Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music Page 9
octubre—5 de noviembre de 1985: “Año Europeo de la Música,” edited by Emilio Casa-
res, Ismael Fernández de le Cuesta, José López-Calo, and José M. Llorens. 1: 333–48. Ma-
drid: Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música, Ministerio de Cultura, 1987.
Schechter, John Mendell. Music in Latin American Culture: Regional Traditions . New
York: Schirmer Books, 1999.
Raquel Paraíso
Bandolím
The bandolím is a mandolin from Brazil introduced by the Portuguese in the
16th century. Unlike the bowl-back Neapolitan mandolins, the bandolím has a
wider body and a flat back. Tops are usually made of pine spruce with backs and
sides made of a variety of woods such as rosewood or maple. Its four courses, or
pairs of strings, are tuned like the mandolin—G-D-A-E, from lowest to highest.
The bandolím has long been associated with folk music, but it was not until the
20th century that it became popular in urban music, most notably the choro. Al-
though chords are played on the instrument, it is used primarily as a melody instru-
ment while other plucked chordophones take on the role of harmonic support such
as violão , and cavaquinho . Its most famous practitioner was Jacob de Bandolim, born Jacob Pick Bittencourt (1918–1969). He was credited as the most influential
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Bandoneón
player of the bandolím. His career coincides with the development of the choro in
urban popular music, and he was considered a very skilled improviser. Among the
great players, equal mention should be made of Luperce Miranda, who like Jacob de
Bandolim (1907–1977) was an extraordinary talent on the instrument. He enjoyed
early success in his career with his song “Pinião.” Later bandolím notables include
Hamilton Holanda (b. 1976) and Nilze Carvalho (b. 1969), both of whom belong
to a more recent generation of players whose careers parallel the resurgence of the
choro as a popular music genre.
Further Reading
Livingston-Isenhour, Tamara Elena, and Thomas George Caracas Garcia. Choro: A So-
cial History of a Brazilian Popular Music . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.
Medeiros, Flavio Henrique, and Carlos Almada. Brazilian Mandolin . Pacific, MO: Mel
Bay Publications, 2003.
George Torres
Bandoneón
The bandoneón is a chromatic free-reed instrument similar to the accordeón and concertina. Originally developed in the Saxony region of Germany around 1850,
it is named after Heinrich Band, who first commercialized it. While it was devel-
oped as an instrument capable of playing sacred and secular Western art music and
German popular music, the bandoneón is most closely associated today with the
tango of Argentina and Uruguay. It also appears in the rural folk music of parts of Argentina, Uruguay, and southwestern Brazil.
The instrument is constructed of a square wooden frame, with button manuals
for each hand, and a bellows constructed of cardboard reinforced with leather.
The reeds are made of steel, and set into reed plates made of either zinc or alumi-
num. Early versions of the bandoneón had between 25 and 40 keys, but over the
following century the instrument’s design expanded and models exist with up to
over 100 keys, resulting in 220 different notes or voices. The bandoneón that is
standard in South America is the 72-button, 142-voice model first introduced by
Alfred Arnold in 1911. Arnold, part of a family dynasty that at one time produced
all of the major brands of bandoneóns, is the namesake of the most famous and
most preferred model, the “doble A” (“double A”), which bears his initials. This
model has 38 buttons in the right-hand manual, covering the treble range (a to b’’’)
and 33 in the left covering the bass (C to b’). Each button has a separate set of
octave-tuned metal reeds for when the instrument is opened and closed, effectively
demanding that the performer learn two separate, unrelated keyboard layouts for
each hand. The bandoneón is fitted with a breather valve operated by the right
thumb, allowing the player to easily open or close the bellows without sounding
Bandoneón
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A man playing the bandoneón, an instrument that is essential to most Tango bands.
(AP/Wide World Photos)
any of the reeds, a factor that facilitates a number of specialized playing tech-
niques unique to tango .
The bandoneón’s precise arrival date to the Río de la Plata region has not been
satisfactorily documented. Individual instances of instruments appearing in the re-
gion occur as early as 1863 in Uruguay and certainly by 1880 in Buenos Aires, but
in any case the bandoneón was not imported and sold locally on a commercially or
culturally significant scale until the turn of the 20th century.
Bandoneón production in Germany reached its peak in the 1920s and 1930s,
and was already in decline by the Second World War. Production of the instrument
stopped altogether when the Arnold factory, located in Carlsfeld, was expropriated
by the East German government in 1948. In recent years, individual artisans have
attempted to revive the practice of bandoneón making, but there is yet to be an op-
eration that has taken up large-scale production.
The instrument’s adoption into the tango, which previously had been played
mostly by trios consisting of guitar, flute, and violin, significantly changed the char-
acter of that musical style. While early tango was often light-hearted and played at
a lively tempo, the significant technical difficulties of executing melodic passages
on the bandoneón likely contributed to the tango’s adoption of a slower tempo and
generally more melancholy character.
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Baquiné
In the first decade of the 20th century, the group of tango composers known as
the Vieja Guardia (Old Guard) included several prominent bandoneónists, most
notably Eduardo Arolas (1892–1924) and Vicente Greco (1888–1924), who helped
establish the instrument’s prominence in the genre. Generally, the instrument pri-
marily played a melodic role, often doubling or ultimately replacing the flute in
small ensembles.
The instrument’s role in the genre began to expand when Pedro Laurenz (1902–
1972) and Pedro Maffia (1899–1967) joined the sextet of Julio de Caro (1899–
1980) in 1924. In this ensemble, the two bandoneóns not only played melodies,
countermelodies, and accompaniment figures, but also introduced what would be-
come one of the fixtures of later tango style: the virtuosic variations, contrapun-
tal elaborations of the original melody that showcased the bandoneón player or
players.
As the size of the typical tango ensemble grew to become the orquesta típi-
cas so did the size of the bandoneón section, which sometimes included up to
five players. Undoubtedly the most respected bandoneónist in the tango tradition
was Aníbal Troilo (1914–1975), also a prominent composer and bandleader. He
was known for the subtle, vocal quality of his phrasing. Troilo’s orquesta also
provided the framework for another principal bandoneónist and composer of the
second h
alf of the 20th century, Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992). Piazzolla’s tango
nuevo incorporated jazz and nontraditional harmonies, and he was a prodigious
improviser on the instrument with a very personal style of ornamentation and
articulation.
Further Reading
García Méndez, Javier, and Penón, Arturo. Bandonion: A Tango History. Translated by
Tim Burnard. Gibsons Landing, BC: Nightwood Editions, 1988.
Michael O’Brien
Baquiné (also baquiní )
In the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, baquiné refers to a specific variety
of forms of Latin American celebrations held for the wake of an infant or child.
Children’s wakes have been practiced throughout most of Latin America in the
19th and early 20th centuries, though relatively few places still practice it today. In
other parts of Latin America, it may go under the broader term of velorio del an-
gelito (wake of the little angel), as it is believed that when an infant dies, because
of its innocence, it goes to dwell among the angels.
Due to the specific nature of the event, the music for the baquiné consists of spe-
cific music and songs. Among the Antillean variety, where it is a custom drawn from
African traditions, the music and texts may invoke African-influenced elements.
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Traditionally the child is placed in the center of a room on a platform in the moth-
er’s home, surrounded by flowers and offerings from the child’s life. Participants
gather around the child celebrating with games, food, and music particular to the
locale of the celebration.
In popular music, salsa artist Willie Colón composed a theme out of the baquiné
in his album El Baquiné de Angelitos Negros, a 1977 Fania Records release that
was also a made-for-television ballet. Colón also references the genre in the text to
his song “Che Che Colé” ( A tí te gusta la bomba/y te gusta el baquiné —You like
the bomba/ and you like the baquiné).
Further Reading
“The Child’s Wake: A Puerto Rican Folk Tradition,” by Lucy Torres. In Conference on
Minority Studies, edited by George E. Carter, and J. R. Parker. Essays on Minority Folk-
lore: Selected Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on Minority Studies, April 1975.
Selected Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Minority Studies, vol. 3. La Crosse:
Institute for Minority Studies, University of Wisconsin, 1977.
Kuss, Malena. Performing the Caribbean Experience. Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long
Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture. Austin, TX: University of Texas
Press, 2007.
Schechter, John M. “Corona y Baile: Music in the Child’s Wake of Ecuador and His-
panic South America, Past and Present.” Latin American Music Review/Revista de Musica
Latinoamericana: 4, no. 1 (1983): 1–80.
George Torres
Batería
In Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Latin America, the term batería (battery) re-
fers to percussion, a percussion group within an ensemble, or a drum set. The com-
bination and number of instruments that make up the batería vary among regions.
For example, a bolero trio may consist of bongós and maracas , while the largest schola de samba baterías sometimes consists of several hundred participants.
While these larger ensembles have many different types of instruments in their
design, there is a great amount of doubling of parts among instruments. Neverthe-
less, most batería groups in Latin American popular music consist of the smaller
varieties, with usually one player on a part. It is important to remember that Latin
American rhythm sections commonly consist (and consisted throughout much of
their history) of several different percussion instruments playing simultaneously.
Each of these instruments plays an ostinato timeline pattern, and the overall effect
is a composite rhythm produced by all layers of percussion. In a comparison of the
surviving recordings with the many published parts for Latin American band music
that appeared during the 1920s to 1950s, it is clear from the printed instrumentation
roster that although a batería part was not provided, players were expected to know
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Batucada
the patterns appropriate to the form or genre being performed for their individual
parts. Hence, most batería parts in popular music are improvised percussion scores,
with basic patterns given for breaks and specific rhythmic fills.
Further Reading
Torres, George. “Sources for Latin Big Band Performance: An Examination of the Latin
American Stocks in the Library of Congress.” College Music Symposium, no. 43 (2003):
25–41.
George Torres
Batucada
Batucada is a subgenre of samba played by the large drum ensembles of Brazil, most notably the escolas de samba (samba schools) of Rio de Janeiro. The etymology of batucada stems from batuque, a generic term referring to Afro-Brazilian
drumming in general. Batuque has origins in the Kimbundu language of Angola
and its creolized derivatives are used throughout the Portuguese-speaking world
to describe various forms of music and dance of African origin. Where batuque is
a noun, batucar is a verb meaning to drum that is also commonly used to describe
even the simple act of tapping out a rhythm on a tabletop. Batucada, then, implies
a drum off or drumming jam. The samba schools of Rio de Janeiro, with baterías
(drum sections) that can number in the hundreds, have become eponymous of the
term.
The earliest samba schools in the late 1920s were more like marching bands,
playing marchinhas, or little marches. In the following decades, samba schools be-
came increasingly professionalized and adapted a uniquely carioca (of Rio) style
of drumming. As the groups grew in size, new instruments were adapted for both
esthetic and practical reasons, such as keeping musicians in time. Other factors that
influenced the development of the batucada include changing competition regula-
tions, which set strict time limits during the Carnival pageant. Thus the sambaen-
redo, or themed samba, is today played at an incredibly fast tempo. While some
critics have lamented the emphasis on speed over melody in the pageant, it is un-
deniable that the Brazilian batucada is one of the most impressive displays of syn-
copated rhythm on a grand scale.
A typical samba school consists of its batería, dancers, flag-bearers, and a mo-
torized float that displays the school’s allegorical theme. The float typically carries
the lead singer and an accompanying musician playing the cavaquinho (a Portu-
guese four-stringed instrument related to the ukulele ). The batería consists of nu-
merous drums of various timbres and sizes, shakers, bells, and friction drums. To
facilitate group coordination, each percussion segment has its own leader while the
Batucada
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entire batería responds to calls from the main director, who uses the apito, a tri-
tone whistle, to alert the group.
The lowest drums of the batucada are the surdos (literally meaning deaf), which are considered the heartbeat of the group and played with padded mallets. The
lowest-pitched surdo pla
ys the marcação, or the time marker on the second beat,
characteristic of samba. A higher-pitched surdo responds by playing on the first
beat. Other surdos play syncopated variations usually beginning on the second beat
of the phrase. The caixa, or snare drum, typically plays a 16th-note pattern over
the duple meter that generally drives the rhythm. The repinique, or tenor drum, is
played with one stick and one free hand. It is the lead repinique player that almost
always plays the various calls and pickups that mark the beginning and ending of
specific musical passages. The smallest drum in the ensemble is the tamborim ,
played with a beater that is made up of multiple plastic rods bound together. The
tamborins (plural) play chatter-like, highly syncopated phrases that punctuate cer-
tain sections of a piece.
Other percussion instruments that are essential to the baterías are the various
idiophones and membranophones not played with mallets or sticks. The agogô is a
double bell of Yoruban origin that has been modified in recent decades to have tri-
ple or even quadruple bells arranged in successive pitches. The chocalho is a type
of shaker consisting of a rack of small metal plates resembling a sort of abacus. The
reco-reco is a metallic scraper instrument with coiled springs that are rasped with a
metal rod. The cuíca friction drum has a drumhead with a stick tied to the stretched
hide. The stick is rubbed with a moist cloth, creating a high-pitched squeal that
is regulated by increasing and decreasing the tension on the drumhead with the
other hand. The pandeiro , or tambourine, is often used more for visual than musi-
cal effect in samba schools. A malabarista (juggler) dances and plays a very large
pandeiro, throwing the instrument into the air and creating acrobatic moves while
dancing. Though malabaristas are skilled pandeiro players, they serve more as
dancers and are usually found in the dance sections of the escolas de samba.
To the untrained ear the batucadas of the samba schools may seem repetitive or
even identical. However, most baterías have their own unique, if subtle, variations
in their playing that are characteristic of each samba school. Today, the batucadas