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From Scarlatti to “Guantanamera”: Dual Tonicity in Spanish and Latin American Musics

2002; University of California Press; Volume: 55; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1525/jams.2002.55.2.311

1547-3848

Peter Manuel,

Theater, Performance, and Music History

Abstract This essay explores the sense of dual tonicity evident in a set of interrelated Spanish and Latin American music genres. These genres include seventeenth-century Spanish keyboard and vihuela fandangos, and diverse folk genres of the Hispanic Caribbean Basin, including the Venezuelan galerón and the Cuban punto, zapateo, and guajira. Songs in these genres oscillate between apparent “tonic” and “dominant” chords, yet conclude on the latter chord and bear internal features that render such terminology inapplicable. Rather, such ostinatos should be understood as oscillating in a pendular fashion between two tonal centers of relatively equal stability. The ambiguous tonicity is related to the Moorish-influenced modal harmony of flamenco and Andalusian folk music; it can also be seen to have informed the modern Cuban son and the music of twentieth-century Cuban composer Amadeo Roldán.