Torco wrote: ↑20 Mar 2021 22:06
What elemtilas says is to some degree true: there is a line of musical influence from arabia to iberia to latin america: that is to say, it is known that spanish music was influenced by the maghreb and the arab world, and that latin american music was influenced by spanish music. that being said, it's not very obvious at this point, and part of it has probably to do with the fact that during those 500 years or so arabic music changed independently. I myself don't really _feel_ the arabicness in it anymore. then again, I don't really like most of what's called latin music. (and in fairness, the very concept of it doesn't make any sense to me, being from latin america and all). In recent times, however, music that people of latin america listen is to is not that 'latin'. people in chile, for example, listen to almost nothing other than anglopop, old pop, some contemporary latin american pop, and regeton. mostly regeton, and there is definitely no arabic influence in regeton that i can distinguish.
Yes. No doubt much Latin music has evolved and changed. But so has Spanish music! None of these cultures are stuck in the 14th or 15th century. I actually like a number of kinds of Latin music (if I dare use such a blanket term again!) -- as a matter of fact, I really like the theatrics of some tololocheros. I like Cuban music, too; and Argentinian. Generally the older stuff (early 20th century).
Curious though, what sorts of Latin music do you like?
And you're right -- pretty light on the Arabic influence, though I can't fathom why we'd be surprised. I don't know if you'd agree or not, but I think that's kind of to be expected, after all, the Arabic influence came to something of an abrupt end in the 15th century with the reconquest! And there's been 500 years of mixing and musical advancement since that time!
Still, the way the spanish use plucked strings is quite different from the way they're used elsewhere, the melodic lines in particular sometimes are reminiscent of things arabs do with ouds, etcetera.
This is largely what I was getting at. The music clearly has a different "flavour" to it. It's certainly not an Irish flavour!
But speaking of, I'd argue that a good comparison, apart from the temporal differences, would be that Arabic (North African / Moorish) music influenced Spanish music the same way Scottish and Irish traditions influenced Canadian and American music. We can hear the strains of the ancient oud in flamenco and Spanish guitar music the same way we hear the "auld sod" in Cape Breton fiddling, Appalachian old time music and even right on into 21st century country music. Those little fiddle licks are straight out of the Irish tradition.
And of course, even there, there's loads of cultural and musical interchange.
Hehe. I read that one too!
The long and short of the Spanish is that the Arabic influence, since the 8th century, was I would say something of a broadside to the peninsula: not just music per se, but also new instruments, musicians (presumably not just court musicians, but ordinary folks with musical talents as well, new musical theories & techniques. The effects can be heard in the Cantigas of Alfonzo X for example. The use of Arabic modes and compositional form. The Latin seems to say about the same.