International Music Resources by Country: Guatemala

Citation (4)

Capital: Guatemala City 

Official Language: Spanish 

Population: 17,109,746

Climate: The climate is tropical, hot and humid, especially on the Caribbean coast and in the El Petén lowlands, but it is cooler in the highlands. The warmest month is May, at the end of the dry season and the start of the rainy season, with an average temperature of 26°C (78°F), and the coolest is January (22°C or 71°F).

Religion: Christianity; Roman Catholicism

Citation (2)

Ladino Music

Ladino music flourishes in the large Ladino populations concentrated in urban centres, the south coast (in the departments of Retalhuleu, Escuintla, Santa Rosa and Jutiapa) and the eastern lowlands (in Chiquimula, Jalapa, El Progreso, Zacapa and southern Izabal). Their music shows a long-standing and pervasive influence from Spain as well as more recent influences from Mexico, Colombia, the other Central American and Caribbean countries, and the popular music of the USA. The most popular and widespread form is the son guatemalteco (also called son chapín), the national dance of Guatemala. The son guatemalteco is played by marimbas, singly or in ensembles, and by ensembles of six- and twelve-string guitars, guitarrillas and maracas. It accompanies a couple-dance in which the partners dance together without touching, emphasizing the son rhythm with zapateado or foot-stamping which relate the dance to Spanish flamenco style. The son guatemalteco is often sung by a male duet, trio or quartet, to a pastoral or folkloric text with strophes usually of four octosyllabic lines.

Maya Music

The various language groups of the Guatemalan Maya belong to the Mamean, Quichean and Kekchian branches of the Maya family, inhabiting respectively the western and north-central, south-central, and north-eastern highlands. Their traditional music displays stronger influences from Spanish colonial music than from its more ancient Maya roots. However, the reverence with which they regard their ancestral heritage, the source of their mythology, ritual, arts and music, discourages the modification of traditional ways, and accounts for the preservation of some instruments and stylistic elements of their ancient music. otable occasions for the public performance of instrumental music are the numerous dance–dramas performed annually at village festivals, or the frequent processions in which the images of the saints are carried through the streets. Vocal music stemming from colonial Spanish liturgical music is used for Catholic ceremonies that have been incorporated into Maya ritual. Examples of Latin and Spanish hymnody, psalmody and plainchant, such as the yearly singing of Tenebrae in some villages, have been found.

Garífuna Music

A black Carib population known as the Garífuna inhabits the Caribbean coast from Belize to Islas de la Bahía in Honduras. In Guatemala they live mainly in the urban centres of Livingston and Puerto Barrios. They stem from the indigenous Arawak of the island of St Vincent and from African slaves, and came to Central America in the late 18th century. Their culture and musical traditions are distinct and separate from those of the rest of Guatemala. The principal instrument of the Garífuna is the garaón, a wooden membranophone about 60 cm in length and slightly conical, with a deer-skin head. The Garífuna also play a fusion of popular and Caribbean styles on electric guitar, electric bass and keyboard with drums and percussion, sometimes adding trumpet, trombones, saxophones and voices. Vocal music is mainly responsorial between a small group or soloist and chorus. The punta is the best known Garífuna dance-song genre, with texts that may be topical, erotic or moral and serve as social regulators.

Citation (3)