Learn about Latin music genres and styles. Study the Latin beats and instruments used throughout Latin American music and explore different types of Latin dances.
Updated: 11/21/2023
Latin Music | Genres, Types & Styles
Table of Contents
- What is Latin Music?
- Latin Beats: Understanding Rhythm
- Types of Latin Musical Instruments
- Types of Latin Dances
- Lesson Summary
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes the Latin American music unique?
Latin American music is unique in its multicultural origins and its treatment of rhythm as a priority rather than harmony. Latin music is also highly connected to dance, partly due to its African musical roots.
What are the three popular Latin music?
There are many types of Latin music. Each genre is slightly different but has rhythmic similarities and similar musical origins. Examples of Latin music genres include salsa, cha-cha, bachata, tango, samba, etcetera.
Table of Contents
- What is Latin Music?
- Latin Beats: Understanding Rhythm
- Types of Latin Musical Instruments
- Types of Latin Dances
- Lesson Summary
Latin music encompasses centuries of cultural blending of musical traditions from Iberian Europe (Spain and Portugal), Western Africa, and pre-colonial indigenous Americas. Specifically, Latin music is most known today as the collection of popular and folk music forms from Latin America, including the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
What is Latin Music? Although it is a broad term meant to describe multiple varieties of highly rhythmic, Spanish-language music genres of Latin American origins, the sounds of Latin American music are a mixture of the aforementioned cultural influences. Rhythms and instruments of Africa, instruments and song forms of Spain and Europe, and Indigenous musical practices have been combined through generations of cultural adaptation into well-known Latin music genres such as salsa, rumba, bachata, and others.
Latin music is popular worldwide. It has been since the 20th century. It is most popular in its area of origin, the Americas. Latin music is popular among Spanish and English-speaking populations throughout North America, Central America, South America, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean nations like Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
Latin Music Styles
Latin music styles vary from genre to genre, but all styles have two elements in common: the "Spanish language" and "African rhythms." Most Latin music is highly rhythmic due to the history of enslaved African people in colonial Latin America and keeping musical traditions alive even during slavery.
Each Latin Music genre is unique in some small way, and many varieties are trendy up to the present day, such as:
- bachata- a style originating from the Dominican Republic, mixing elements of "son," "Bolero," and troubadour singing traditions of Latin America.
- bossa nova- translating to ''new wave,'' this is a Latin music form originating from Brazil and focused on romantic love themes and nature themes.
- Latin pop- music that mixes catchy songs forms of pop music with elements of traditional Latin music.
- merengue- Afro-Latin music originating from the Dominican Republic, with slower melodic elements than other Latin music styles.
- reggaeton- a popular Latin music genre originating from Puerto Rico, combining elements of Jamaican dub, reggae, hip hop, salsa, and bomba.
- salsa- a style originating from Cuba and Puerto Rico, combining elements of Jazz, mambo, and Latin boogaloo.
- samba- an Afro-Brazilian folk genre that originates from Rio de Janeiro, combining elements of African drumming rhythms, Portuguese folk song idioms, and indigenous Latin American music traditions.
- tango- an intense form of song and dance originating in Buenos Aires, Argentina, combining elements of flamenco, polka, habanera, and milonga.
Many of these new Latin music genres developed after the abolition of slavery in Latin American countries. The adaptation of African songs and indigenous musical traditions created new sounds to the region that are now famous worldwide.
Other common style elements of Latin music including:
- syncopation- rhythmic emphasis placed on the upbeat rather than the stronger downbeat.
- call-and-response- a singing style of West African origins that involves a leader calling out a melody for a chorus to ''respond''.
- Spanish Decima- a folk song form, native to Spain with ten lines of eight syllables, common in many traditional Latin American music genres.
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Rhythm is Latin music's most defining composition element. Not only is it important for Latin music styles as they are known today, but the rhythm is also equally important for those involved in its earliest stages of development. Most basic Latin beats are based on West African drumming and dancing rhythms brought to South America and the Caribbean by enslaved peoples during pre-abolition years.
The clave rhythm, a rhythm often performed on the clave percussion instrument in Latin music, is related to older forms of African bell patterns. It is a syncopated rhythmic pattern that consists of five hits within two measures in duple or triple meter. The clave rhythm forms the most basic rhythmic cycle of all Latin music styles. There are two main types of clave rhythms: rumba clave and son clave.
Rumba clave is a clave rhythm in 4/4 or duple meter. It is typically found in folkloric styles but is also utilized in modern song styles. The son clave is another clave rhythm in 4/4 or duple meter similar to the rumba clave. The son clave's primary distinction is a third hit that is slightly longer and earlier placed than in rumba clave. The rhythmic differences between different forms of clave rhythms are slight. Because of folk music and oral tradition, rhythmic variations were continuously altered with every generation until its modern iterations.
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Latin music and the cultural origins of Latin music genres are rich with variety, history, and experimentation. In different types of Latin music, certain combinations of instruments are more common. Several instrument families are used in Latin music, mainly focusing on percussion and melodic instruments.
The history of percussion instruments and drumming dates back to Latin music's African heritage. Latin percussion instruments evolved over generations from variations of similar instruments from Africa and indigenous American influences. Some of the most widely used percussion instruments in Latin music include:
- claves- a pair of handheld, cigar-sized wooden blocks used for striking together to make a high-pitched clicking sound.
- timbales- a pair of shallow, metal-rimmed drums that produce a high-pitched sound when struck with a drum stick.
- güiro- a handheld percussion instrument typically made from metal or wood. It has grooves on the side meant to be scraped and struck with a small stick and sonically resembles a high-pitched washboard.
- conga- a pair of wooden, single-headed hand drums pitched at two different tones.
- maracas- a pair of shakers made from hollowed gourd or shell with handles attached. Seeds or beans are placed inside the maracas to create a rhythmic rattling sound.
Melodic instruments, or instruments capable of producing a pitched melodic line, are also fundamental in Latin music genres. These types of instruments, much like percussion, vary from genre to genre. Commonly used melodic instruments include string instruments, brass instruments, and woodwind instruments:
- guitar- guitar-style instruments such as the "tres," a Cuban six-stringed guitar, are significant in Latin music.
- guitarrón- a guitar-style instrument used in Mexican folk music utilized for playing bass notes in ensembles.
- trumpet- the western-style trumpet and other more traditional versions of trumpet-style instruments are used frequently in Latin music. Traditional Mexican "mariachi" centers the trumpet as a solo instrument and a melodic leader in the ensemble.
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Music and dance are highly connected in Latin music. Like many types of Hispanic dances and music, this is because of the strong connection between music and dance in Africa. Each Latin dance style corresponds to its song style and the rhythms used to match the dancer's movements in a particular way. Although each dance form has different steps, all Latin dance features a rhythmic strutting of the hips in an advancing and retreating pattern and free movement of the body. Some of the most world-renowned forms of Latin dance include salsa, rumba, tango, and cha-cha.
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Salsa is a form of Latin dance that developed in the mid-20th century from Afro-Cuban styles such as mambo, guaguancó, and danzón. There are several different forms of salsa, including "New York Salsa," "Los Angeles Salsa," and "Cumbia."
Rumba is one of the 5 ''International Latin Dances,'' along with cha-cha, samba, paso doble, and jive. Rumba is considered one of the most sensual of all Latin dance forms. With roots in African tribal dance and Cuban folk music, rumba is also widely considered the ''grandfather of Latin dance''.
Cha-cha, another one of the 5 ''International Latin Dances,'' is an upbeat, lively partner dance originating from Cuba. The cha-cha moves are popular because of their quick, whimsical style.
Tango is another highly sensual Latin dance. Originating in the early 1900s from the working-class areas of Buenos Aires, Argentina, tango has become one of the most beloved dance forms in the world. It is a dance that is so intimate that it requires dance partners to be face to face, with mostly full-body contact.
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Latin Music refers to various highly rhythmic, Spanish-language music genres of Latin American origins. Rhythm is Latin music's most crucial compositional aspect. The most basic fundamental rhythmic pattern in Latin music is called the clave rhythm. The two main varieties of the clave rhythm are son clave and rumba clave.
Latin music and dance are also highly connected. There are many varieties of Latin dance, including salsa, rumba, and cha-cha. However, all Latin dance forms involve rhythmically strutting one's hips while advancing and retreating. Although Latin music has evolved in Latin America, its roots are as multicultural as any other music form, and its popularity has reached all over the globe.
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Video Transcript
Latin Music
Fruor musica latinae. Dives et lenimur et pulchra est. Bunom est vivere in mundo quod habet bonum musica.
What? I'm talking about music in Latin. Isn't that what this lesson is about? Latin music, right? Oh, you mean the music of Latin America, or the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking regions of the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Yeah, I guess that makes more sense.
Latin music has roots in Southern Europe, Africa, and the indigenous cultures of Latin America, so it's a pretty cool synthesis of world music. It is motivated by emotion and passion, rhythm and movement, so get up on your feet because you can't take Latin music sitting down. As they say in Latin America, ¡Baila!
Latin Rhythm
One of the most famous aspects of Latin music is the rhythm, which is largely inspired by traditional African beats that were developed in the Caribbean. Although there are many variants on this rhythm, the most fundamental form is called the clave, which is simply the basic Latin rhythm. This basic beat is what holds all of the complex rhythmic patterns of Latin music in place.
There are two main patterns. The first is called the son clave, originally named after the Cuban musical genre of son Cubano. Basically, the son clave features alternating patterns of threes and twos. This pattern gives the music a pulsating beat filled with the building and release of musical tension. The first three beats are called a tresillo, or triplet in English, which means three notes evenly spaced across two beats. This means that they are slightly off the beat, which is part of what gives it that driving momentum.
The other main clave pattern is the rumba clave, which flips the son clave around and has two alternating patterns of twos and threes. The two paired beats come first with a triplet coming next. This mixes up the beat, but the effect is still largely the same, creating music with a heavy, driving rhythm that is as much the focus of the song as the actual melody, if not more.
Latin music is characterized first and foremost by the rhythm. This is not some background or subtle beat; the rhythm is in many ways the real focus of the music. But, it's not the only part of the music; melodies and harmonies are both important parts of this music as well.
Latin Instruments
Latin music developed as a mixture of musical traditions from around the world and this means that it is actually pretty open when it comes to instruments. There are few restrictions as far as what is and is not allowed. Latin music has always embraced a certain freedom of experimentation.
Drums, of course, are important, as are the sticks often used to beat the clave rhythm, which, incidentally, are also called claves. The percussion section may also include shakers, like maracas or tambourines. Again, percussion is pretty important to Latin music. Brass instruments, such as trumpets and tubas, are popular for the melodies and harmonies, as are guitars, which can play both melodies and rhythms.
Latin Dance
But, of course, we can't talk about Latin music without also talking about dance. Dance is integral to Latin music and really the driving motivation behind it. Latin America is full of dances, from the rumba to salsa to cha-cha to samba. Each of these are distinct but generally emphasize a rhythmic strutting with the hips in a pattern of advancing and retreating. Two steps forward, two steps backwards, that sort of idea.
While these dances do have formal rules and patterns, again the actual spirit of Latin music is not so strict. Dancing is simply a form of self-expression and to the people of Latin America, the rules of dance do not always matter so much. What matters is that you are able to express yourself through movement and as long as your music has a strong Latin beat, you can dance to it, whether you know the steps or not.
Lesson Summary
Latin music is the music of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Caribbean, Central and South America. This music has roots in Southern Europe, Africa, and indigenous cultures of the Americas, making it a diverse synthesis of musical traditions with a taste for freedom and experimentation.
The main emphasis of Latin music is on the rhythm, which is strong and central to the composition of the music. The most typical rhythmic pattern is called the clave, and there are actually two types - the son clave and rumba clave. Each use alternating patterns of paired and tripled notes to create a driving, pulsating rhythm that is great for dancing.
Dance is one of the major priorities of Latin music and while there are several important styles of dance (they are all generally characterized by rhythmic strutting from the hips), what really matters is the opportunity for self-expression through movement. So, that's Latin music. It's something that you have to feel in order to truly understand, though, so get out there and, ¡Baila!
Latin Music Overview
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| Terms | Explanations |
|---|---|
| Latin music | the music of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Caribbean as well as Central and South America |
| Clave | the basic Latin rhythm inspired by traditional African beats that were developed in the Caribbean |
| Son clave | named after the Cuban musical genre of son Cubano; it features alternating patterns of threes and twos |
| Tresillo | (triplet in English) means three notes evenly spaced across two beats |
| Rumba clave | flips the son clave around and has two alternating patterns of twos and threes; the two paired beats come first with a triplet coming next |
| Latin instruments | percussion section very important in Latin music and may include shakers, like maracas or tambourines; brass instruments, such as trumpets and tubas, are popular for the melodies and harmonies, as are guitars, which can play both melodies and rhythms |
| Latin dance | full of dances, from the rumba to salsa to cha-cha to samba |
Learning Outcomes
Sure in your knowledge of this lesson, confirm that you can:
- Describe the way in which Latin music came about
- Identify the Latin rhythms at the heart of this type of music
- Recognize the instruments popular in Latin music
- List some types of dances in Latin America
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