COLOMBIAN MUSIC VS NEW TYPES OF MUSIC

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.