Salsa

Salsa is a style of dance music developed in Cuba. Today, you can hear salsa being played on dancefloors throughout the world.

A noticeable feature of many salsa pieces is the use of syncopated [Syncopated: To alter a rhythm by accenting a weak beat. ] rhythm.

Bands such as Gloria Estefan and the Buena Vista Social Club toured widely across the world, making salsa popular throughout the world. Click to hear a sample of a Gloria Estefan song.

Salsa music usually contains many drums and other percussion instruments. The percussion all play different rhythms so that the overall percussion part sounds very complex. Often this is an example of ‘Polyrhythm’: the simultaneous sounding of two or more individual rhythms (eg 3 against 4), found in jazz, African, Cuban and minimalist music. Unlike disco music, salsa preferred the ordinary (acoustic) piano rather than the electric piano. Also included in Salsa music was a horn section, consisting of trombones, trumpets and saxophones. Here is an example:

Call and response is very common in salsa music - where a soloist sings something that is immediately answered by a chorus or a section of musicians.