nacional consisting mainly of folkloric genres played by marimba de arco trios,
gained popularity.
Other popular styles included corridos , which were linked to the legendary fig-
ure Augusto Sandino, consisting of four line coplas , with a simple melody. Cor-
ridos are closely connected to the Spanish romances . These songs were used to
spread Sandino’s revolutionary messages to the largely illiterate lower classes.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Nicaraguan bands began playing rock music, which
was especially celebrated by the rebellious youth. The nueva canción , or new song
movement associated with the Sandinista struggle ( Frente Sandinista de Liber-
ación Nacional ), became popular in the 1970s as música de protesta (see Protest
279
280 | Nicaragua
Nicaraguan musicians in the back of a truck during a funeral march. (Dreamstime)
Music in Latin America ) or música testimonial. The nueva canción movement,
popularized in part by Carlos Mejía Godoy, was connected with the popular classes,
and the lyrics often contained political and social satire. His song “ El zenzontle pre-
gunta por Arlen ” (“The mockingbird asks about Arlen”) refers to the assassination
of Arlen Sui, a Nicaraguan singer-songwriter and Marxist who was assassinated
by Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Giocanda Belli’s poem “ Cuando venga la paz, ”
recorded by Carlos Mejía Godoy, emphasizes the reason for the internal struggle
within Nicaragua, which is a more peaceful future.
In 1979, the Sandinista Popular Revolution succeeded in ending the Somoza
dictatorship that had long dominated Nicaraguan politics, in an event known as the
triunfo or victoria (triumph or victory). The 1980s was marred by political instabil-
ity caused by U.S. opposition to the leftist policies of the Sandinista government. In
1990, the first woman was elected president of Nicaragua, Violeta Barrios Torres de
Chamorro, defeating Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega, the incumbent. A wave of
Nicaraguans migrated to the United States in the 1980s, as a result of the difficult
economic situation and continued internal political struggle, but many moved back
in the 1990s in the so-called return of the Miami boys.
Further Reading
Clark, Walter Aaron. From Tejano to Tango: Latin American Popular Music. New
York: Routledge, 2002.
Norteño
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281
Pring-Mill, Robert. “The Roles of Revolutionary Song—a Nicaraguan Assessment.”
Popular Music 6, no. 2, Latin America (1987): 179–89.
Schechter, John Mendell. Music in Latin American Culture: Regional Traditions. New
York: Schirmer Books, 1999.
Scruggs, T. M. “Cultural Capital, Appropriate Transformations, and Transfer by Appro-
priation in Western Nicaragua: ‘El Baile De La Marimba.’ ” Latin American Music Review /
Revista de Música Latinoamericana 19, no. 1 (1998): 1–30.
Scruggs, T. M. “ ‘Let’s Enjoy as Nicaraguans’: The Use of Music in the Construction
of a Nicaraguan National Consciousness.” Ethnomusicology 43, no. 2 (1999): 297–321.
Scruggs, T.M. “Música y el legado de la violencia a finales del siglo XX en Centro
América.” Transcultural music review/Revista transcultural de musica, 10 (2006).
Caitlin Lowery
Norteño
Música norteña (music or the north) or simply norteño is a popular music genre
originally from Mexico ’ s northern states. It shares many similarities with the
Texas-based conjunto (ensemble), its counterpart across the U.S.-Mexico bor-
der. Both norteño and conjunto have folk-based rural origins and feature a core
instrumentation of button accordion and bajo sexto (a type of guitar with six double courses of strings). This duo has grown to include other instruments such
as tololoche (double bass), which has largely been replaced by the electric bass
since the mid-1950s, tambora de rancho, a homemade drum later replaced by
the drum set, and saxophone, but the two core instruments still characterize the
sound of the ensemble. Both traditions have mutually influenced each other, as
they have become the favorite music styles in the area and a strong marker of
northern Mexican identity. Although norteño bands such as Los Tigres del Norte
have had a large following among mostly blue-collar Mexican immigrants in the
United States for decades, it was not until the 1990s, however, that rural-rooted,
regional music from northern Mexico turned into a hot commodity on both sides
of the border.
Música norteña emerged as a truly intercultural practice when Spanish colonial,
Mexican national, and 19th-century immigrant traditions were blended to create a
cheerful musical style with new instrumental sounds. Although it is impossible to
reconstruct the exact origins of norteño music for it was a specific expression of
a common people, learned and passed down from generation to generation by ear,
the beginnings of norteño as a distinct genre can be traced to the arrival of the but-
ton accordion in the U.S.-Mexico border area in the 1860s and 1870s. Introduced
by European settlers, notably of German and Czech origin, Mexican people not
only adopted the loud, sturdy, and relatively inexpensive instrument but also the
popular European dances of the time: polka, waltz (see vals ), mazurka, quadrille,
282 | Norteño
and schottische . Norteño’s history becomes more tangible with the interest of the nascent recording industry in regional music expression. North of the border, several companies began to record native Texas-Mexican and Mexican musicians and
singers in the 1930s. South of the border, the industrial capital Monterrey became
a leading force in the development of a potent media industry, which was not only
decisive in the shaping of regional popular music, but also furthered transregional
expressions by disseminating them to other parts of Mexico via powerful radio sta-
tions. By the 1940s, the typical norteño ensemble consolidated, featuring the three-
row diatonic button accordion, bajo sexto, saxophone, contrabass, and drum set.
Vocal genres were performed in a characteristic Hispanic type of folk polyphony,
two high-pitched voices singing in parallel thirds and sixths (usually the accordion
and bajo sexto players), in a fast tempo, and with a strongly tonal harmonic support.
The repertory consisted of a combination of instrumental polkas, schottisches, and
redowas with the lyric-oriented canciones mexicanas (Mexican songs) or ranch-
eras , huapangos , and corridos (folk ballads). The latter had become the main narrative expression of the norteño tradition in the early 20th century.
The crystallization of a distinct northern music style was stimulated by musical
interrelations between south Texas and northern Mexico. Mexican musicians such
as Los Alegres de Terán, Antonio Tanguma, and Lalo García gained popularity on
both sides of the border. New popular dance rhythms such as the bolero and the
cumbia were incorporated into the norteña repertory by Pedro Yerena and Juan
Montoya in the 1940s and by Beto Villa and Ramón Ayala in the 1960s, respec-
tively. Changes in the instrumentation consolidated the modern conjunto sound
in the 1950s when most groups added a modern drum, substituted an electric
bass
guitar for the contrabass, and introduced amplification for the accordion and the
bajo sexto as well as microphones for the singers.
Norteño is one of the most thriving types of popular Mexican music nowadays.
Many of the famous Mexican bands such as Ramón Ayala y sus Bravos del Norte,
Los Tigres del Norte, and Los Rieleros del Norte are based in the United States, and
their music is recorded and produced within the United States. Although norteña
music has kept its working (or lower) class image to a certain degree, it has been
able to transcend its geographic and social confines. In the United States, it contin-
ues to play a significant role as a vehicle of expression of the migrant experience
and cultural heritage of many Mexicans.
Further Reading
Bensusan, Guy. “A Consideration of Norteña and Chicano Music.” Studies of Latin
American Popular Culture 4 (1985): 158–69.
Burr, Ramiro. The Billboard Guide to Tejano and Regional Mexican Music. New York:
Billboard Books, 1999.
Nueva
Canción
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283
Peña, Manuel. The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1985.
Helena Simonett
Nueva Canción
Nueva canción (new song) refers to a socially conscious folkloric-popular music
movement that originated in the Southern Cone in the 1960s and spread through-
out Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s. It is closely related to Cuba ’ s nueva
trova (new Troubadours) and Argentina ’ s movimiento nuevo cancionero (new song movement). In 1967, leftist Latin American musicians attending Cuba’s First
International Meeting of Protest Music first considered using the name nueva can-
ción for a progressive Latin American music movement, however, the term primar-
ily caught on in Chile following 1969’s First Festival of Chilean Nueva Canción.
Nueva canción later became mainly a generational category for socially conscious
Chilean artists and songs from the 1960s and 1970s.
Nueva canción is difficult to define stylistically because of its international scope
and eclectic nature. Nueva canción musicians generally view themselves as socially
committed artists who interpret the folk music of the common people. Like most
folk revivalists worldwide, nueva canción artists typically adapt rural musical tra-
ditions in a manner that is esthetically pleasing to middle- and upper-class urban
audiences. Nueva canción compositions are intended mainly for listening rather
than dancing (unlike most rural genres) and frequently exhibit carefully written lyr-
ics with progressive (sometimes explicitly political) messages. Strongly associated
with leftist pan-Latin Americanism, nueva canción artists usually play instruments
and/or genres from various Latin American countries (e.g., Andean kena flute ac-
companied with Venezuelan cuatro and Argentine bombo drum).
Chilean singer/songwriter/guitarist Violeta Parra (1917–1967) laid much of the
groundwork for the nueva canción movement (although she died before the move-
ment acquired its name). Parra patterned many of her songs on rural mestizo genres
that she had learned during frequent travels to the Chilean countryside. Before be-
coming well-known, Parra lived in Europe from 1955 to 1956. In Paris, Argentine
musicians from Buenos Aires introduced her to the highland Andean charango
(ukulele-size string instrument) and kena (end-notched bamboo flute), instruments
later highly identified with nueva canción. During Parra’s second stay in Europe
(1962–1965) the political content of her song lyrics notably increased. She wrote
future nueva canción classics such as La Carta (“The Letter”) and performed at
Paris’s L’Escale and La Candelaria, Left Bank venues where Latin American musi-
cians including her son Ángel and daughter Isabel also played. The Parra family
284 | Nueva Canción
returned to Chile in 1965 and founded Santiago’s La Peña de los Parra and La
Carpa de la Reina, which like Paris’s L’Escale and La Candelaria presented rural
Latin American musical traditions to cosmopolitan urban audiences. In contrast
to Paris’s largely apolitical scene, however, in the Chilean capital overtly leftist
sentiments were front and center at the pioneering Parra venues, where folkloric-
popular music became closely linked to leftism and pan-Latin Americanism. These
sentiments inspired Violeta Parra’s song “Los Pueblos Americanos” (“The Ameri-
can Peoples/Nations”) and Patricio Manns’s “Si Somos Americanos” (“If We Are
Americans”). For the emerging nueva canción movement La Peña de los Parra
and La Carpa de la Reina functioned as the main center of activity. La Peña de los
Parra ’s house ensemble, named Los de la Peña (later known as Los Curacas ), was
among the first urban Chilean groups to specialize in highland Andean repertory.
After Violeta Parra’s suicide in 1967, her friend Victor Jara and her children
Ángel and Isabel Parra became the movement’s key figures. In 1969 Jara’s “Ple-
garia a un Labrador” (“Prayer to a Worker”) earned the top prize at the First Festi-
val of Chilean nueva canción. Another famous song by Jara, “Preguntas por Puerto
Montt” (“Questions about Puerto Montt”), boldly denounced the Chilean military’s
massacre of striking workers, naming government official Pérez Zujovic as the
main culprit. Jara, like Violeta Parra and the Parra siblings, fit into the folk music
protest singer/songwriter/guitarist mold (as did Argentine folklorist Atahualpa Yu-
panqui, an important influence on many nueva canción musicians). Also very
popular in Chile were 4–5-member ensembles that sang in 2–4-part harmony, ac-
companied with guitars and bombo. Dressed in rural garb (e.g., ponchos), these
urban groups modeled themselves after superstar Argentine folkloric-popular en-
sembles (e.g., Los Chalchaleros, Los Fronterizos ). This was the case with Quilapa-
yún (Mapuche for “Three Bearded Men”), directed at first by Ángel Parra and
later by Jara. Inti-Illimani, whose Bolivian name (Illimani is a La Paz mountain)
reflected the group’s early repertory of Andean instrumental pieces, was another
Chilean university student ensemble active in the late 1960s.
The nueva canción movement lent its support to leftist presidential candidate
Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity coalition. In the run-up to Allende’s 1970
electoral victory, the Popular Unity anthem Venceremos (“We Will Triumph”) was
standard nueva canción repertoire. After the election, nueva canción artists con-
tinued to back Allende. Amid escalating polarization across political and class
lines, nueva cancioń musicians performed on a regular basis at Popular Unity ral-
lies and wrote numerous compositions in support of the Allende administration
and its initiatives (e.g., nationalization of resources, agrarian reform). “El Pueblo
Unido Jamás Sera Vencido” (“A United People Will Never Be Defeated”), perhaps
the most famous nueva canción song, dates from this period. During the Allende
years (1970–1973), Chilean nueva canción artists forged closer relationships with
social
ly conscious musicians from other Latin American countries, such as Daniel
Nueva
Canción
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285
Rodríguez Dominguez, Silvio
Cuban singer Silvio Rodríguez (b. 1946) is a founder of the nueva trova move-
ment. He was suspended from radio and television by the Cuban government
for acknowledging the Beatles as an infl uence on his style, but after the in-
stitutionalization of nueva trova in the 1970s, he was promoted by the Cuban
government and become the fi rst nueva trovador to record an album. He per-
formed in Argentina, Nicaragua, Spain, and other countries as Cuba’s cul-
tural ambassador. He was elected to the Cuban National Assembly in 1992.
Rodríguez’s songs cover a range of topics. Several early songs appear critical
of censorship, while “Reino de todavía,” among others, addresses the socio-
economic diffi culties of Cuba following the fall of the U.S.S.R. His pro-socialist
sentiments are expressed in “El necio” and his anti-imperialist stance in “Can-
ción urgente para Nicaragua.” He has also written several elegies to Che Gue-
vara. Stylistically, many of his songs feature a folk-rock style reminiscent of
early Bob Dylan or Victor Jara, while others feature chromatic harmonies re-
calling traditional Cuban styles.
Further Reading
Manabe, Noriko. 2006. “Lovers and Rulers, the Real and the Surreal: Har-
monic Metaphors in Silvio Rodríguez’s Songs.” Transcultural Music Review 10
http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/a154/lovers-and-rulers-the-real-and-the-
surreal-harmonic-metaphors-in-silvio-rodriguezs-songs
Noriko Manabe
Viglietti of Uruguay, Mercedes Sosa of Argentina, and Silvio Rodríguez, and
Pablo Milanés of Cuba.
General Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup violently ended the Allende era, sending
many nueva canción musicians into exile, sometimes after they had endured im-
prisonment (e.g., Ángel Parra). Victor Jara was executed by the military. In Chile,
nueva canción was forced underground, gradually reemerging in the form of the
less-politicized canto nuevo. Quilapayún and Inti-Illimani had been representing
the Allende administration (as its cultural ambassadors) in France and Italy, re-
Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music Page 49
