Despite the fact that plena music has been around for over a hundred years, this should not imply that it is primitive or weak when compared to other musical genres. There’s no doubt that we can find traces of our favorite songs in plena music. When listening to a basic plena song, it will be common for the verses to be broken down into different topics (Manuel 258). This is unique because in the American music that we listen to, it is uncommon to have more than one major topic in a song, but with plena music’s structure it is possible to have multiple topics depending on how many verses a song contains. This can also be helpful when trying to improvise or extend a song. Alternating with a topical verse is normally a simple choral refrain
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Its’ importance isn’t simply traditional or aesthetic. In fact, the pandereta is key to the meter of a song and normally two panderetas are used to reiterate a basic duple meter, while another musician improvises on his drum with syncopated patterns (Manuel 258). Plena is identified by the rest of the world as folk music and often contains the simple musical structures and narratives, but in Puerto Rico it is the ultimate popular music. In talking about the folk qualities of plena music, there is evidence that Western African slaves were the first to perform plena music (Banning). These West African songs were often songs were often in call and …show more content…
Instrumentation in both plena music and jazz are very similar. Being that both genres stem from African music, it should be no surprise that they share qualities. While plena music is a national treasure to Puerto Rico, we can certainly say the same about Jazz in America. Both genres also have declined from the previous prominence as salsa has come forward to take the place of plena music, while genres like r&b and hip-hop have taken the place of jazz. Originally, neither plena music nor jazz were accepted by the upper class and both were always considered to be simply recreational and dance oriented, but as we discussed in class often the middle and lower classes determine the musics that should be acknowledged because the song are speaking to them and the obstacles that they faced daily. There is however a similarity that can be drawn from this which is the clear danceability of both genres. This shows that plena music and jazz were designed for people to have a good
Its’ importance isn’t simply traditional or aesthetic. In fact, the pandereta is key to the meter of a song and normally two panderetas are used to reiterate a basic duple meter, while another musician improvises on his drum with syncopated patterns (Manuel 258). Plena is identified by the rest of the world as folk music and often contains the simple musical structures and narratives, but in Puerto Rico it is the ultimate popular music. In talking about the folk qualities of plena music, there is evidence that Western African slaves were the first to perform plena music (Banning). These West African songs were often songs were often in call and …show more content…
Instrumentation in both plena music and jazz are very similar. Being that both genres stem from African music, it should be no surprise that they share qualities. While plena music is a national treasure to Puerto Rico, we can certainly say the same about Jazz in America. Both genres also have declined from the previous prominence as salsa has come forward to take the place of plena music, while genres like r&b and hip-hop have taken the place of jazz. Originally, neither plena music nor jazz were accepted by the upper class and both were always considered to be simply recreational and dance oriented, but as we discussed in class often the middle and lower classes determine the musics that should be acknowledged because the song are speaking to them and the obstacles that they faced daily. There is however a similarity that can be drawn from this which is the clear danceability of both genres. This shows that plena music and jazz were designed for people to have a good