Folklorico or Argentine Folk Music

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Terri's Music Spot! Today we'll be covering the music of Argentina. 

Before we get started, I just want to give a quick geography and history lesson. For anyone who doesn't know, Argentina is located in the southeast of the South American continent and is the big country to the right of Chile and below Uruguay. Argentina like many other areas in the New World was colonized by Spain and though it receives its name from the country's large amount of silver resources, it was also used to grow sugar cane.

Now, let's get started!

If I asked someone to share their first thought when asked about Argentinian music, their first thought would most likely be the tango, and it isn't incorrect. However, there are many more types of traditional Argentine music and much much more to hear.

Tango 

Nevertheless, we will also be covering the tango as it's important to this story. Tango is a syncretic dance and music style that developed in the mid-1880s along the Argentinian/Uruguayan border amongst its Native, Afro-Argentinian, and Spanish-Cuban populations. More specifically, it is a combination of Candome, Habanera, and Milonga influences. The dance and its accompanying music are named after the term used to refer to a "musical gathering of slaves", especially since these gatherings were banned. Despite, this and the dance's perceived inappropriately sexual nature, it quickly spread throughout the Argentine social classes and later the world by the early 1920s. Sadly, the Argentinian government collapsed during the Great Depression, and the totalitarian one that rose from the chaos banned this music and many others until it experienced a rebirth and regained popularity in the 1980s. 

Some of the more contemporary tango musicians are El Arranque, Adriana Varela,and Juan Jose Mosalini.

Sadly, most of Argentine folklore music, also called Folklorico, wasn't written down for many years until an organization called The Collection of Native Art and the musician Andres Chazaretta, who has since been deemed the patriarch of folklore, began recording them in the early 1900s. 

Realistically, we will not be able to completely cover traditional Argentine music in one sitting, let alone one blog post, especially as each region and province of Argentina has its own music similar yet distinct when compared to the others. Hopefully, I will however be able to share some that will inspire you to learn more.

Chamamé 

Chamamé originated in the Littoral region of northwest Argentina in Corrientes. Like the tango, it is a combination of African and European music styles, except instead of possessing the tango's sexual undertones, its lyrics are typically sad. In fact, it's compared to polka music (if anyone has ever read A Streetcar Named Desire, the similarity would make sense). At the base of the structure of chamamé songs is a 6/8 beat count that is a variation of the typical 3/4 beat of European songs. And similarly to what I've learned about other Argentine folk music, there's usually only a guitar and accordion used while playing the music, but in recent years it has expanded to include a bandoneon and double bass. Also, similarly to the tango, the chamamé has a history of being banned. However, the controversy related to the chamamé is related to an Argentine civil war between the locals of the Littoral region and those of Bueños Aires. With that being said, the aforementioned civil war wasn't that far back and certain songs are generally avoided to prevent riling up those who participated.

(Here's a bandoneon for those who didn't know like me.)

Famous examples of chamamé are La Calandria and Kilometro 11.

Other Argentine Folk Musics To Check-Out:

Chacarera

Zamba

Citations

“Argentine Folk: A Taste of Country Life.” Wander Argentina | Travel in Argentina by People Who Live There, wander-argentina.com/argentine-folk-music/.

“Chamamé for Dummies.” ReVista, revista.drclas.harvard.edu/book/chamam%C3%A9-dummies.

Elite Dance Studio, Elite Dance Studio. “The History Of The Argentine Tango: Elite Dance Studio: Edmonton.” Elite Dance Studio, 18 Oct. 2019, www.elitedancestudio.net/blogs/the-history-of-the-argentine-tango/.

“Music of Argentina - Traditional Argentinian Music.” Music of Argentina - Folk and Traditional Argentinian Music, www.dancefacts.net/tango/argentina-music.