page_title: Guajeo
section_title: Chachachá
hierarchical_section_title: Guajeo / Piano / Chachachá
caption_attribution_description: English: generic chachachá piano tumbao late 1940s. 2-3 clave.
context_page_description: A guajeo is a typical Cuban ostinato melody, most often consisting of arpeggiated chords in syncopated patterns. Some musicians only use the term guajeo for ostinato patterns played specifically by a tres, piano, an instrument of the violin family, or saxophones. Piano guajeos are one of the most recognizable elements of modern-day salsa. Piano guajeos are also known as montunos in North America, or tumbaos in the contemporary Cuban dance music timba.
context_section_description: The chachachá can be thought of as a rare "de-Africanizing" step in Cuban popular music's trajectory in the mid-20th century because it involves unison singing, instead of call-and-response.
  Although the term, dance step, and popular mania of chachachá took hold in 1951, its key musical elements were already in place in Arcaño's group of 1948, including Enrique Jorrín, the violinist‐composer who would later be credited as the "inventor" of the genre. The main idea of chachachá was to extend the montuno section of the danzón and to use melodies with more onbeats to make dancing easier for the rhythmically challenged—Moore (2009: 15).
caption: Generic chachachá piano guajeo (c. late 1940s)
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