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    Instruments of Soca and Calypso

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    This document discusses the instruments used in Calypso and Soca music. It explains that Calypso originated in the 1700s and commonly uses horns, strings, and percussion instruments like trumpets, guitars, and steel drums. Soca evolved from Calypso and relies more heavily on percussion than horns, typically using instruments like bongos, acoustic guitar, electric bass, and drum set. The chapter introduces popular Soca artists like Machel Montano and describes how Soca has evolved to incorporate more electronic sounds like electric piano.

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    Instruments of Soca and Calypso

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    This document discusses the instruments used in Calypso and Soca music. It explains that Calypso originated in the 1700s and commonly uses horns, strings, and percussion instruments like trumpets, guitars, and steel drums. Soca evolved from Calypso and relies more heavily on percussion than horns, typically using instruments like bongos, acoustic guitar, electric bass, and drum set. The chapter introduces popular Soca artists like Machel Montano and describes how Soca has evolved to incorporate more electronic sounds like electric piano.

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    This document discusses the instruments used in Calypso and Soca music. It explains that Calypso originated in the 1700s and commonly uses horns, strings, and percussion instruments like trumpets, guitars, and steel drums. Soca evolved from Calypso and relies more heavily on percussion than horns, typically using instruments like bongos, acoustic guitar, electric bass, and drum set. The chapter introduces popular Soca artists like Machel Montano and describes how Soca has evolved to incorporate more electronic sounds like electric piano.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    2K views7 pages

    Instruments of Soca and Calypso

    Uploaded by

    api-285435535
    This document discusses the instruments used in Calypso and Soca music. It explains that Calypso originated in the 1700s and commonly uses horns, strings, and percussion instruments like trumpets, guitars, and steel drums. Soca evolved from Calypso and relies more heavily on percussion than horns, typically using instruments like bongos, acoustic guitar, electric bass, and drum set. The chapter introduces popular Soca artists like Machel Montano and describes how Soca has evolved to incorporate more electronic sounds like electric piano.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 7
    At a glance
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    The key takeaways are that calypso originated in the 1700s and has evolved over time. Common instruments used in calypso include horns like trumpets and saxophones as well as strings and percussion. Another style called quelbe commonly features woodwind instruments like flutes and clarinets. Soca originated as a descendant of calypso and is now one of the most popular Caribbean genres.

    The main instruments used in calypso music are horns like trumpets, tubas, and saxophones. Strings like guitar and percussion like bass and drums are also commonly used.

    Another style called quelbe branched off from calypso and commonly features woodwind instruments like flutes and clarinets alongside percussion like cowbells. The ukulele is also a common instrument in quelbe.

    Instruments

    of Soca and
    Calypso

    Benjamin O. Flenyol

    Chapter 1: Calypso

    Calypso has started off in the 1700s as a form of contact, but has evolved into something new. In this
    chapter, you will learn about the instruments used in Calypso, and other styles that branched off from
    Calypso.

    SECTION 1: H O R N S

    Horns

    Horns are an essential part of Calypso. Usually,


    the horns would play a phrase that would harmonize with the the melody, or play as a melodic introduction to a song. The most common horns
    used would be the trumpet, tuba, euphonium,
    alto and tenor saxophone. There are other horns
    that would be used but are uncommon, such as

    the french horn, flute, and clarinet. Usually, the


    woodwind instruments such as the flute, and
    clarinet would usually be used in another form
    of calypso called Quelbe. Also to include, horns
    would also be used in Quelbe music, although it
    is not as popular as the flute, or clarinet.

    SECTION 2: S T R I NG S A N D PE R CUSSION

    Strings and Percussion

    Rising Stars, a steel drum orchestra in the U.S Virgin Islands.


    The most common use of string and percussion
    would be the electric bass, and the drum set.
    These are not the limited choices however. For
    strings, the acoustic guitar, electric guitar, ukulele, and violin. The most common type of calypso to find the ukulele would be in Quelbe,
    alongside the flute and clarinet. The violin and

    guitars would be used in a calypso band, as it


    can fit well within it. Other common percussion
    instruments would be the cowbell, bongos, and
    the steel drums, also known as the steel pan. The
    cowbells is usually used in Quelbe, but can be included in Calypso, and Soca. There are usually
    steel drum orchestras for calypso.

    CHAPTER 2: SOCA

    Type to enter text

    Soca is arguably the most popular form of music in the Caribbean. Basically a birth child of Calypso, it
    has grown to be one of the most popular sounds in the Caribbean, promoting annual street festivals
    called Carnival. In this chapter, you will learn about the instruments used in Soca, and popular Soca
    artists.
    4

    SECTION 1: I N S T R U M E NT S

    Instruments

    Kerwin Dubois, Soca artist from Trinidad and Tobago.


    Soca instruments are different compared to Calypso instruments. While Calypso bands have
    the use of horns, Soca rarely uses horns. The instruments used in Soca are usually percussion instruments like the bongos, acoustic guitar, electric bass, and the drum set. It is uncommon to
    have horns and other wind instruments, but not

    prohibited. Usually, a rhythm section is mandatory compared to a horn section, but horns are
    not limited. The most important section however,
    is the voice section. Usually one lead singer, and
    three to five back up singers, the lead singer will
    sing the melody, while the back up singers
    would sing the chorus.

    SECTION 2: S I N G E R S

    Singers

    Machel Montano, the most known Soca artist in the Caribbean.

    In this age, Soca music has become a wave of excitement amongst Caribbean people. It has transformed from a calypso band using more percussion over horns, to absolute no usage of horns,
    and more imitated horn sounds from an electric
    piano. Soca has transformed into a Caribbean version of pop music, adding more instrumental

    background as well. Popular Soca bands and artists are Kes the Band, Bunji Garlin, Destra, Alison
    Hinds, and Rupee. While Rihanna has Caribbean
    decent, she is a pop artist, and has not released
    any Calypso or Soca songs.

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