Art Music by Caribbean Composers: Barbados

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15362/ijbs.v19i2.203

Keywords:

Classical music, Art music

Abstract

Owing much to its dual heritage, Barbadian culture is a mix of primarily African and British traditions. Unique forms of indigenous folk music include tuk and spouge music. Tuk music, a local version of the common fife-and-drum marching band, dates back to the 18th century (Bilby, 2008). Tuk music is “lively, with an intricate, pulsating and quick rhythm” (Marshall & Watson, 2008, p. 347). Spouge is a 20th century development (Best, 2005). The Crop Over festival, which originated during colonial times as a harvest festival and which was revived in the 1970s as both a cultural and commercial event, provides an annual venue for traditional and popular music as well as other cultural activities.

Author Biographies

Christine Gangelhoff, The College of The Bahamas

Assistant Professor Department of Music School of Communications and Creative Arts

Cathleen LeGrand, Royal Thimphu College

Librarian

References

About Roger Gittens. (2008). http://www.rogergittensmusic.com/first.html

Best, C. (2005). Barbados. In Continuum encyclopedia of popular music of the world: Locations. http://www.credoreference.com/entry/contpmwl/barbados

Barbados Crop Over Festival. (2013). http://www.barbados.org/cropover.htm

Bilby, K. (2008, July-Dec.). A Caribbean musical enigma: Barbados. Caribbean Studies, 36(2), 236-240. https://doi.org/ 10.1353/crb.0.0073

Biography: Sean Jackson. (n.d.). http://www.seanjacksonmusic.com/home.html

Gragg, L. (2005). Barbados. In Britain and the Americas: Culture, politics, and history. http://www.credoreference.com/entry/abcbramrle/barbados

Marshall, T. G., & Watson, E. F. (2008). Barbados. In M. Kuss (Ed.), Music in Latin America and the Caribbean: An encyclopedic history (pp. 345-358). University of Texas Press.

Meredith, S. (2003). Barbadian tuk music: Colonial development and post-independence recontextualization. British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 12(2), 81-106. https://doi.org/10.1080/09681220308567364

Millington, J. (1998). Barbados. In D. A. Olsen & D. E. Sheehy (Eds.), Garland encyclopedia of world music, Vol. 2 (pp. 813-821). Routledge.

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Published

2013-11-11

Issue

Section

Caribbean Art Music Bibliography