The Melody Web what each genre heard, and what it passed on

heard passed on Click or tap a node to recenter. Use a connecting line, or Influence, for the story.

Heard

Punto cubano tradition · 1600–

Santiago trova urbanizes punto’s guitar-and-décima job: peasant stanza and plucked accompaniment become café serenade.

Influence

Trova

tradition · 1860–

Also called trova cubana, trova santiaguera

Santiago guitar-and-voice song school: itinerant trovadores, serenade, and a slow Cuban song book (Garay, Corona, Vera). It hears Punto cubano for rural décima-and-guitar verse. It already gives Bolero the slow named type and Nueva trova the 1960s guitar-song recoding. Spanish 3/4 theatrical bolero leftover as a different dance. Zarzuela leftover as café theatre. Canzone napoletana leftover as an Italian café neighbor. Filin leftover as a 1940s bolero-jazz child, not of this Santiago school. Cuban son leftover as a different popular grammar.

Listen

  1. Mujer bayamesa Sindo Garay (c. 1910s) YouTube
  2. La Bayamesa (trova) Sindo Garay / trova tradition (c. 1918) YouTube
  3. Bobo María Teresa Vera (1920s)
  4. Longina Manuel Corona (1918) YouTube
  5. Guarina Sindo Garay (c. 1910s) YouTube · Spotify

Passed on

Bolero genre · 1885–

Cuban bolero is trova song named and slowed: guitar-voice serenade, amatory verse, then a 2/4 type with a written bass.

Influence
Nueva trova movement · 1967–

Nueva trova keeps trova’s guitar-voice song job and retasks it as 1960s civic song: one or two guitars, stanza, and a public verse.

Influence

Punto cubano → Trova

form and structuremelodyperformance practicestrength: mediumscholarly consensus1860–1900oralmigration

Mechanism

Santiago trova urbanizes punto’s guitar-and-décima job: peasant stanza and plucked accompaniment become café serenade. Strength medium. Spanish theatrical song leftover as a parallel café neighbor; this hop is the Cuban rural verse school.

Evidence

Oriente countryside punto; nineteenth-century Santiago trovadores; Sublette and Grove on guajiro song behind trova.

Debate

Whether trova is simply urban punto. Punto keeps contest décima and laúd; trova is the named itinerant song school that later writes bolero.

Mediators

community: Oriente peasant singers and Santiago trovadores

Trova → Bolero

form and structuremelodyperformance practiceinstrumentationstrength: highscholarly consensus1885–1910oralnotation

Mechanism

Cuban bolero is trova song named and slowed: guitar-voice serenade, amatory verse, then a 2/4 type with a written bass. Strength high. Sánchez’s Tristezas (1885) is the dated hinge. habanera bolero is the dance-cell hop; this edge is the song school.

Evidence

Santiago trova practice; Tristezas as a trova piece that becomes the type-name; Sublette and Grove on trova as bolero’s Cuban song parent.

Debate

Whether bolero simply is trova. Trova is the wider guitar-song school; bolero is the slow named type that later travels without the Santiago circuit.

Mediators

artist: Pepe Sánchez; community: Santiago trovadores

Trova → Nueva trova

form and structureperformance practiceinstrumentationmelodystrength: highscholarly consensus1967–1975oralrecordingpatronage

Mechanism

Nueva trova keeps trova’s guitar-voice song job and retasks it as 1960s civic song: one or two guitars, stanza, and a public verse. Strength high. nueva cancion nueva trova is the continental protest-song meeting; filin nueva trova is the Havana jazz-bolero craft. This hop is the Santiago song school.

Evidence

Rodríguez and Milanés as named faces; ICAIC workshops; Grove and Manuel on nueva trova as a child of the trova song school.

Debate

Whether nueva trova is only protest song with no musical parent. The guitar-voice grammar is trova’s; the politics and state circuit are the 1960s recoding.

Mediators

artist: Silvio Rodríguez; artist: Pablo Milanés; institution: ICAIC / Casa de las Américas