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Shanto
Shanto is a form of Guyanese music, related to both calypso and mento. It became a major part of early popular music through its use in Guyanese vaudeville shows; songs are topical and light-hearted, often accompanied by a guitar. The word "shanto" is a conflation of "shanty" - the term used in Guyana for work song A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a form of work, either sung while conducting a task (usually to coordinate timing) or a song linked to a task which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song. Definitions and ...s - and "calypso". The style was developed and named in the 1920s by musician Bill Rogers (Augustus Hinds, 1906–1984), who described it as "an improvisation of words and music with an Afro-West Indian beat, with satirical comments on people, events and things...". In the 1930s, the "bargee" (or "bhajee") beat became synonymous with shanto. Rogers was the most versatile and popular practitioner of the shanto st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Of Guyana
The music of Guyana encompasses a range of musical styles and genres that draw from various influences including: Indian, Latino-Hispanic, European, African, Chinese, and Amerindian music. Popular Guyanese performers include: Terry Gajraj, Eddy Grant, Dave Martins & the Tradewinds (Johnny Braff, Ivor Lynch & Sammy Baksh), Aubrey Cummings, and Nicky Porter. The Guyana Music Festival has proven to be influential on the Guyana music scene. History Earliest recorded musical interactions were mainly related to the missionary-driven spread of Christianity in the New World. Moravian missionaries used music used hymns to reach the Kalina people in the area of Berbice. Slaves brought to the region via the Atlantic slave trade contributed African influences from a wide array of different cultures, although music and dance was also utilized to promote fitness in slaves by their sellers. After emancipation, the period in which the British sought to bring indentured labor into the colonies in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calypso Music
Calypso is a style of Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early to the mid-19th century and spread to the rest of the Caribbean Antilles and Venezuela by the mid-20th century. Its rhythms can be traced back to West African Kaiso and the arrival of French planters and their slaves from the French Antilles in the 18th century. It is characterized by highly rhythmic and harmonic vocals, and was historically most often sung in a French creole and led by a griot. As calypso developed, the role of the griot became known as a ''chantuelle'' and eventually, '' calypsonian''. As English replaced "patois" ( Antillean creole) as the dominant language, calypso migrated into English, and in so doing it attracted more attention from the government. It allowed the masses to challenge the doings of the unelected Governor and Legislative Council, and the elected town councils of Port of Spain and San Fernando. Calypso continued to play an important role in pol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mento
Mento is a style of Jamaican folk music that predates and has greatly influenced ska and reggae music. It is a fusion of African rhythmic elements and European elements, which reached peak popularity in the 1940s and 1950s. Mento typically features acoustic instruments, such as acoustic guitar, banjo, hand drums, and the rhumba box — a large mbira in the shape of a box that can be sat on while played. The rhumba box carries the bass part of the music. Mento is often confused with calypso, a musical form from Trinidad and Tobago. Although the two share many similarities, they are separate and distinct musical forms. During the mid-20th century, mento was conflated with calypso, and mento was frequently referred to as ''calypso'', ''kalypso'' and ''mento calypso.'' Mento singers frequently used calypso songs and techniques. As in calypso, mento uses topical lyrics with a humorous slant, commenting on poverty and other social issues. Sexual innuendo is also common. His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Work Song
A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a form of work, either sung while conducting a task (usually to coordinate timing) or a song linked to a task which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song. Definitions and categories Records of work songs are as old as historical records, and anthropological evidence suggests that most agrarian societies tend to have them. Most modern commentators on work songs have included both songs sung while working as well as songs about work since the two categories are seen as interconnected. Norm Cohen divided collected work songs into domestic, agricultural or pastoral, sea shanties, African-American work songs, songs and chants of direction, and street cries. Ted Gioia further divided agricultural and pastoral songs into hunting, cultivation and herding songs, and highlighted the industrial or proto-industrial songs of cloth workers (see Waulking song), factory workers, seamen, lumberjacks, cowboys and miner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Rogers (musician)
Augustus Hinds (1906 – 1984), who performed under the stage name Bill Rogers, was a British Guiana, Guyanese singer and songwriter, credited with developing shanto music. He was the first Guyanese musician to record internationally. Biography Born in 1906, he grew up in the multi-ethnic Charlestown area of south Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown, British Guiana. As a child he joined in family shows put on by his sisters. He made his first stage appearance aged five, wrote his first songs aged 13, and then organised his own vaudeville-style group, the Merry Makers, who toured in Suriname. He made his first radio broadcasts in 1929, and also incorporated comedy and magic into his stage act. In the late 1920s, he developed the concept of "shanto" music, which he described as "an improvisation of words and music with an Afro-West Indian beat, with satirical comments on people, events and things...". His songs were aimed at, and commented on issues relevant to the everyday lives ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
