page_title: Cuban folk music
section_title: Cuban folk genres
hierarchical_section_title: Cuban folk music / Cuban folk genres
caption_attribution_description: English: Cross-rhythm 3:2
context_page_description: Cuban folk music includes a variety of traditional folk music of Cuba, and has been influenced by the Spanish and the African culture as well as the remaining indigenous population of the Caribbean.
context_section_description: According to its encyclopedic definition, the term folk music (that derives from the German word "folk" or people in English) serves to designate the music spontaneously created and preserved by the people of a country, in contrast with the terms commercial and classical music, which are related to works generated by trained specialists.
  In the case of Cuban music, some of its most popular musical genres may be considered within the boundaries of the previous definition. The first Cuban popular music genres that emerged to the public awareness at the beginning of the 19th century, known as Punto cubano and Zapateo, were created by peasants without any formal musical education; as well as the popular styles of Rumba Urbana or "de cajón" (wooden boxes) and the Cuban Carnival Conga (music).
  Also the Cuban Guaracha was considered to be a product of the common people from Havana, in a similar way as the Rural Rumbas and other ancestors of the Son cubano (such as Changüí from Guantánamo and the Sucu-sucu in Isla de Pinos) were considered to be. The Son cubano itself was born from a synthesis of different popular styles such as the Rumba Urbana and Rumba Rural, and performed until the 1930s by amateur musicians.
  Another Cuban folk music style emerged between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th in the poor neighborhoods of Havana. It was called Clave upon the name of the instrument utilized to accompany it, the Cuban Claves. This style was sung by popular choirs mostly integrated by colored people, called "Coros de Clave", and its rhythm was the vertical hemiola, also utilized in the ternary Cuban Contradanza.
caption: Vertical hemiola. About this soundPlay (help·info)
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