What is Caribbean Music?​

Question 1

What is Caribbean music?​

Answer 1

A practice within Caribbean communities.​

Where is the Caribbean is a difficult question to answer. ​

Question 2

Caribbean Music Meaning

Answer 2

Sound
Geographical
Lived Practice
Political
Historical

Question 3

Musical/sound definition of Caribbean Music​

Answer 3

In the survey of the Caribbean as a ‘musical region’, Kenneth Bilby (1985) The forms of music found in the region have their ‘feet planted in both musical worlds yet belong to neither’ (Negus 116) ​

Bilby …varying degree of synthesis … ‘purely European derived’ to ‘neo-African’. (Negus 117 )​

Question 4

Caribbean Musical Definition - Bilby

Answer 4

European- Melodic patterns, diatonic harmonies, (dance) waltzes, mazurkas, and polkas, quadrilles, instruments.

African- syncopated polyrhythms using rattles, scrapers, sticks and bells, and drumming based on interlocking leading and supporting parts. ​

Question 5

Creolisation

Answer 5

Bilby’s musical definition of Caribbean music is based on the idea of Creolisation. ​

The central argument of the Creole-society is that the Europeans and Africans who settled in the Americas contributed to the development of a distinctive society and culture that was neither European nor African, but “Creole.” (Bolland 23) ​

Question 6

Caribbean Geography

Answer 6

The Caribbean can also be defined by its geographical borders.​

Music indigenously created within these borders is defined as Caribbean music. ​

Question 7

Lived experience​

Answer 7

We use the word culture in . . . two senses: to mean a whole way of life –the common meanings; to mean the arts and learning – the special processes of discovery and creative effort.(2 McGuigan and Williams)​

Caribbean spaces with the same lived experience can be defined as being part of Caribbean culture. ​

This includes the Diaspora. ​

Question 8

A different view on Caribbean Culture (creolisation) ​

Answer 8

… value and beauty of the impure. Dereck Walcott. (Puri 68)​

Caribbean culture consists of fragments. ​

Therefore, other non-indigenous forms, once they are practiced within the Caribbean can be considered Caribbean culture. ​

Trinidadian rock musicians or Rihanna’s output. ​

Question 9

Complexity and Conclusion​

Answer 9

to negotiate the complexities of who out of these complicated sets of stories you could possibly be, where you find in the mirror of history a point of identification or recognition for yourself, it is not surprising that Caribbean people of all kinds, of all classes and positions, experience the question of positioning themselves in a cultural identity as an enigma, as a problem, as an open question. (Hall: 30 )​