Music of Nicaragua Topics
	Palo de Mayo Palo de Mayo Palo de Mayo is a type of Afro-Caribbean dance with sensual movements that forms part of the culture of several communities in the RAAS region in Nicaragua, as well as Belize, the Bay Islands of Honduras and Bocas del Toro in Panama. It is also the name given to the month long May Day festival...
Reggaeton Reggaeton Reggaeton is a form of Puerto Rican and Latin American urban and Caribbean music. After its mainstream exposure in 2004, it spread to North American, European and Asian audiences. Reggaeton originated in Puerto Rico but is also has roots from Reggae en Español from Panama and Puerto Rico and...	Cumbia Cumbia Cumbia is a music genre popular across Latin America. The cumbia originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where it is associated with an eponymous dance and has since spread as far as Mexico and Argentina...
Pop Pop music Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...	Rock Rock music Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
Marimba music Marimba The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...	Pop Pop music Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
Folklorico	Merengue Merengue music Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...
Reggae Reggae Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...	Soca Soca music Soca is a style of music from Trinidad and Tobago. Soca is a musical development of traditional Trinidadian calypso, through loans from the 1960s onwards from predominantly black popular music....
Bachata	Punta Punta Punta is a Garifuna music and dance style performed at celebrations and festive occasions. Contemporary punta, including Belizean punta rock, arose in the last thirty years of the twentieth century in Belize, Honduras and Guatemala. It also has a following in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Southern Mexico...
Timeline and Samples
Central American music
Belize Music of Belize The music of Belize has a mix of Kriol, Mestizo, Garifuna, and Maya influences. After many centuries of Maya habitation, British colonizers arrived in the area in the 17th century. Belize was Britain's only colony in Spanish-dominated Central America until self-government in 1964 and gaining full...  - Costa Rica Music of Costa Rica The country of Costa Rica has many kinds of music.Though its music has achieved little international credit, Costa Rican popular music genres include: an indigenous calypso scene which is distinct from the more widely-known Trinidadian calypso sound, as well as a thriving disco audience that...  - El Salvador Music of El Salvador The music of El Salvador has a mixture of Mayan, African, Pipil and Spanish influences. This music includes religious songs used to celebrate Christmas and other holidays, especially feast days of the saints. Satirical and rural lyrical themes are common...  - Guatemala Music of Guatemala The music of Guatemala is diverse. Music is played all over the country, even in the remotest corners. Towns also have wind and percussion bands -week processions, as well as on other occasions. The Garifuna people of Afro-Caribbean descent, who are spread thinly on the northeastern Caribbean...  - Honduras Music of Honduras The music of Honduras is very varied, Punta is the main "ritmo" de Honduras, to Caribbean music like salsa, merengue, reggae, and reggaeton all widely heard especially in the North, to Mexican rancheras heard in the interior, rural part of the country...  - Nicaragua - Panama Music of Panama Panama is a Central American country, inhabited mostly by mestizos . The music of Panama was influenced first by the indigenous populations of Kunas, Teribes, Nobe Bugle and others, and then by the black population who were brought over, first as slaves from Africa, and also Colombia between the...

Music of Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

is a mixture of indigenous and European, especially Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, influences. Musical instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

s include the marimba

Marimba

The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...

 and others that are common across Central America

Central America

Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

. Pop music

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 includes Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

n, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian, Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 and Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

nian performers, as well as those from Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Nicaraguan

Nicaraguan

Nicaraguans are people inhabiting in, originating or having significant heritage from Nicaragua. Most Nicaraguans live in Nicaragua, although there is also a significant Nicaraguan diaspora, particularly in Costa Rica and the United States with smaller communities in other countries around the world...

s enjoys their local artist's music but also enjoy music from around the world. They enjoy the Dominican Republic's bachata and merengue

Merengue music

Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...

, Jamaica's reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

, Panama's reggaeton

Reggaeton

Reggaeton is a form of Puerto Rican and Latin American urban and Caribbean music. After its mainstream exposure in 2004, it spread to North American, European and Asian audiences. Reggaeton originated in Puerto Rico but is also has roots from Reggae en Español from Panama and Puerto Rico and...

 and Colombia's Cumbia

Cumbia

Cumbia is a music genre popular across Latin America. The cumbia originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where it is associated with an eponymous dance and has since spread as far as Mexico and Argentina...

 among other genres including pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

. Among the younger crowds heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 and rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 has become very popular.

Styles of music

Nicaraguan music is a mixture of different cultures from indigenous tribes, European conquerors, and slaves. Styles of music vary throughout the different regions in the country. In the Caribbean coast music with African and indigenous influence are heard, in the Pacific coast the music is considered to be a mixture of the indigenous and Spanish culture and in the North/Central region of Nicaragua the music has more of a European flavor, this is because of the significant wave of Europeans, mostly Germans, that live in the region. European influenced dances like the polka

Polka

The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...

 and Mazurka

Mazurka

The mazurka is a Polish folk dance in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, and with accent on the third or second beat.-History:The folk origins of the mazurek are two other Polish musical forms—the slow machine...

 are also danced in this region.

The Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

 coast of Nicaragua is known for its Palo de Mayo

Palo de Mayo

Palo de Mayo is a type of Afro-Caribbean dance with sensual movements that forms part of the culture of several communities in the RAAS region in Nicaragua, as well as Belize, the Bay Islands of Honduras and Bocas del Toro in Panama. It is also the name given to the month long May Day festival...

, which is a lively and sensual form of dance music

Dance music

Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

 that is especially loud and celebrated during the Palo de Mayo festival. The Garifuna community exists in Nicaragua and is known for its popular music called Punta

Punta

Punta is a Garifuna music and dance style performed at celebrations and festive occasions. Contemporary punta, including Belizean punta rock, arose in the last thirty years of the twentieth century in Belize, Honduras and Guatemala. It also has a following in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Southern Mexico...

. Also, Soca

Soca music

Soca is a style of music from Trinidad and Tobago. Soca is a musical development of traditional Trinidadian calypso, through loans from the 1960s onwards from predominantly black popular music....

, Reggaeton

Reggaeton

Reggaeton is a form of Puerto Rican and Latin American urban and Caribbean music. After its mainstream exposure in 2004, it spread to North American, European and Asian audiences. Reggaeton originated in Puerto Rico but is also has roots from Reggae en Español from Panama and Puerto Rico and...

 and Reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 is popular throughout the country.

Rhythms like the trova

Trova

Trova is one of the great roots of the Cuban music tree. In the 19th century a group of itinerant musicians known as trovadores moved around Oriente, especially Santiago de Cuba, earning their living by singing and playing the guitar...

 became essential to writers in the post-war scenario of the 70s and 80s. Writers used trova to express social injustice, their hope for a better tomorrow, patriotism, and ecological conservation. This, in time, became a rhythm used in artistic Nicaraguan creations, and it therefore also became part of the culture. Well known in this category is Duo Guardabarranco

Duo Guardabarranco

Duo Guardabarranco was a Nicaraguan duo consisting of siblings Katia Cardenal and Salvador Cardenal. The duo has been a significant worldwide ambassador for Nicaraguan and Latin-American folk music for the last three decades, and has gained a broad international audience with their poetical lyrics...

, formed by the brothers Salvador and Katia Cardenal

Katia Cardenal

Katia Cardenal is a Nicaraguan singer/songwriter, and a part of the nueva trova movement. Katia and her brother Salvador Cardenal form the Duo Guardabarranco, one of the leading proponents of nueva trova, known for classical songs like Guerrero del amor, Guardabosques, Casa Abierta and Colibri...

.

Another popular musical genre in Nicaragua is the Chicheros, often consisting of a trumpet and trombone or other brass instruments, with additional musicians playing various percussions. This is often to be heard in private parties around the country.

Instruments

The marimba

Marimba

The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...

 of Nicaragua distinguishes itself from the other forms of marimba in Central America by the way it is played. Nicaragua's marimba is played by a sitting performer holding the instrument on his knees. They are usually accompanied by a bass fiddle

Fiddle

The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

, guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 and guitarrilla (a small guitar similar to a mandolin

Mandolin

A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

). This music is played at social functions as a sort of background music. The marimba is made with hardwood plates, placed over bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

 or metal tubes of varying lengths. It is played with two or four hammer

Hammer

A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...

s.

Theater

Indigenous theater groups performed with music and dance. Theatrical manifestations include the Elegant Knights of Huaco Bull and the UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 proclaimed masterpiece, "El Güegüense

El Güegüense

El Güegüense is a satirical drama and was the first literary work of post-Columbian Nicaragua. It is regarded as one of Latin America's most distinctive colonial-era expressions and as Nicaragua's signature folkloric masterpiece combining music, dance and theater...

", among many others.

Nicaraguans in Music

The most prominent Nicaraguan composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

s are José de la Cruz Mena (1874-1907), a classical composer born in León, creator of varied romantic waltzes and sounds inspired by everyday experiences like The Nacatamal, The Turkeys, or Ruins; by Bible characters like Loves of Abraham; or by his aristocratic patrons' wives and daughters like Beautiful Margaret, Rosalía, etc. Mena's became famous in America where it influenced other American composers. It reached Europe, and Asia in the late 1800's and became so popular, particularly in Germany, and Italy that inspired composer Giacomo Puccini for his opera La Boheme. Luis Abraham Delgadillo, with several symphonies, stage works, orchestral pieces, chamber music, songs, and piano music to his credit, and Camilo Zapata, creator of the Nicaraguan Sound. Erwin Krüger, creator of Barrio de Pescadores (Fisherman's District). Justo Santos creator of La Mora Limpia (A Clean Coffee Bean), considered Nicaragua's popular anthem.

Other prominent national musicians, groups, and songwriters include Carlos Mejia Godoy

Carlos Mejía Godoy

Carlos Mejía Godoy is a Nicaraguan musician, composer and singer. He was born in Somoto, Madriz. Son of Carlos Mejía Fajardo and María Elsa Godoy, his brother Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy, three years younger than he is, is also an acclaimed and much-loved musician. Carlos and Luis Enrique were...

, Luis Enrique Mejia Godoy, Luis Enrique Mejía López (known as Luis Enrique

Luis Enrique (singer)

Luis Enrique Mejía López, is a Nicaraguan singer and composer. He started his career in the late 1980s and achieved success in the 1990s earning the title "El Principe de la Salsa . He was one of the leading pioneers that led to the salsa romantica movement in the 1980s...

), Sergio Tapia, Hernaldo Zúñiga

Hernaldo Zúñiga

Hernaldo Zúñiga is a Nicaraguan singer and music composer. He was born in Managua but lived his childhood and adolescence in Masaya.-Career:...

, Macolla, Dimension Costeña

Dimension Costeña

Dimensión Costeña is a Nicaraguan group that came together in the Caribbean coast of the country in Bluefields.-History:The group has been together for 27 years and in that time they have produced 17 LPs and 13 CDs. They have performed in many places through the world: from Managua to Los Angeles,...

, Los Mokuanes, Lía Barrios, Norma Elena Gadea, Catia Cardenal, Salvador Cardenal

Salvador Cardenal

Salvador de Jesús Cardenal Barquero, Nicaraguan singer songwriter born in Mexico , was one of the most renown songwriters in Nicaragua and Central America, also a poet, painter and ecologist...

 and from Somoto Nicaragua Marcio Brenes Mejia.

Of the younger generation of Nicaraguan singer-songwriters there are a few notable such as Latin Grammy Nominee Ramon Armando Mejia (Perrozompopo

Perrozompopo

Perrozompopo is the artistic name of a Nicaraguan songwriter from a generation of ideological and social changes that profoundly marked the compass of his work...

), Arturo Vaughan, Moisés Gadea, Junior Escobar, Elsa Basil, Cecilia Ferrer, Alejandro Carlos Mejia, Clara Grun, Noel Portocarrero, Duo Guardabarranco

Duo Guardabarranco

Duo Guardabarranco was a Nicaraguan duo consisting of siblings Katia Cardenal and Salvador Cardenal. The duo has been a significant worldwide ambassador for Nicaraguan and Latin-American folk music for the last three decades, and has gained a broad international audience with their poetical lyrics...

, Juan Solorzano, and Marcio Brenes JR.. Also, rock bands such as Necrosis

Necrosis

Necrosis is the premature death of cells in living tissue. Necrosis is caused by factors external to the cell or tissue, such as infection, toxins, or trauma. This is in contrast to apoptosis, which is a naturally occurring cause of cellular death...

, Grupo Armado

Grupo Armado

Grupo Armado was a popular Nicaraguan rock band formed by Alejandro Mejía , Bikentios Chávez , Noel Portocarrero and Ernesto Rodríguez...

, Crisis, Monroy y Surmenage, Mano de Vidrio, Contrapeso, Q69K

Q69k

Q69K is a Nicaraguan punk band formed around 2001, primarily around the capital city of Managua.- History :After several changes to their style of music and a "revolving door" of band members in their early years, Q69K is formed by 2 "Nicas" and a "gringo": Rodrigo on drums and vocals, Erwin Costa...

, Kerfodermo, Carga Cerrada and Cecilia & The Argonauts

Cecilia & The Argonauts

Cecilia & The Argonuats is a popular Nicaraguan rock band founded by Cecilia Ferrer , Mattias Fjellström , Janne Maninnen , Andreas Ekstedt and Jonathan Fritzén ....

.

Hip Hop and Reggaeton

Reggaeton

Reggaeton is a form of Puerto Rican and Latin American urban and Caribbean music. After its mainstream exposure in 2004, it spread to North American, European and Asian audiences. Reggaeton originated in Puerto Rico but is also has roots from Reggae en Español from Panama and Puerto Rico and...

 artist include Torombolo

Torombolo

Carlos Callejas better known as Torombolo is a reggaeton and hip hop singer with "Camillion Entertainment Latino".-Early life:...

, J Smooth

J Smooth

Jorhel Aburto better known as J Smooth is a bilingual Hip Hop and Reggaeton singer of Nicaraguan ethnicity.-Career:In 2007, J Smooth was named "Artist of the Year" by reggaetonnica.com voters, for his musical contributions to the hip-hop and reggaeton genre and also for his many contributions to...

, Mr. Meli, Nello Style, Nica and Lingo Nicoya.

Nicaragua's Caribbean coast is home to prominent reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 singers and groups such as Philip Montalban, Carlos de Nicaragua, Kali Boom, Sabu, Sabu Sr. and Osberto Jerez y los Gregory's

Also notable instrumentalists such as guitarists Tony Melendez

Tony Melendez

José Antonio Meléndez Rodríguez is a Nicaraguan American guitar player, composer and singer and songwriter who was born without arms. His mother took Thalidomide while pregnant, which caused his disability. Meléndez has learned to play the guitar with his feet.-Career:Meléndez began playing and...

, Arturo Vaughan, Roberto Vaughan, Eduardo Araica, Omar Suazo, Arnulfo Oviedo, Saulo Pérez, and Andrés Sánchez, marimba player Carlos Luis Mejia, batterists Jorge Lanzas, Bikentios Chávez, and percussionist

Percussion instrument

A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...

 José Areas

José Areas

José Chepito Areas is a Nicaraguan percussionist. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 as a percussionist for Santana, which he was from 1969-1980. In 1997 he performed on the album Abraxas Pool with other former members of Santana.-References:...

 who was inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the band Santana

Santana (band)

Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...

.

External links