BY MEMBERS OF

The earliest forms of music in the Americas were probably of the shamanistic tradition. Music permeated native life. Its most important application being within ceremonial contexts. Generally, the music was largely functional, used primarily for religious worship. As with most tribal cultures around the world, song, dance and the playing of instruments were used to insure a good harvest, guard against natural disasters, assure fertility of land and people, heal sickness, generate success in war and hunting, mark life's passages, maintain tradition and in some cases provide recreation. Native peoples developed a wide variety of complex musical forms employing mostly percussion instruments which include countless varieties of drums and rattles. Mayan and Incan societies developed veritable orchestras of wind and percussion instruments. Some scholars suggest that the sophistication of native music was superior or comparable to contemporaneous musical traditions in Europe and Asia. Musical instruments were fashioned based largely on local resource: cane and clay was used for flutes, hardwood trees and animal skin for drums, gourds and seeds for rattles and sea shells for trumpets. All groups used the human voice for singing and chanting.

It remains one of the mysteries of history why native populations did not exploit the principle of the vibrating string to a greater extent since they did employ bow technology in hunting. However, some extreme isolated examples of native-developed string instruments made with a siniu string and played on a gourd on the ground, or the little known "Apache fiddle" have survived.

During the 16th century the conquest of the Americas meant the virtual genocide of the native people and their music. Missionaries were anxious to purge "pagan" elements of native culture of which they did not approve; native religious practice, which invariably included music, was naturally a prime target. Instruments were destroyed outright and replaced with Western liturgical music. Some religious musics brought by the missionaries were taught to the native and slave populations who, to their credit, reportedly reached such a high degree of proficency that they rivaled the best musical ensembles of Europe. In 1522 the first European Music Conservatory was established in Mexico City to teach the liturgical choral music of the church.

Eventually, European instruments, like the guitar, the piano and brass and wind orchestras along with their respective musical forms took root in the new environment and were woven into newly syncretized forms, the fruit of which we enjoy today. Colonial European musics are still intact in some regions and heavily acculturated in others. The popularity of the march, polka, ballad and the many waltzes bear witness to an extensive European contribution to Latin American music culture. Adoption of European scale systems, structures and harmonic vocabularies permeate Latin music. Some, like the so-called "Andalusian cadence" (A minor, G, F, E), are even traceable to the Moors of Spain.

The major African contribution to Latin music is in its rhythmic enrichment. Many Latin American instruments, like drums, bells, rattles and flutes as well as some dances and songs are traceable to religions and ceremonial contexts in Africa. Perhaps African and European musics combined more readily with each other than with native forms because they shared somewhat similar scale systems and harmonic textures. The African impulse is strongest in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Brazil and the small countries of northeast South America. The result of this massive infusion of African culture was a diverisification of music as witnessed by such popular forms as the Afro-Cuban rumba, Brazilian samba, Jamaican reggae, and Colombian cumbia, to name but a few.

Elements of Catholicism syncretised with African religious practice, especially Yoruban spiritualism, which developed into acculturated belief systems such as Macumba, Candomble, Santeria and Vodun. Today, these religious sects predominate in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Haiti, as well as in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami and other locations where there are large populations of Hispanic people. Music is an intrinsic and inextricable element in these religions; drumming and movement have always been an essential aspect of African worship. By maintaining some semblance of traditional religion and music in the face of slavery, African culture survived one of the most devastating chapters in its history.