A Quick Look At Son.
Son has the kind of gentle, persistant rhythm that insinuates itself into your brain and says to your feet, Dance, Dance. It developed in Cuba and afterwards spread to other parts of the globe, becoming particularly influential in Africa.
The music began to fuse itself together during the 1880s as Cubans fought to abolish slavery and free themselves from the colonial domination of Spain. It was nurtured in the eatern province of Oriente and at the tip of the island, in Baracoa. Loosely speaking, the melodies and lyrical form of the music can trace their roots back to the Iberian Peninsula in Spain, while the rhythm - originally percussive, played on drums, but now taken up by other instruments as well - comes from West and Central Africa. The music is put together in two parts, one, which is the tema or 'theme' initiated by the lead singer, and two, a call-and-response accompaniment which often includes instrument solos. There is a lot of room for improvisation from both the singer and the instruments.
Some Terminology
Clave - the rhythm of a song. 'One-two one-two-three, One-two one-two-three' is a distinctive son clave. The rhythm was traditionally knocked out with wooden sticks known as claves, but nowadays it is often distributed throughout the melodies of the other instruments instead.
Montuno - 'of the mountains:' the second, call-and-response, part of the music.
Primero - the lead singer
Segundo - a second singer, who accompanies the lead.
Sonero - a son singer
Sones - son, plural
Tres - 'three,' a type of guitar so named because it has three pairs of doubled metal strings. The metal helps to give this guitar its distinctive high-pitched sound.
