Currently the tendency is listening to new kinds of
music, like reggaeton, bachata, electronic, etc. But what happens with the traditional
Colombian music? The government only organizes festivals of rock to the park or
hip hop to the park. Why not organize the festival with traditional Colombian music.
Why our music is not appreciated as it should? In this article you can recognize
some types of traditional Colombian music and understand why people would
rather these new types of music.
Reggaeton is a Caribbean rhythm that in the last 20 years
has been accepted and rejected in different places. However recently the
reggaeton has a big rise, one reason is because of its repetitive catchy
rhythms. This rhythm is easy to make, everybody can make it, if a person hits
their foot on the floor and clap with certain cadence can make it, it is very
simple, that is a reason for this music is a hit.
Unlike reggaeton the traditional Colombian music is more complex and it is influenced by three different cultures: The American aborigine, the Spanish and the African. This music can be divided in four regions: the coast of Atlantic or the Caribbean, the Andean region and eastern plains. The music of Atlantic has hot rhythms like cumbia, porro and mapale.
The pacific music has rhythms like currulao in which
drums and marimba predominate. The music of Andean region has rhythms of
bambuco, pasillo, guabina, torbellio, etc; all played with string instruments.
The llanera music is played with harp, cuatro and maracas. In addition to these
traditional sounds, there are two styles of music that are very popular in all
the country. These are salsa and vallenato. Vallenato is a rhythm coming from
La Guajira and Cesar and is played with accordion and other instruments.
It’s clear that Colombia has a lot of types of music but why all this music is not appreciated or why our music is not as famous as reggaeton. One reason is that there is not a radio station that puts traditional Colombian music, some radio station play our folklore, but it is not that common. The majority our music is played only in the parties of the towns. Thus, few people enjoy the traditional Colombia sounds.
In conclusion our music is beautiful and unique, but
is being forgotten. We should be more patriotic, as in many other things we try
to copy foreign customs. We need to put reggaeton a little bit aside and
support traditional Colombian music.
