Merengue

Los Bailes de Salón en Venezuela contribuye a comprender cómo se fueron entretejiendo en el país -a través de una manifestación aparentemente banal y anodina como lo es el baile - los complejos vínculos entre lo público y lo privado, la cultura y el poder, las distinciones de clase y sus modos de representación, el entramado social  y los imaginarios de nación, la circulación de bienes culturales y la economía, etc. Por medio de un examen detallado de su significación social, de usos y costumbres, de su terminología, del desarrollo y evolución de la fiesta donde tiene lugar, de las músicas y coreografías, se describe la importancia que tuvo el baile para los venezolanos de finales del siglo XVIII hasta mediados del XX, hecho al cual la disciplina histórica no le ha prestado hasta ahora prácticamente ninguna atención. Este texto nos muestra la trascendencia del salón burgués como una de las instituciones fundamentales en la constitución de la Venezuela republicana, y cómo contribuyó a construir el país que hoy tenemos. Además, da cuenta de cómo la cultura venezolana es el producto de una intrincada red de relaciones internacionales, de las cuales recibió ingentes influencias, pero a las cuales aportó también sus propias particularidades. El texto está ilustrado  con abundantes grabados, pinturas y fotografías alegóricos  a su contenido, que  complementan la investigación.

The Dominican Republic, a Caribbean country with a population predominantly of African-descent, is mostly known for its beautiful beaches, the charm of its people and its contagious music. Merengue is the national song and dance of the country. Since its creation, merengue has had different interpretations across regions, classes and political situations. The syncretic nature of merengue manifests a truth of Dominican origins that many would prefer to ignore: its blend of African and European musical and dance elements. Merengue has become a major part of Dominican identity; therefore, analyzing its origin and its basic elements can stir controversy because Dominicans from different social classes and racial background have different conceptions of Dominicanness. Even though the upper-class has analyzed merengue by privileging its European roots, merengue has had a mix of African and European elements and since its inception more African elements have been added and made it the contagious tune that the world now enjoys. Even though its origin is still unknown, throughout Dominican history, merengue has been able to adapt to changing political situations, to social classes and racial divides without neglecting its African influence. While many Dominicans do not consider their African heritage to be a part of their identity they still recognize and celebrate merengue as part of it, acting indifferent to its obvious African make-up.

Resumen
La cifra indicadora del compás del merengue venezolano ha propiciado numerosos debates a lo largo de los años en el medio musical del país. Sin embargo, han sido muy pocos los estudios en profundidad que se han dedicado a desentrañar este singular
e interesante problema. El presente trabajo ofrece pruebas históricas y documentales de que la notación musical del merengue es un asunto contingente, y que los elementos
rítmicos que lo caracterizan no están necesariamente reflejados en ninguna cifra indicadora del compás preferida. Siguiendo las teorías acerca de los acentos musicales y la percepción formulada por Humberto Sagredo Araya (1988), me propongo demostrar que el merengue venezolano es un género de altísima complejidad rítmica, la cual no se verá nunca expresada de manera satisfactoria por la notación musical.
Palabras clave: música, musicología, forma musical, música tradicional, merengue venezolano.

ABSTRACT
Some additional considerations about the rhythm and the notation
of merengue.
Over the years, the figure indicating the measure of Venezuelan merengue beat has led to many debates among musicians in this country. However, there have been very few studies that have thoroughly unraveled this unique and interesting issue. This paper
offers historical and documentary evidence that the musical notation of merengue is a contingent matter, and that the rhythmic elements that characterize it are not necessarily reflected in any preferred indicating time signature. Following Humberto Sagredo
Araya’s (1988) theories about musical accents and perception, I intend to show that Venezuelan merengue is a genre of a very high rhythmic complexity, which cannot be expressed in any satisfactory way by musical notation.
Key words: music, musicology, musical form, traditional music, Venezuelan merengue."

El Merengue dominicano tiene como una de sus características más notables, la capacidad de asimilación; su penetración gradual hacia varios grupos sociales, zonas geográficas y elementos creativos, es una muestra de fortaleza cultural.

Algunas de las fusiones musicales que se reconocen en el merengue, han incidido directamente en su trascendencia exterior al área cultural dominicana; sus transmutaciones, de lo rural a lo urbano y de lo urbano a lo global, lo distinguen dentro de los géneros musicales, que en el marco de su popularidad han explotado sus singularidades culturales por el mundo.

Esta investigación enmarca el análisis de las fusiones musicales en el merengue popular dominicano a partir del año 1990 hasta el 2005,  en el marco geográfico del Distrito Nacional de la República Dominicana (RD).

A transnational music scene has developed since the 1960s connecting New York City with Santiago, Dominican Republic, through merengue típico, or traditional, accordion-based merengue (also termed perico ripiao). New York-based musicians and fans have transformed the musical, social, and economic practices of típico in both locations by incorporating influences from hip-hop, reggaetón, rock, house, and other forms of internationally popular music, while bringing the style to new audiences through both radio and live performance. This article traces the history of merengue típico in New York City through the testimony of típico musicians and producers. In doing so, it demonstrates that Dominican Americans and transnational migrants have been important players in the development of this musical genre for nearly half a century, particularly in the modern style termed merengue con mambo. While this style is controversial precisely because of the traces of transnational encounters it shows, which cause traditionalists to fear for the music’s future, típico’s capacity for change in fact serves to ensure its continued relevance for new generations.

[Part of this essay come from a chapter commissioned (then cut) by Rebecca Walker for the book What Makes a Man: 22 Writers Imagine the Future (Riverhead Books, 2005).]
Although this is a "review essay" about Juan Luis Guerra's CD set "Colección Romántica," it is also a literary essay, and an auto-ethnography. My engagement with Guerra's music was shaped by three factors in my life in 2000: becoming fluent in Spanish, being a father of two children with whom I spoke in Spanish, and passing through a decade of celibacy.

A transnational music scene has developed since the 1960s connecting New York City with Santiago, Dominican Republic, through merengue tipico, or traditional, accordion-based merengue (also termed perico ripiao). New York-based musicians and fans have transformed the musical, social, and economic practices of tipico in both locations by incorporating influences from hip-hop, reggaeton, rock, house, and other forms of internationally popular music, while bringing the style to new audiences through both radio and live performance. This article traces the history of merengue tipico in New York City through the testimony of tipico musicians and producers. In doing so, it demonstrates that Dominican Americans and transnational migrants have been important players in the development of this musical genre for nearly half a century, particularly in the modern style termed merengue con mambo. While this style is controversial precisely because of the traces of transnational encounters it sho...

RESUMEN: En el presente trabajo se estudia la interpretación de la tonadilla escénica tanto en la época colonial, en el que se representaban obras de origen peninsular, como en la republicana, cuando ya autores locales empiezan a dedicarse a este género. Se establecerán las características estructurales de lo que la prensa denominaba tonadilla y lo que llamaba opereta y, contraviniendo a José Subirá, se pondrá de manifiesto que la tonadilla no sufre un proceso de italianización sino, muy por el contrario, de hispanización. Una vez llegada la República y con ella el cultivo de la tonadilla escénica por autores venezolanos, este proceso dará lugar a una criollización introduciéndose en la tonadilla escénica bailes autóctonos como el merengue. En el presente texto haremos un estudio detallado de él, y estableceremos la posibilidad de que el origen del merengue, esté en las tiranas de las tonadillas peninsulares del siglo anterior.

ABSTRACT: The present study examines the performance of the stage tonadilla during the colonial period, when works originating from the peninsula were performed, as well as during the Republic, when local composers began cultivating this genre. We shall establish the structural characteristics of what the press called tonadilla and what was considered operetta and, in disagreement with José Subirá, it will become evident that the tonadilla does not undergo a process of Italianization but rather of a marked Hispanic slant. Once the Republic is installed and along with it the cultivation of the stage tonadilla by Venezuelan composers, this process will give way to a creolization introducing within the stage tonadilla local dances such as the meringue. We shall undertake a detailed study of this, and we shall establish the possibility that the origin of the meringue is in the tiranas of the peninsular tonadillas of the previous century.

Pastane mutfaklarında birbirinden farklı görünümde ve özellikte ürünler yer almaktadır. Bu ürünler genel olarak un, yağ, şeker ve yumurta gibi içeriklerle hazırlanmaktadır. İçerdikleri malzemeler bakımından aynı gibi gözüken ürünler, kullanılan çeşitli teknikler ile birlikte bambaşka ürünlere dönüşebilmektedir. Bu durumdan yola çıkılarak pastane mutfaklarının diğer mutfak türlerinden farklılaştığı, kimyasal ve fiziksel değişimlerin çok daha somut bir şekilde gözlemlenebildiği, bilimsel açıklamaların deneysel bir şekilde uygulama olanağının sağlandığı ve ürün hazırlama aşamasında oluşabilecek birçok durum öngörülerek işlem basamakları ile şekillendiği ifade edilebilmektedir. Pastane mutfakları aynı zamanda bilimsel kurallar çerçevesinde kullanılan tekniklerin ve ürünü oluşturan malzemelerin çeşitli değişkenlere göre verdiği tepkilerin mantıklı bir açıklamasının yapılabildiği bir çalışma alanı olarak belirtilebilir. Bu bölümde ele alınan konuları; tartlar, paylar, kekler ve merengler oluşturmaktadır. Özellikle bölüm içerisinde yer alan konular içerikleri bakımından incelendiğinde; kullanılan un, yağ, şeker ve yumurtanın farklı form, farklı ısı, farklı sıcaklık ve farklı teknik ile bir araya gelmesinin farklı sonuçlar doğurduğu net bir şekilde gözlemlenmektedir.

Presentación del libro  "Joseíto Mateo: ni revolucionario, ni político… “un dominicano que andaba por el mundo levando el arte y la música” escrito por Diógenes Céspedes. Fundación Corripio. Santo Domingo, República Dominicana. 10 de julio de 2019.

Dominican merengue típico is unique among Caribbean musical genres for being the only one in which women have been more prominent as instrumentalists and bandleaders than as vocalists or dancers. The reasons for their relative success in this apparently “macho” genre are multiple, but point to a long tradition of seemingly atypical gender roles, both inside and outside of típico. These Dominican women’s achievements also suggest that perspectives on Caribbean gender construction that emphasize a binary model of machismo and female subservience present a one-sided view of the subject that does not correspond to all Caribbean women’s experiences. When factors such as class, race, and performance traditions are figured in, the picture becomes considerably more complex.
The classic male figure in merengue típico is the tíguere, the dandified but sexually aggressive "tiger" who hustles his way through life, gaining respect by successfully making his living in the urban streets, on the margins of capitalism. As female accordionists made their way through this “man’s world”, they helped to develop a feminine counterpart to this male role: they became assertive, sensual, yet respected tígueras who look like women but play and perhaps even sing like men. The recent appearance of this new female role, which is not limited to the world of típico although it is most visible there, points to ambiguities in the construction of Dominican masculinity and femininity, ambiguities that have become even more noticeable through the appearance of cross-dressing and other gender-bending performers in the 21st century. In this book, the author draws from ten years of fieldwork in the Dominican Republic and New York; interviews with dozens of típico musicians, fans, and patrons; the lives and works of key performers; and her own experience as a woman playing típico accordion in order to rewrite the book on Dominican gender construction from a musical perspective.

Since the 1960s, migrating Dominicans have developed a transnational music scene that connects New York City with Santiago, Dominican Republic through merengue típico, an accordion-based form of merengue (also termed perico ripiao). Though divided geographically, this music scene is bound together through the three interrelated processes of place-making, community-making, and music-making. Applying the scenes analysis model of Silver, Clark, and Navarro, this chapter considers the contributions of musicians, producers, managers, and fans to these processes, showing how they contribute to the creation of a highly-circumscribed, bilocal “scene.” While this is a transnational community, it is still centered on live music performance and face-to-face interaction, and thus both adheres to and complicates some traditional notions of what “scenes” are. The conclusions can be applied to other transnational regional musics as well, and they also provide a clear example of how scenes coalesce around traditional musics, resulting in a shared sense of place and a life-world of significant importance to participants.

Tatico Henríquez was an inescapable presence during my research into Dominican merengue típico. Although he died in 1976, even young musicians spoke of this accordionist as though they’d known him, and he was unanimously named the best típico musician of all time. His merengues still form the core of the típico repertoire today. But what was it about Tatico?
In this work I examine the role of the exceptional individual in traditional culture and society. Tatico was indubitably exceptional for his musicianship and charisma, yet he has also come to stand for things larger than himself.  Thus, while part of the answer to the mystery lies in technique, voice, and personality, more important than those are Tatico’s embodiment of shared ideas about masculinity, migration, and nostalgia.
Tatico’s career spanned a tumultuous period that included the assassination of dictator Trujillo, multiple coups, a U.S. invasion, chaotic urban growth, and massive transnational migration. After Tatico, the effects of urbanization and transnationalism on traditional music have only been amplified. He therefore stands on a bridge between the country’s past and present.
Lise Waxer argues that the people of Cali, Colombia, “made sense of the city’s rapid urbanization” through their relationship to 1960s-70s salsa recordings (2002:14) which helped them to remember the period “not as a time of struggle and precarious existence at the city’s margins, but as a time . . .  when new friendships and community bonds were forged through dancing together” (2002:109). In their focus on Tatico, típico musicians perform a similar act of collective remembering.  In this case, the remembering is also rooted in gendered experiences and the construction of a new type of masculinity. Tatico embodies the new masculine archetype of the tíguere, master of the urban domain, whose ideals are expressed in his music, his persona, and the stories told about him. Building upon the work of prior researchers who have shown that the forms of Dominican masculinity have changed markedly since Trujillo (Simonson 1994; Krohn-Hansen 1996), I use merengue típico as a way of better understanding these changes.
Writing of the great Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, Virginia Danielson writes,
The ‘Voice of Egypt’ appears to be a spectacularly successful individual, clearly an exceptional person in many aspects. Yet, just as clearly, her ‘voice’ was and is a collective voice, constructed historically. The performances produced by a single individual . . .  became widely shared within Arab societies and identified by vast numbers of people as important cultural property” (1997:198).

Tatico’s voice has also become a collective one. Remembering Tatico is a way to idealize the rural past, commemorate the moment of migration, and construct a masculine ideal. Tatico’s legendary charisma was not simply personal magnetism but rather the embodiment of key cultural values, which explains his conversion into legend. For some, he is a masculine model to be aspired to; for others, he is the audible trace of a distant past.