Afro-Cuban percussion, its roots and role in popular Cuban music

Abstract

This Master’s Report will address questions about Afro-Cuban music, focusing on Afro-Cuban percussion and music in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The first two chapters will address congas and timbales, which are two Afro-Cuban percussion instruments at the center of Cuban culture and music. The next three chapters will address danzón, rumba, and son. These chapters will provide analysis into the influences that shaped the music as well as analysis of the music itself. Chapter 6 of this report addresses Cuba’s impact on culture outside Cuba, relating but not limited to music, with emphasis on the 1930s into the beginning of World War II. Throughout this report videos have been created to help explain topics of Afro-Cuban music to readers in a more interactive way. The purpose of these videos is to demonstrate how the instruments sound as well as what the instruments look like, how notation included in the report is realized, and generally to make the page come to life in ways that technology today now allows.