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Méringue (; ), also called ''méringue lente'' or ''méringue de salon'' (''slow'' or ''salon'' méringue), is a
dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded dance musi ...
and national symbol in
Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...
. It is a string-based style played on the
guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
, horn section, piano, and other string instruments unlike the
accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...
-based '' merengue'', and is generally sung in
Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; , ; , ), or simply Creole (), is a French-based creole languages, French-based creole language spoken by 10 to 12million people worldwide, and is one of the two official languages of Haiti (the other being French), where it ...
and French, as well as in English and Spanish.


History

Méringue was heavily influenced by the contredanse from Europe and then by
Afro-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean or African Caribbean people are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern Afro-Caribbean people descend from the Indigenous peoples of Africa, Africans (primarily fr ...
influences from
Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ) is an island between Geography of Cuba, Cuba and Geography of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the second-largest by List of C ...
. The blend of African and European cultures has created popular dance music, music played on simple acoustic instruments by artists who don't need theaters or microphones to show off their art. The term ''
meringue Meringue ( , ) is a type of dessert or candy, of French cuisine, French origin, traditionally made from Whisk, whipped egg whites and sugar, and occasionally an acid, acidic ingredient such as lemon, vinegar, or potassium bitartrate, cream of t ...
'', a whipped egg and sugar confection popular in eighteenth-century France, was adopted presumably because it captured the essence of the light nature of the dance where one gracefully shifts one's weight between feet in a very fluid movement, animating the final section of the Haitian kontradans. It is said that the carabinier, a dance from Haiti originating back to the time of the
Haitian Revolution The Haitian Revolution ( or ; ) was a successful insurrection by slave revolt, self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolution was the only known Slave rebellion, slave up ...
, combined European dances accompanied by Kongo influences, deriving from a section of kontradans and is said to have evolved into the méringue. However, like almost all Latin American dances, the méringue can trace its origins back to the contredanse; the French dance that was hugely popular in Europe and the creolization of it by the use of the drums, poetic song, antiphonal song form, and imitations of colonial elite dance elements by the
mulatto ( , ) is a Race (human categorization), racial classification that refers to people of mixed Sub-Saharan African, African and Ethnic groups in Europe, European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the ...
s and the black slaves that had already begun to transform the genre.


Origins

Méringue was claimed by both
elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (, from , to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful or wealthy people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. Defined by the ...
and proletarian Haitian audiences as a representative expression of Haitian cultural values. Elite Haitian composers, many of whom were trained in Europe and wrote in a European-influenced style, used the méringue as a vehicle for their creative talents. Composers such as Occide Jeanty; his father, Occilius; Ludovic Lamothe; Justin Elie; Franck Lassègue; and Fernand Frangeul wrote méringue for solo piano and sometimes for small groups of wind instruments. Often, these elite méringue were named for people-for example, François Manigat's ''Eight Days while Staying in Cap (Haïtien)''. The méringue is based on a five-note rhythm, or ''quintuplet'', known in French as a ''quintolet'' and Spanish (from
Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...
) as a '' cinquillo''. The quintolet is unevenly subdivided, giving an appropriate feeling of "long-short-long-short-long." While the concert méringue tended to use the syncopated version, Haitian piano soloists, like Ludovic Lamothe, tended to play the quintolet more like five even pulses, giving the méringue a smoother, subtler feel. Occide Jeanty's ''Maria'' was written for the Musique du Palais, the official presidential band for the Haitian Republic. Jeanty was chief director and composer for the group and wrote most of the band's performance repertoire. The quintolet in "Maria" is the syncopated version, appearing first in the saxophones and horns, then answered by the
flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...
s,
clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...
s, and
trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...
s. Most méringue for concert band followed this pattern, keeping the quintolet figure moving from low to high register, thus allowing the melody to alternate the méringue rhythm with sustained, heavily vibrated notes. The percussion parts also alternate the musical pulse and the quintolet rhythm, giving the méringue an additional lilt. Méringue were also used by proletarian audiences during
Carnival Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Carnival typi ...
time, especially in the nineteenth century. Unlike the elite méringue, intended for use on the dance floor, the Carnival méringue were directed at the elite members of Haitian society, either criticizing unpopular people in power or ridiculing their idiosyncrasies. The formulaic insults of the Haitian Carnival méringue bore some similarity to the early calypso ''picong'', or "stinging," style.


Rhythm

A Kongo influence can be found in the persistent rhythmic figure that structured the melodies of the méringue, a syncopated five-beat pattern (often spoken as "dak-ta-dak-ta-dak") borrowed from the ''kata'' (time line) for the Vodou rhythm ''kongo'' and the rhythm used for carnival and ''rara'' bands, ''rabòday''. The dance incorporated an emphasis on the gentle rolling of the hips seen in many Caribbean dances. In Haiti, this movement is sometimes called ''gouyad'' (verb from the French ''gouye'', from the French ''grouiller'', to move or stir) or ''mabouya'', the name of the largest lizard on the island.


Popular culture

Like many other Caribbean styles, méringue is played by artists who are usually anonymous and, although their music is very much alive, they tend to be called "traditional." '' Haïti Chérie'' is a song that brings together the best traditional méringue bands presenting a repertoire of mostly anonymous classics. A notable exception is a song called, '' Choucoune'' or commonly known as "''Ti Zwazo''", an old méringue with lyrics by Haitian poet
Oswald Durand Oswald Durand (September17, 1840April22, 1906) was a Haitian poet and politician, said to be "to Haiti what William Shakespeare, Shakespeare is to England, and Dante Alighieri, Dante to Italy."P. Schutt-Ainé, ''Haiti: A Basic Reference Book'', 9 ...
.
Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte ( ; born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023) was an American singer, actor, and civil rights activist who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s and 1960s. Belafonte ...
popularized it internationally as ''Yellow Bird'', and it is now often mistakenly presented as Jamaican mento.


See also

* Compas * Merengue (Dominican version) * Mini-jazz * Twoubadou * Salsa music


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meringue 19th-century music genres Haitian styles of music