Latin Music Playlists for your Dance Practice
While dance classes are on break, I’m sure you could use a rundown of music playlists to get more familiar with the Latin dance that you are learning.
Here are three playlists I love to share with my students for Salsa, Merengue, and Bachata, along with some background on each style.
Salsa Playlist
Salsa can be a blanket term to describe the dance music that comes out of Latin America and the Caribbean, but more precisely, salsa music is a Cuban-influenced genre created in New York City in the 1960s. Modern Salsa has a history of frequent use of R&B, rock, funk, and several other non-Cuban elements.
Bachata originates from the Dominican Republic and is a guitar based music that recently evolved from bolero. In the 1990s, bachata's instrumentation changed from Spanish acoustic guitar to electric steel string. The new electric bachata soon became an international phenomenon, and today bachata is as popular as salsa and merengue in Latin American dancehalls.
Merengue Playlist
Merengue is a style rooted in Africa that came to life in the Dominican Republic (particularly in the city of Santiago) and is based on a repeating five-beat rhythmic pattern called a quintillo.
Merengue is usually performed by a group of musicians playing the following instruments:
A diatonic accordion, common in many types of traditional folk music.
A tambora, a two–sided drum
And a güira, which is a metal scraper.
Merengue music is not limited to these musical instruments and often includes brass instruments such as a horn or a saxophone. Below is an example of a band rehearsing with some of the instruments mentioned above.
I hope you enjoy the music and a little of the background!
