Tango and Latin America
One rhythm runs through this chapter. The Cuban habanera goes long, short, long, long. Tie its two middle notes together and it becomes the tresillo, three notes spread 3 + 3 + 2 (see Rhythm and meter). In the 19th century it crossed to Spain, to Brazil and to the River Plate, and each place made its own music on it. The demos are in Songs > Tango, Latin and Flamenco.
The habanera
- La Paloma, by Sebastián Iradier, written about 1860 after a visit to Cuba, went round the world. Only two chords, C and G7: the tune hangs on F, the seventh of G7, for a whole bar before each cadence.
- Habanera, the aria from Bizet’s opera Carmen (1875), slides down one semitone at a time over the habanera rhythm in D minor, then turns to D major for its refrain.
Tango
The tango grew up in Buenos Aires and Montevideo around 1900, out of the habanera, the milonga and the Spanish tango. Most tangos are in a minor key, and the dominant seventh, E7 in A minor, whose G♯ comes from the harmonic minor, gives them their drama. Listen to the piano and the bass: in the marcato style they hit every beat, short and hard, while the tune pulls between long notes and quick runs.
El Choclo, by Ángel Villoldo (1903), is the oldest tango still played everywhere, and its chord sheet holds a whole lesson. The first strain runs up and down A minor and E7; A7, a secondary dominant, leads to D minor; the second strain leans on the relative major, C, through its own dominant, G7; and the third turns to A major, the tonic major, and walks round the circle of fifths, F♯7, B minor, B7, E7. Villoldo’s tangos were still half milonga, so the bass plays the 3 + 3 + 2.
More to hear:
| Demo | Listen for |
|---|---|
| La Cumparsita (Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, 1916) | a first strain made of one two-bar idea four times, D7 answered by G minor, with the C♯ leaning into every D |
| Por una cabeza (Carlos Gardel, 1935) | quick chromatic turns in D major; the second strain in D minor, one rising figure three times, each a third lower |
| Volver (Carlos Gardel, 1934) | a verse in G minor that repeats a note, then the note a step below; a refrain in G major that borrows an E♭ chord from G minor |
| Adiós muchachos (Julio César Sanders, 1927) | B♭ minor, a chord borrowed from F minor, darkening F major |
| Caminito (Juan de Dios Filiberto, 1926) | an introduction in A major, a verse in A minor and a refrain back in A major |
| Garúa (Aníbal Troilo, 1943) | a bass walking down under A7, and B♭7 sliding down a half step to A7 |
| Milonga del río (written for Ferrous Lineup) | the milonga, quicker and happier than the tango: the tune itself plays the 3 + 3 + 2 |
The vals criollo is the tango’s waltz. Desde el alma, by Rosita Melo (1911), starts on the dominant, F♯7, and only reaches B minor in its third bar.
Brazil
In Rio de Janeiro the habanera and the polka became the maxixe, the tango brasileiro and the choro, the instrumental music of the city around 1900, for flute, guitar and cavaquinho. These are in 2/4, written here two bars to one bar of 4/4.
- Tico-Tico no Fubá, by Zequinha de Abreu (1917): a rondo, A A B B A C C A, with A in A minor, B in its relative major, C, and C in its parallel major, A.
- Apanhei-te, cavaquinho, by Ernesto Nazareth (1914): runs down G major in sixteenths, each beat leaning on the semitone below it.
- Carioca, by Nazareth (1913): a tango brasileiro whose first strain cadences through the Neapolitan chord.
- Atraente, a polka by Chiquinha Gonzaga (1877), and her Ó abre alas (1899), counted the first carnival march.
Sixty years later, the bossa nova slowed the samba down and filled it with jazz chords. Garota de Ipanema, by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes (1962), surprises at its second chord: E♭7, the dominant of the dominant, where E♭ minor 7 would be expected. Its bridge jumps up a half step, to D major, and comes home through a long chain of chords.
Cuba and Mexico
- El manisero, by Moisés Simons (1928): the peanut seller’s cry made into a Cuban son, the first Cuban hit around the world. The clave takes two bars, and the bass plays no note on the first beat: it plays on the “and” of 2 and on 4, where it already plays the root of the next chord.
- Boleros, the slow love songs of Cuba and Mexico: Quiéreme mucho, Aquellos ojos verdes, María Elena, and Lecuona’s Siboney, in F minor, whose C7 has a flat ninth.
Flamenco
Three demos show the harmony of Spanish flamenco:
- Rumba del sur: the Andalusian cadence, Am, G, F, E, under a sung line, each line a step lower than the one before.
- Noche frigia: the Phrygian mode of the Spanish guitar, E F G A B C D, with a major chord on E; F major, a semitone above home, keeps pulling back down to E (see Keys and modes).
- Asturias (Leyenda), by Isaac Albéniz (1892), written for piano in imitation of the flamenco guitar: every other sixteenth note is the same B, a pedal, while the tune moves under it.
The Andalusian cadence turns up far from Spain, too: in Hit the Road Jack, by Percy Mayfield, and in La Llorona from Mexico.