Danzonete
A danzón with reduced emphasis of the cinquillo rhythm, and where the final section features vocals and the güiro player swaps to playing maracas for a more son-style feel. This change was made to allow danzón orchestras to compete better with the son sextets.

De Oído
To play music by ear.

Décima
1. Ten octosyllabic lines of fixed rhyme found in numerous music and dance forms of the Spanish Caribbean. There are several rhyming schemes e.g. ABBAACCDDC as in the güajira of eastern Cuba. Generally characterised into four subject groups: 'a lo divino' (supplication to the divine); 'en amor' (about love); 'en desprecio' (disparagement); and 'en queja' (complaint); 2.A Spanish poetic form.

Descarga
1. A jam session, now a term in common use in salsa. According to Leonardo Acosta, he first heard the word in common use during the filin movement in the late 1940s; 2. An energetic improvised solo.

Despedida
Puerto Rican term for the closing song at casino dances.

Desprecio
Disparagement. A common theme (usually of women) in bachata songs reflecting the changing roles of men, as they found themselves being no longer the dominant position in the household as breadwinners, due to the poor economic condition of the Dominican Republic in the late 1970s and 1980s. Desprecio contributes to the meaning of bachata's synonym: 'música de amargue' [bitter music].

Día de la Raza [Day of the Spanish Race]
Colombus day falls officially on the 12th of October but is celebrated on the 2nd Monday in October. As been used as a marker of Hispanic identity en bloc in NYC that is emphatically non-Italian.

Diana
Opening vocal syllables sung usually in rumba used to set the key of the song.

Diablo
The climactic section of a song, as defined by Arsenio Rodríguez. Pertains to African belief that all things possess both good and evil simulatneously. The devil, as referenced here, conveys a message of playful trickery or mischief-making.

Dibujar
vb. 'to draw'. Used in barrio culture to describe dancing as 'the drawing of elegant footwork on the floor'. Applies to men, women in this context are expected to mark time.

Doble sentido
'Double entendre' where words and their meanings are manipulated to humorous result.

Encerronas [Lockdowns]
Exclusive parties held at the private residences of the Cuban social elite i.e. politicians and the wealthy.

Estibrillo
The "hook" or refrain of a song as sung by the coro (backing vocals) during the montuno section.

Filin
Hispanicised from the word "feeling", is a style of playing (not a form), which is now associated with romantic ballads. Filin is not for dancing, more for smooching to.

Guagua
Fast time-keeping two-bar rhythm played with sticks on the side of the largest drum (called the caja) in early rumba.

Guaguancó (conjunto-style)
Style of playing guaguancó as first interpreted by Arsenio Rodríguez. The diana (where the trumpet takes on the contratiempo melismatic role of the lead vocal), canto (verse) and montuno sections remain similar to the folkloric form. It then proceeds to the solo, cierre and diablo sections of the son montuno arrangement scheme.

Guaguancó (folkloric)
Uptempo song and couple dance of the rumba complex. Originating in Matanzas circa 1880, the dance theme is sexual and centres around the movements of vacunao and botao. Traditionally sung a capella with a lead and chorus in call and response pattern, with claves and three tumbadoras (congas) called tumba, llamadora and quinto (in ascending pitch).

Guajeo
Repeated rhythmic cycle of notes or chords (a.k.a. montuno or vamp) played on stringed instruments like tres, guitar and violin. This is the rhythmic stream that propels the son and similar Cuban musics.

Guajira de salón
Adaptation of Cuban country genre punto guajiro to a trova-son style.

Guanabacoa
A neighbourhood six miles east of Havana popularly referred to as "the barrio of the babalaos" because of the intensity of its afrocubania and regarded as, in the words of Rogelio Martínez Furé, "one of the fundamental points of Cuban traditional culture in the eighteen and nineteenth centuries".

Guaracha
Cuban form similar to the son, but higher in tempo and adhereing strictly to a four line verse structure. Possibly deriving its name from guarache (Mexican scandal) and once a mainstay of Cuban comic theater, the guaracha is satirical or situationally humorous in theme.

David F.García in 'Arsenio Rodríguez and the Transnational Flows of Latin Popular Music' (2006) offers a concise description in footnote 15, pg. 173:

"The guaracha originated in the nineteenth century and was popularized in Cuban bufos (comic opera). By the 1930s big bands and septetos had started to perform guarachas at a faster tempo and with an added, son-influenced, montuno section. What remained of the nineteenth-century guaracha was its typically playful, roguish and sometimes bawdy lyrics.

Guaracha-son
A guaracha with a montuno section attached.

Guateque
A country fiesta in Cuba.

Guayacán
A type of tree which in the Palo Monte religion is considered to be male; and whose parts are immensely powerful natural objects, for good or ill (hence the African concept of doubleness).

Guayo
A large güiro.

Guía
In the son context, is defined as an improvised text sung by the first voice in alternation with the coro (chorus) in the montuno section. Sometimes called a pregón. In the salsa context, is another name for the verse.

Güiro
The güiro is a single gourd scored with horizontal grooves on one side, and holes cut into the other so that it can be held. A small-diameter rod, also held horizontally, is run over the grooves to produce a ratcheting sound.

Haciendo una bachata
Making a bachata. Getting together for spontaneous entertainment in private (usually poor) spaces with improvisational musicians.

Haciéndolo a Guaje
"Faked playing it".

Hòfi
Papiamento (creole language of the Dutch Antilles) word for outdoor beer gardens which feature dance floors. Similar to Cuban cervecerías.

Ingenios
(Domincan) Sugar plantations and mills.

Isla, La
Puerto Rican term, used pejoratively, to refer to those of the mountainous interior implying cultural, economic and social deficiency.

Jaleo
Highly danceable improvisational section of the merengue, similar in function to that of the montuno section in salsa.

Jíbaro
Subsistence farmers of the mountainous interior of Puerto Rico. Cuba's equivalent are the guajiros of Sierra Maestra.

Keil's 'Litany of Ills'
Postulated by Angeliki and Charles Keil (1987) as resulting from massive rural to urban migration i.e.: unemployment; the "freedom" to consume or be consumed; disintegration of traditional family/kiinship values; adultery; prositition; substance abuse; disease; overcrowding; high incidence of crime; malnutrition; alienation.

¡Los Indios!
(Dominican Republic) Exclamation used to notify those demonstrating against Balaguer's regime that the police had arrived.

Lucha Sonora, La
The sonic disturbance/ struggle/ conflict. A period in Dominican history, while Joaquin Balaguer was in power (1966-1978), where there was intense political, economic and cultural instability. These were expressed directly in the country's music.

Macho
A term describing strong or potent 'peformative intent' as pertaining to musical rhythmic force and affective interplay between musicians and dancers. This should not be read as sexist; Afro-Cuban religious beliefs attribute power to both female (Ochún, Yemayá) and male santos (Ogún, Elleguá).

Malanga
Dance or party, derived from the nickname of a famous Cuban rumbero also known as José Rosario Oviedo, who died tragically and mysteriously in the 1930s.

Mambises
Cuban indepedence fighters. Famous black generals include: Quintín Banderas, Antonio Maceo and Guillermón Moncada.

Mambo
1. Chants of the priests of the Palo Monte religion, which are also called cantos de fundamento or cantos de palo. It also appears in the Ki-Kongo phrase "abre kuto güiri mambo" [open your ears to what I'm going to tell you] sung in controversias. 2. A part of a popular Cuban dance, as first called by Arcaño in the 1930s.

Manglar
Mangrove swap in Cuba where the negros curros lived.

Manigua
Thick vegetative cover, an area where paleros would go with their ngangas to call upon the dead to fight with them. It appears as a term of cultural resistance.

Mano a mano
Marketing label given to the battle-of the-band shows between Arsenio's conjunto and Arcaño's charanga.

Manoseo del cuero
Cuban method of playing on timbale skins with hands and fingers.

Marímbula a.k.a. Manímbula
A thumb piano comprising a wooden box with a sound hole cut in the front. Metal tongues were attached to the box partially projecting over the sound hole, which were plucked by the thumb to produce bass tones. Probably derived from the smaller zanzaor instrument, the mbila (lamellaphone) of the Congos. See León, Argeliers (1984). Del canto y el tiempo. La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas.

Mariposa de la noche
Literally 'butterfly of the night': a prostitute.

Mayoral
Slave overseer.

Merenderos
Social dances taking place in the beer gardens of La Tropical or La Polar in Havana, Cuba. Merenderos took place on weekdays lasting from 1pm to about 6pm. See also giras and verbenas.

Mestizaje
Cuban political social ideal of cultural and racial miscegenation. See superación.

Misterios
Spirits whose help can be enlisted either to obtain a partner, or to ward off such magical attentions of another. A Dominican belief, especially those of rural areas.

Montuno
1. Repeated rhythmic cycle of notes or chords played on the piano that underpins modern salsa and timba. Compare this with the term guajeo. 2. Highly danceable, improvisational section of a salsa song, usually the latter half.

Moña
1. Riffs performed on trombones and trumpets, usually spontaneously improvised; 2. section of a salsa arrangement in which these riffs are performed. Moñas serve to heighten the sonic energy of a salsa arrangement, and contribute to the climactic story-telling of a song.

Mulatico jabaíto
White-looking mulato.

Mundele
Ki-Kongo for "white man".

Música de guardia
Derogatory term, formerly used to describe bachata as music listened to by (security) guards, who were amongst the lowest paid in the Dominican Republic. "...originated during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo ...intended to invoke an image of low-rank soldiers in bars and brotherls listening to low-quality guitar music—particularly musics like Mexican rancheras and corridos that extolled drinking, womanizing, and machismo." (Deborah Pacini Hernandez)

Música cachivache
Derogatory term used to render insignificant or to trivialise songs of the bachata genre in the Dominican Republic. "Cachivache" is a worthless trinket.

Música movida
Upbeat music.

Musical activity
As analysed by musicologists has for components: the music itself; the performers; the audience; and the social context. This applies to live musical performances and recorded music. Conetmporary analysis includes a fifth component—the music business, comprising those who have determinative roles: producers, promoters, vendors, recording engineers, disk jockeys, but who do not participate directly with music-making.

Nagüe
Slang for "bud(dy)" or "bro(ther)".

Negro bozal
Comical black figure in Cuban popular theatre. (see Bufos)

Negro catedrático
Black pretentious figure in Cuban popular theatre. (see Bufos)

Negros curros
Free Blacks who emigrated from Sevilla to Cuba in the 1500s. Their flamboyant dress live on in modern day in the form of large ruffled sleeves (think Mambo Kings), and pants narrow in waist but large at the leg.

Nganga
The focal point of the palo religion which, in Cuba, refers to the iron cauldron containing spiritual elements, or to the spirit of the dead that resides within it.

Nueva canción
Songs with politically conscious themes, originating from Chile during Marxist Salvador Allende's government (1970-1973). Foremost of these were the pioneering reinterpretations of Chile's folkoric songs by Violeta Parra, and similarly of Argentina's by Atahualpa Yupanqui.

Nueva trova (canción protesta)
Music genre expressing the ideals of the Cuban Revolution.

Nuyoricans
Economic migrants from Puerto Rico who settled in New York.

Ñoño
A whining spoiled brat. Used to describe bachatero Luis "El Añoñaíto" Segura's style of singing.

Orixás
Deities venerated by Afro-Brazillians.

Orquesta Merengue
Commercial merengue associated with urban culture, interpreted by large lineups commonly featuring: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, tambora, güira, conga, keyboard and electric bass guitar (compare with merengue típico).

Orú
Lukumi musical liturgies or devotional cycles of songs, where the orishas are saluted in fixed sequence. There are three forms: unaccompanied singing and chanting (orú); unaccompanied batá drumming (orú de igbodú or orú "seco"); and singing, dancing and drumming together (orú del eya aranla).

Paila
1. Another name for timbales; 2. Verbal instruction to play the cáscara pattern; 3. (Dominican) Pot for cooking rice.

Paises, Los
Dominican reference to the United States of America.

Palo
Congolese (Bantu) religion as practiced in Cuba.

Pariguayo
(Dominican slang) Inexperienced fool, with connotations of the country bumpkin.

Pasadías
Sunday afternoon parties commonly featuring entertainment provided by small guitar-based groups in the times before the mass media in the Dominican Republic.

Patronicio
Sponsorship. For example, merengue in the 1980s was advertised together, and consumed together, with its largest sponsors: the cigarette and alcohol companies.

Payola
The phenomenon of musicians and record producers paying disc jockeys or station managers to get their records aired. The converse is also true, that the airing of songs by competeing musicians could be disincentivised financially.

Pelarte
Colloquialism: "to tan your hide".

"People's Music"
Term coined by Charles Kiel to define the space between "folk" (having connotations of "rural" and "illiterate") and "popular" (now nearly synonymous with "mass-mediated").

Permanentes
Cuban Army established by the United States over the course of Cuba's War of Independence from Spain. The policy was to post its members to unfamiliar regions of the island (somewhat reminiscent of the Roman legions). This policy assisted in the spread of musical influences from one side of the island to the other.

Picao
Half of what the coro were singing before i.e. shortened response line.

Plena
Puerto Rican music and dance form originating from the lower class regions of the island's southern coast. Topical and often satirical, it combined the Spanish verse structure with the African call-and-response with percussive emphasis.

Pogolotti
Working-class barrio of Havana.

Público
(Dominican) Collective taxi- a place where much music is discussed.

Punto Guajiro
A style of Cuban country music, of which Celina Gonzalez has been one of its greatest interpreters.

Reparto
Municipal or district ward.

Repentismo
Improvisation of lyrics.

Requinto
1. Smaller higher-pitched guitar-like instrument found in the Dominican Republic and Pureto Rico; 2. Conga drum smaller and higher-pitched than the quinto, also used for soloing.

Residual Cultural Practice
Sociological term defined by Raymond Williams as "effectively formed in the past, but... still active in the cultural process, not only and often not at all as an elemnt of the past, but as an effective element of the present". An example is Arsenio Rodríguez music, used as a resource by Johnny Pacheco, Ray Barretto and modern artists.

Romántico
International variant of the Mexican translation of the Cuban bolero. Danceable music for urban music halls (see bolero ranchero).

Rumba
Cuban percussion-based music and dance complex comprising: yambú, a slower more stately partner dance; guaguancó, a quick tempo partner dance featuring a sexual motif performed by the male called vacunao; and columbia, a virtuoso solo dance performed by males sometimes with blades as props. Rumba also describes the occassion when these dances are performed.

Rumbas de calle
Street carnival in Matanzas from which the corneta china was exported to Santiago de Cuba's equivalent carnival, the conga.

Salsa Dura
Style of salsa that stylistically has a core arrangement scheme similar to the son montuno (as popularised by Arsenio Rodríguez) i.e.: contratiempo, climactic energy, sonic power and density, timbral heterogeneity, and space for solos.

Saludo
Lit. 'greeting'. Best explained in this quote from the book 'Bachata' by Deborah Pachini Hernandez (1995): "The saludo (greeting) is a form of ritual behaviour typical of Dominican traditional culture and serves to communicate important social information—a person's knowledge of good manners, as well as his or her verbal skills. When rural Dominicans encounter one or more persons, they individually greet and shake hands with each and every individual in the group, establishing the greeter and the greeted as members of a group and serving as a symbol of beloingiing to it."

Salve
Traditional music of the Dominican Republic celebrating popular Catholicism.

Sangueesh
Cuban word for sandwich.

Seis
Song and dance form popular amongst the jíbaros of Puerto Rico, performed in groups of six couples (hence the name). Contains much of the traditional influences of Spain during the colonial period.

Seis con décima
Version of the seis containing décimas (ten-line verses). More precise in terms of meter and rhyme than the traditional seis. Comes to preserve the cultural history and social commentary which would otherwise have been lost, due to the high illiteracy rate of the demographic group.

Serenatas
Romantic serenades.

Sin pelos en la lengua [with no hair on the tongue]
Idiom for speaking one's mind, irrespective of how offensive it might be to the listener.

Sobremontuno
A propulsive rhythmic part similar in function to the montuno, by the saxophone section. It is played in systematic counterpoint to the brass section, acting as a link to the rhythm section.

Solar
Multi-family dwellings for the poor, arranged around a central square in which were located the communal sanitary facilities. The social space where black drums, drums played with the hands, were played - even when they were outlawed.

Son
from the verb "sonar" [to sound]. Ned Sublette in his book 'Cuba and its music' describes it as "a Cuban synthesis: Bantu percussion, elodic rhythm, and call-and-response singing, melding with the Spanish peasant's guitar and language."

Son montuno
Son from the deep country.

Soneo a.k.a. Inspiración
Improvised line by the sonero (lead singer of son) phrased to clave.

Superación
Racial uplift. A socio-political ideal held by Cuban intellectuals (some of them Blalck) who denigrated African practices as backward, and encouraged mestizaje to eradicate them.

Tambores de Fundamento
Consecrated set of batá with an orisha, Añá, sealed inside by its maker. Only used in sacred ceremonies. A new set of batá with fundamento are born in a ceremony in the presence of an older set and have their own birthday, are fed and accorded the same privileges of an orisha.

Tambores Judíos
Unbaptised drums. Sonically identical to consecrated batá but without fundamento inside.

Tanbou
Conga-like drum of Haiti. Takes the place of bongos in twoubadou music.

Tanga
Allegedly an "African" word for marijuana.

Tango
1. A word possibly of Bantu origin, like the term "tumba", frequently used by the Spanish with the activities of black peoples. 2. Music and dance genre most popularised by Argentines. 3. Used interchangably with the word "habanera" to describe the rhythm which emanated from Havana.

Tarea
(Dominican) Unit of measurement of land. 1 Tarea equals 628 square metres.

Tecno-bachata
also called tecno-amargue, a term coined by Luis Dias used to refer to the instrumentally and musically more sophisticated bachatas he was writing, as compared to the 'original' style (see Bachata madre).

Tiempo Muerto
Literally "Dead Time". The period in between sugar harvests when unemployment is high.

Timba
Energetic unruly dance wave beginning in 1980s Havana, comprising rumba, jazz pop and funk elements. ["unruly"... I like that - Ed.]

Toque de santo
A Santería event featuring drumming and dancing in which the saint may come down and "mount" a believer who is referred to as the "horse". A party for the gods.

Traganíkels
Literally "nickel-swallowers". Dominican slang for 'jukebox'.

Tratados
Props employed in the dancing of rumba columbia, usually: cane harvest instruments like the knife or machete, staves, chairs, glasses of water, and bottles.

Tres
Cuban guitar-like instrument, but played more like a piano in terms of rhythm. It has a small body, and is metal-strung with three widely-separated courses of double strings. The central course is unison whilst the outer pairs are in octaves. Possibly an African adaptation of of the Spanish bandurria.

Trocha
Neighbourhood of Santiago de Cuba famous for its Carnival.

Tumbadora (pl. tumbadores) a.k.a. Congas
Single-headed and barrel-shaped hand drum that is quintessentially Cuban, formed from the merger of two other types of drum: the tambores de rumba and the carnaval conga. Comes in three sizes: tumbadora (largest); salidor or seis por ocho (middle); and quinto (smallest).

Tumbao
Bass riff.

Tuna
Guitar-based ensemble, sometimes referred to as estudiantina, linked to political movements or parties. "Musicians worked wherever they could" - Ned Sublette.

Twoubadou [Troubadour]
Haitian musical tradition similar to the guitar-based musics of the Dominican Republic featuring guitars, maracas, marímbula, and tanbou.

Vacunao
[Lit. Vaccinate] Symbolic gesture of possession of the female dancer's gentials by the male, in the form of an aggressive hand movement, a kick, movement of handkerchief, or pelvic thrust.

Vedette
Sex starlet.

Velada
Soiree, private or public cultural event normally held at a private residence.

Vellonera
Dominican slang for 'jukebox'. Derived from the word vello meaning 'hair', referring to the shock of hair between the horns of the buffalo depicted on U.S. nickels used to work them.

Verbenas
Social dances taking place in the beer gardens of La Tropical or La Polar in Havana, Cuba. Verbenas occurred on weekends, all day an all evening, and were much larger than giras, comprising ten or so dance bands playing two or three at a time on adjacent floors. See also giras and merenderos.

Ya ya
A type of tree which in the Palo Monte religion is considered to be female; and whose parts are immensely powerful natural objects, for good or ill (hence the African concept of doubleness).

Yambú
Slowest song and dance form of the rumba complex where couples use softer, more sensuous movements. Resembling the dance form congo baile yuka, the yambú does not contain the vacunao movement.