Page 36 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Argentina

34  INTRODUCING ARGENTINA

Music and Dance

Rock nacional, pop, and tango dominate in the country’s
capital and other urban areas, where middle-class
Argentinians stress their fondness for these genres, while
cumbia and other Latin rhythms are popular among the
working classes. Folk music, known in Castellano as folklore,
enjoys greater popularity in rural parts. Chacarera and
zamba, both dance and musical forms, are popular in the
Pampas and Andean high plains respectively, while from Mapuche women playing traditional
the Litoral provinces comes the lively fusion of chamame. ceremonial music
Folklore
Built on the rhythms of pre-Columbian indigenous music,
folklore exhibits Old World influences and has adopted the
guitar as a key instrument. It is an umbrella term for the music
that combines traditional indigenous elements with the
structures or instrumentation of European folk.
Zamba is not to be confused
with its homonym, samba.
The Argentinian zamba is
an elegant courting dance
during which couples tease
and taunt each other using
a white handkerchief.
Lyrics cover all sub jects,
from love and the
countryside to passion-
ate political protest.

Andean music is synonymous with
the sound of pan pipes, charango
guitars, and flutes, while lyrics praise
Pachamama (Earth Mother). Jaime
Torres is the country’s best-known
charango virtuoso.
Chamame is a fusion of German Schottische,
Guaraní ethnic music, Brazilian forms, and Spanish
rhythms, and has a notably subtropical feel.
Leading exponents include Chango Spasiuk.
Urban Rhythms
In Argentina’s major cities there is access to a
healthy mix of various genres of music ranging
from Western classical and rock to hip-hop,
pop, and trance. Urbanites love to listen, and
to dance, to tango, marcha, cumbia, cuarteto,
pop-influenced folklore, and different kinds
of rhythms that reflect Latin American and
traditional indigenous influences.
Argentinian cumbia was originally derived from
Colombian cumbia. The term used to refer to songs
dealing with love and jealousy set to a tinny beat, but
in the late 1990s a scene called cumbia villera (shanty
town) emerged. Well-known bands include Damas
Gratis (right) and Yerba Brava.

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