of India. She also has been awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor.
In 1974, The Guinness Book of Records listed Mangeshkar as the most recorded artist in the history, stating that she had reportedly recorded “not less than 25,000 solo, duet and chorus backed songs in 20 Indian languages” between 1948 and 1974. (The actual number of songs she has recorded is a matter of some dispute. Regardless, she is certainly ONE of the most recorded artists in the world.)
Here is a Youtube clip of the song “Tujhe Dekha To Ye Jaana Sanam” (“My love, when I saw you then I realized” per Google translate) sung by Mangeshkar and Kumar Sanu from the 1995 Bollywood film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (transl. The Big-Hearted Will Take the Bride, per Wikipedia):
In addition to singing, Mangeshkar has composed music for five films and also produced four films. Her career spans over seven decades now and she has only recently begun to show signs of slowing down (a bit) at the age of 91. Her influence on Indian film and popular music is profound.
Here is a small sampling of library resources concerning Lata Mangeshkar, Bollywood, and Indian popular music:
Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has deep roots in Hinduism.
Saraswati is the goddess of music and knowledge in the Hindu tradition.
In general, Indian classical music has three foundational elements:
1) Raga: a series of five or more musical notes used to form a melody — similar to modes or scales in Western music. Raga make much more use of microtones than Western music (many notes fall in between notes in Western scales in terms of pitch). Raga are often associated with specific times of day and/or seasons.
2) Tala: a rhythmic pattern that determines the larger rhythmic structure of a piece. Tala literally means “clap”.
3) Improvisation around a raga is the basis for most Indian classical music.
Indian classical music has two major traditions:
* North Indian music is also called Hindustani is influenced by Arabic and Persian musical practice as a result of the Islamic conquest of the region in the Middle Ages. Hindustani music emphasizes improvisation and exploration of all aspects of raga and gives slightly more prominence to instrumental forms.
Here are a couple of links to catalog records for Music Library resources featuring Hindustani music:
– India: Hindustani Music (streaming via Alexander Street)
– North Indian Classical Music (CD)
* South Indian music is also called Carnatic music. It is much more oriented toward vocal music (even when instruments are played alone, they are played in a style meant to imitate singing). Improvisation is employed but Carnatic music also makes use of composed devotional pieces.
Here are a couple of links to catalog records for Music Library resources featuring Carnatic music:
– Flowers of Southern Indian Classical Carnatic Music(CD)
– Ragas from South India (streaming via Alexander Street)
The types of instruments used in North and South Indian music also differ.
Hindustani music makes use of the sitar, sarod, tabla and tampura.
A sampling of instruments most commonly used in Hindustani music
Carnatic music makes use of instruments like the vina, mridamgam, and shruti.
A sampling instruments most commonly used in Carnatic music
One might also stop by Parsons Music Library and check out our current display on the Music of India which will be available to visit until the end of February!
