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Music of Barbados

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Musical genres, styles,
eras and events

   The music of Barbados includes distinctive national styles of folk and
   popular music, as well as elements of Western classical and religious
   music. The culture of Barbados is a syncretic mix of African and
   British elements, and the island's music reflects this mix through song
   types and styles, instrumentation, dances and aesthetic principles.

   Barbadian folk traditions include the Landship movement, which is a
   satirical, informal organization based on the British navy, tea
   meetings, tuk bands and numerous traditional songs and dances. In
   modern Barbados, popular styles include calypso, spouge and other
   styles, many of them imported from Trinidad, the United States or
   elsewhere. Barbados is, along with Cuba, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and the
   Virgin Islands, one of the few centers for Caribbean jazz.

Characteristics and musical identity

   Barbadian culture is syncretic, and the island's musical culture is
   perceived as a mixture of African and British musics, with certain
   unique elements that may derive from indigenous sources. Tension
   between African and British culture has long been a major element of
   Barbadian history, and has included the banning of certain
   African-derived practices and black Barbadian parodies of British
   tradtions. Simple entertainment is the basis for most Barbadians'
   participation in music and dance activities, though religious and other
   functional musics also occur. Barbadian folk culture declined in
   importance in the 20th century, but then rekindled in the 1970s, when
   many Barbadians became interested in their national culture and
   history. This change was heralded by the arrival of spouge, a popular
   national genre that reflects Barbadian heritage and African origins;
   spouge helped kindle a resurgence in national pride, and became viewed
   as Barbados' answer to the popular Caribbean genres reggae and calypso
   from Jamaica and Trinidad, respectively.

   The religious music of the Barbadian Christian churches plays an
   important role in Barbadian musical identity, especially in urban
   areas. Many distinctive Barbadian musical and other cultural traditions
   derive from parodies of Anglican church hymns and British military
   drills. The British military performed drills to both provide security
   for the island's population, as well as intimidate slaves. Modern
   Barbadian tea meetings, tuk bands, the Landship tradition and many folk
   songs come from slaves parodying the practices of white authorities.
   British-Barbadians used music for cultural and intellectual enrichment
   and to feel a sense of kinship and connection with the British Isles
   through the maintenance of British musical forms. Plantation houses
   featured music as entertainment at balls, dances and other gatherings.
   For Afro-Barbadians, drum, vocal and dance music was an integral part
   of everyday life, and songs and performance practices were created for
   normal, everyday events, as well as special celebratons like
   Whitsuntide, Christmas, Easter, Landship and Crop Over. These songs
   remain a part of Barbadian culture and form a rich folk repertoire.

   Western classical music is the most socially accepted form of musical
   expression for Barbadians in Bridgetown, including a variety of vocal
   music, chamber and orchestral music, and piano and violin. Along with
   hymns, oratorios, cantatas and other religious music, chamber music of
   the Western tradition remains an important part of Barbadian musical
   through an integral role in the services of the Anglican church.

History

   Though inhabited prior to the 16th century, little is known about
   Barbadian music before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1536 and then
   the English in 1627. The Portuguese left little influence, but English
   culture and music helped shape the island's heritage. Irish and
   Scottish settlers emigrated in the 17th century, working in the tobacco
   industry, bringing still more new music to the island. The middle of
   the 1700s saw the decline of the tobacco industry and the rise of
   sugarcane, as well as the introduction of large numbers of African
   slaves. Modern Barbadian music is thus largely a combination of English
   and African elements, with Irish, Scottish, and modern American and
   Caribbean (especially Jamaican) influences as well.

   By the 19th century, the Barbadian colonialists grew to fear slave
   revolts, and specifically, the use of music as a tool of communication
   and planning for revolution. As a result, the government passed laws to
   restrict musical activities among slaves. At the same time, American
   and other forms of imported music were brought to Barbados, while many
   important elements of modern Barbadian music, like tuk bands, also
   emerged. In the 20th century, many new styles were imported to
   Barbados, most influentially including jazz, ska, reggae, calypso and
   soca. Barbados became home to many performers of these new genres,
   especially soca and calypso, while the island also produced an
   indigenous style called spouge, which became an important symbol of
   Barbadian identity.

Folk music

   Barbadian culture and music are mixtures of European and African
   elements, with minimal influence from the indigenous peoples of the
   island, about whom little is known. Significant numbers of Asian,
   specifically Chinese and Japanese, people have moved to Barbados, but
   their music is unstudied and has had little impact on Barbadian music.

   The earliest reference to Afro-Barbadian music may come from a
   description of a slave rebellion, in which the rebels were inspired to
   fight by music played on skin drums, conch trumpets and animal horns.
   Slavery continued, however, and the colonial and slaveowning
   authorities eventually outlawed musical instruments among slaves. By
   the end of the 17th century, a distinctly Barbadian folk culture
   developed, based around influences and instruments from Africa, Britain
   and other Caribbean islands.

   Early Barbadian folk music, despite legal restrictions, was a major
   part of life among the island's slave population. For the slaves, music
   was "essential for recreation and dancing and as a part of the life
   cycle for communication and religious meaning". African musicians also
   provided the music for the white landowners' private parties, while the
   slaves developed their own party music, culminating in the crop over
   festival, which began in 1688. The earliest crop over festivals
   featured dancing and call-and-response singing accompanied by
   shak-shak, banjo, bones and bottles containing varying amounts of
   water.

Song

   Barbadian folk songs are heavily influenced by the music of England.
   Many traditional songs concern events current at the time of their
   composition, such as the emancipation of the slaves of Barbados, and
   the coronations of Victoria I, George V, and Elizabeth 1; this song
   tradition dates back to 1650. The most influential Barbadian folk songs
   are associated with the island's lower-class laborers, who have held on
   to it their folk heritage.

   Some Barbadian songs and stories made their way back to England, most
   famously "Inckle the English Sailor" and "Yarico the Indian Maid",
   which became English plays and an opera by George Coleman with music by
   Samuel Arnold, and first performed in London in 1787.

Dance

   Barbadian folk dances include a wide variety of styles, performed at
   Landship, holidays and other occasions. Dancers and other performers at
   the crop over festivals, for example, are popular and an iconic part of
   Barbadian culture, known for dancing in the costumes of
   sugarcane-cutters. The Landship movement features song and dance meant
   to imitate the passage of a British navy ship through rough seas;
   Landship and other occasions also feature African-derived improvised
   and complexly-rhythmic dances, and British hornpipes, jigs, maypole
   dances and Marches.

   The Jean and Johnnie dance was an important part of Barbadian culture
   until it was banned in the 19th century. This was a popular fertility
   dance performed outdoors at plantation fairs and other festivals, and
   was functional in that it allowed women to show off to men, and more
   rarely, vice versa. The dance was eventually banned because the dance
   was associated with non-Christian African traditions.

Instrumentation

   The Barbadian folk tradition is home to a great variety of musical
   instruments, imported from Africa, Great Britain or other Caribbean
   islands. The most central instrument group in Barbadian culture is the
   percussion instruments. These include numerous drums, among them the
   pump and the tum tum, made from a hollowed-out tree trunk, the side
   snare drum and a double-headed bass drum of tuk bands. Folk musicians
   also use gongs made from tree trunks, bones, rook jaw, triangle,
   cymbals, bottles filled with water, xylophones. Rattles are also
   widespread, and include the pan-Antillean shak-shak and the calabash,
   de shot and rattle. More recently imported folk percussion instruments
   include the conga and bongo from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and
   Cuba, and the tambourine.

   String and wind instruments play an important role in Barbadian folk
   culture, especially the bow- fiddle, banjo and acoustic guitar; more
   modern groups also use an electric and bass guitar. The shukster is a
   distinctive instrument, made by stretching a guitar string between two
   sides of a house. Traditional Barbadian wind instruments are largely
   metal, but in their folk origins, were made out of locally found
   materials. Barbadian villagers burned fingerholes, for example, on
   bamboo tubes, made trumpets out of conch shells and pipes from pumpkin
   vines. Many modern groups use harmonica, accordion, alto and tenor
   saxophone, trumpet and trombone.

Religious music

   Though Western classical and other musics play an important role in
   Anglican church services on Barbados, religion and folk music are
   closely intertwined in the everyday lives of most Barbadians. The basis
   for religious folk music is the Anglican hymn, a kind of praise song
   mostly sung on Sundays, a day when Christian Barbadians come together
   with family members to sing and praise God to ask for strength for the
   next week's work.

   Pentecostal music has become a part of Barbadian religious and musical
   traditions since the 1920s. Music plays a role in Pentecostal
   ceremonies, and is provided by emotional and improvised performances
   accompanied tambourines. In addition to the Anglican and Pentecostal
   traditions, Rastafarian music has spread to the island in more recent
   years, along with African American musical forms, especially gospel,
   and the Spiritual Baptist religion, which derives from the Trinidadian
   Shango cult that spread to Barbados in the 1960s. One of the more
   Internationally known religious music groups from Barbados are the
   Nazarene Silvertones.

Holidays, festivals and other celebrations

   A number of holidays, festivals and other celebrations play an integral
   role in Barbadian folk, and popular, music. Whitsuntide, Christmas,
   Easter are important, each associated with their own musical
   traditions, as are distinctly Barbadian festivities like the crop over
   festival and the Landship movement.

   The original crop over festival celebrated the end of the sugarcane
   harvest. These festivals were held in the great house of the
   plantations, and included both slaves and plantation managers.
   Celebrations included drinking competitions, feasting, song and dance,
   and climbing a greased pole. Musical accompaniment was provided by
   triangle, fiddle, drums and a guitar, played by slave entertainers.
   Crop over festivals continue to play a part of Barbadian culture, and
   always feature music by performers in sugarcane-cutting costumes, even
   though many modern performers are not themselves sugarcane-cutters.

   The Barbadian Landship movement is an informal entertainment
   organization which mocks, through mimicry and satire, the British navy.
   Landship began in 1837, founded by an individual known variously as
   Moses Ward and Moses Wood, in Britton's Hall in Seamen's Village. The
   structure of the Landship organization mirrors the structure of the
   British navy, with a "ship" which is connected to a "dock" (a wooden
   house similar to a chattel house), and leaders known as Lord High
   Admiral, Captain, Boatswain and other navy ranks. Each unit is named
   like a typical navy ship and may include actual names of British ships
   or places. Landship performances symbolize and reflect the passage of
   ships through rough seas. Parades, jigs, hornpipes, maypole dances and
   other music and dance types are a part of the Landship Society's
   celebrations. The Council of the Barbados Landship Association
   regulates the movement.

   Barbadian Christmas music is mostly based on church and concert hall
   performances, where typical North American Christmas carols are
   performed, such as " White Christmas" and " Silver Bells", alongside
   works by English composers like William Byrd, Henry Walford Davies and
   Thomas Tallis. In more recent years, calypso, reggae and other new
   elements have become a part of local Christmas traditions. As recently
   as the 1960s, Barbados was home to a distinctive practice, in which
   scrubbers traveled from house to house singing hymns and receiving
   rewards from households.

Tuk bands and tea meetings

   Tuk bands are Barbadian musical ensembles, consisting of a bow- fiddle
   or pennywhistle flute, kittle triangle and a snare and double-headed
   bass drum. The kittle and bass drum provide the rhythm, while the flute
   gives the melody. The drums are light-weight so they can be carried
   easily, and are made by both rural villagers and drummers using cured
   sheepskin and goatskin. Tuk bands are based on the British military's
   regimental bands, which played for many years for special occasions,
   like visiting royalty and coronations. The tuk sound has evolved over
   the years, as has the instrumentation, with the bow-fiddle used before
   being most commonly replaced by the pennywhistle flute. Tuk bands are
   now most common in Landship events, but are still sometimes
   independent. On their own, tuk bands are generally accompanied by a
   range of iconic Barbadian characters, including "shaggy bears", "mother
   sally", "the steel donkey" and "green monkeys". The upbeat modern sound
   of tuk ensembles are a distinctly Barbadian blend of African and
   British musics.

   Tea meetings are celebrations held in society lodges or school halls,
   and feature both solo and group performance, theatrical rhetoric and
   oratory, and other activities. After declining following World War 1,
   tea meetings have recently been revived and have regained their
   widespread popularity. They are held at nighttime, beginning at 9:00 PM
   and continuing until midnight, when there is a two-hour break for food
   and drink before the tea meeting is resumed.

Popular music

   Barbados has produced few internationally popular musicians, but has a
   well-developed local scene playing imported styles like American jazz
   and Trinidadian calypso, as well as the indigenous spouge style.
   Calypso was the first popular music in Barbados, and dates back to the
   1930s. Barbadian calypso is a comedic song form, accompanied by guitar
   and banjo. More recent styles of calypso have also kept a local scene
   alive, and produced a number of famous calypsonians. Spouge is a
   mixture of calypso and other styles, especially ska, and became very
   popular in the 1960s, around the same time as the Barbadian jazz scene
   grew in stature and became home to a number of famous performers.
   Modern Barbadian popular music is largely based around reggae, ragga
   and soca, and includes some elements of indigenous styles. Artists like
   Terencia Coward have used modern popular music with instrumentation
   borrowed from folk tuk bands. The giants of recent Barbadian popular
   music were Krosfyah and Square One, both no longer active; the new wave
   of singers, largely soca, include Rupee, Lil' Rick and Flames, all
   recent winners at crop over.

Calypso

   Prior to the 1930s, Barbadian calypso was called banja, and was
   performed by laborers in village-tenantry areas. Itinerant minstrels
   like Mighty Jerry, Shilling Agard and Slammer were well-known
   forerunners of modern Barbadian calypso. Their song tradition embraced
   sentimentality, humor, and opinionated lyrics that continued to the
   1960s, often by then accompanied by guitar or banjo.

   The mid-20th century brought new forms of music from Trinidad, Brazil,
   the United States, Cuba and the Dominican Republic to Barbados, and the
   Barbadian calypso style came to be viewed as lowbrow or inferior.
   Promoters like Lord Silvers and Mighty Dragon, however, kept the
   popular tradition alive through shows at the Globe Theatre, featuring
   pioneers Mighty Romeo, Sir Don Marshall, Lord Radio and the Bimshire
   Boys and Mike Wilkinson. These performers set the stage for the
   development of popular Barbadian calypso in the 1960s.

   In the early 1960s, Barbadian calypso grew in popularity and stature,
   led by Viper, Mighty Gabby and the Merrymen. The first calypso
   competitions were held in 1960, and they quickly grew larger and more
   prominent. The Merrymen became the island's most prominent contribution
   to calypso by the 1970s and into the 80s. Their style, known as blue
   beat, incorporated Barbadian folk songs and ballads, as well as
   American blues, country music, and a distinctive sound created by
   harmonica, guitar and banjo.

   By the beginning of the 1980s, kaiso, a form of stage-presented
   calypso, was widespread at crop over and other celebrations. The
   foundation of the National Cultural Foundation in 1984 helped to
   promote and administer calypso festivals, which attracted tourists,
   stimulating the calypso industry. As a result, calypso has become a
   very visible and iconic part of Barbadian culture, and some
   calypsonians have become internationally renowned, including Mighty
   Gabby and Red Plastic Bag.

Spouge

   Spouge is a style of Barbadian popular music created by Jackie Opel in
   the 1960s. It is primarily a fusion of Jamaican ska with Trinidadian
   calypso, but is also influenced by a wide variety of musics from the
   British Isles and United States, include sea shanties, hymns and
   spirituals. Spouge instrumentation originally consisted of cowbell,
   bass guitar, trap set and various other electronic and percussion
   instruments, later augmented by saxophone, trombone and trumpets. Of
   these, the cowbell and the guitar are widely seen as the most integral
   part of the instrumentation, and are said to reflect the African origin
   of much of Barbadian music.

   Two different kinds of spouge were popular in the 1960s, raw spouge
   (Draytons Two style) and dragon spouge (Cassius Clay style). The spouge
   industry grew immensely by the end of the 1970s, and produced popular
   stars like Blue Rhythm Combo, the Draytons Two and The Troubadours.
   Recent years has seen a resurgence of interest in spouge among some
   quarters, with people like Desmond Weekes of the Draytons Two
   indicating that spouge should be encouraged because it is a national
   form that can reach international audiences and inspire the nation's
   pride in their cultural heritage.

Jazz

   Jazz is a genre of music from the United States which reached Barbados
   by the end of the 1920s. The first major performer from the island was
   Lionel Gittens, who was followed by Percy Green, Maggie Goodridge and
   Clevie Gittens. These bandleaders played a variety of music, including
   swing, a kind of pop-jazz, Barbadian calypso and waltzes. With little
   recorded music on the island, radio broadcasts such as Willis Conover's
   Voice of America had a major influence. In 1937, riots over poverty and
   disenfranchisement occurred, and people like Clement Payne had risen to
   fame advocating reform. In that year, Payne was deported and riots
   broke out in Bridgetown, spreading throughout the island. The following
   year, the Barbados Labour Party was formed by C. A. Braithwaite and
   Grantley Adams.

   As political awareness among the black majority on the island spread,
   so did bebop, a kind of jazz which was associated, in the United
   States, with social activism and Afrocentrism. The first Barbadian
   bebop musician from the island was Keith Campbell, a pianist who had
   learned to play many styles while living in Trinidad during a time when
   American soldiers were stationed there, providing a ready market for
   bands that could play American music. Other musicians of this period
   included Ernie Small, a trumpeter and pianist, and bandleader St. Clare
   Jackman.

   In the 1950s, R&B and rock and roll became popular on the island, and
   many jazz bands found themselves pushed aside. A wave of Guyanese
   musicians also appeared on the island, including Colin Dyall, a
   saxophonist who later joined the Police Band, and the Ebe Gilkes.
   Though mainstream audiences were still listening to R&B and rock,
   modern jazz retained a small core of followers into the 1960s. The
   foundation of the Belair Jazz Club in Bridgetown in 1961 helped to keep
   this scene alive. With independence in 1966 came a focus on black
   Barbadian culture, and music like calypso, reggae and spouge, rather
   than the preoccupation with British standards of musical development.
   Calypso jazz arose during this period, pioneered by groups like the
   Schofield Pilgrim. The genre had developed by 1965, when original works
   like "Jouvert Morning" and "Calypso Lament" were composed. Artists like
   the pianist Adrian Clarke became popular during the 60s as well.

   In the early 1970s, jazz fan and critic Carl Moore launched a project
   to keep jazz alive on the island, while Zanda Alexander's performance
   in Bridgetown in 1972 is said to be the first Caribbean jazz festival.
   Oscar Peterson's 1976 performance in Trinidad also inspired Barbadian
   musicians, as did the radio program Jazz Jam, which was broadcast
   starting in the mid-70s on the Caribbean Broadcast Corporation. In
   1983, however, the Belair Jazz Club closed, and was not replaced by any
   long-term clubs. Later in the 1980s, jazz declined greatly in
   popularity, though saxophonist Arturo Tappin organized the
   International Barbados/Caribbean Jazz Festival, while other
   performances were organized by a group called the Friends of Jazz. More
   jazz calypso fusion musicians appeared on the scene during this period,
   including Janice Robertson and her Trinidadian husband Raf.

Academia and musicology

   Academic study of Barbadian music remains limited. Some song
   collections and other activities have been conducted, but there remain
   significant holes in scholarship, such as the musics of recent
   immigrants from China and India, who presumably have brought with them
   styles of Indian and Chinese musics. Due to a lack of archaeological
   and historical records, the island's indigenous music is unknown. Since
   the 1970s, an increase in general interest in Barbadian culture has
   spurred greater study of music, and given an incentive to radio and
   television stations to create and maintain archives of cultural
   practices.

   On modern Barbados, oral transmission remains the primary mode of music
   education, and there are few opportunities for most people to become
   formally educated in music of any kind. The elders of the island, who
   are the most educated in oral traditions, are held in high esteem due
   to their knowledge of folk culture. Modern Barbados is home to several
   institutions of musical education. There are dedicated schools for
   ballet: Dance Place and the Liz Mahon Dancers. A number of schools
   sponsor orchestras, steelbands and tuk bands, including the St. Lucy
   Secondary School Steel Orchestra.

Music institutions and festivals

   The main music festival in Barbados is crop over, which is celebrated
   with song, dance, calypso tent competitions and parades, especially
   leading up to the first Monday in August, Kadooment Day. The crop over
   festival celebrates the end of the sugarcane harvest, and is
   inaugurated by the ritual delivery of the last of the harvest on a cart
   pulled by mules. The champion sugarcane workers are crowned King and
   Queen for the event. In addition to crop over, music plays an important
   role in many other Barbadian holidays and festivals. The Easter Oistins
   Fish Festival, for example features a street party with music to
   celebrate the signing of the Charter of Barbados and the fishing
   industry of the island, and the Holetown Festival, which commemorates
   the arrival of the first settlers in 1627. Opera, cabaret and sports
   are a major part of the Easter Holders Season. On November 30, the
   Barbadian Independence Day, military bands in parades play marches,
   calypsos and other popular songs. This is preceded for several weeks by
   the National Independence Festival of Creative Arts. The National
   Independence Festival of Creative Arts and Crop Over are two of the
   festivals sponsored by the National Cultural Foundation (NCF); the
   other is Congaline, a recently-organized street party that begins in
   April and ends on May Day. NCF also assists with the Holers Opera
   Season, Oistins Fish Festival, Holetown Festival and the B'dos Jazz
   Festival.

   Other major musical institutions in Barbados include the Barbados
   Chamber Music Ensemble, Barbados Symphonia, Barbados Festival Choir,
   Ellerslie Folk Chorale, Cavite Choral and Sing Out Barbados. There are
   also dance and ballet groups, Dance National Afrique, Barbados Dance
   Theatre Company, Dance Strides, Liz Mahon Dances, Dance Place and
   Dancing Africa. The island's music industry is home to several
   recording studios, the largest being Blue Wave, a 48-track system, and
   Paradise Alley, a 24-track system. Others include Chambers' Studio,
   Gray Lizard Productions and Ocean Lab Studios.

Trivia

     * The only women ever to win the Pic-O-De-Crop finals and become
       "Calypso Queen of Barbados" was Rita Sealy (as then Rita Forrester)
       in 1988 with the songs "I Can't Party" and "Women, Respect
       Yourself".

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