New(ish) Genre

[fmoore200]

I know that there aren't many Latino musicians on this forum (at least not many that play Latino music), but if you are looking for an emerging genre where the bass plays a major role, it can be found in Latin music.

The music is called bachata. It started gaining popularity around 10 - 15 years ago (pretty young in music terms!). I have listened to this music as it has grown from purely pop/dance music in the late '90's with a cookie cutter formula, to a genre with dedicated and talented musicians.

While it doesn't have the rich cultural history that salsa or merengue has, it does offer some interesting rhythms and a more understandable song structure, especially for the American listener (bachata has thus far followed the popular song structure that many pop music in America follows, i.e. intro, verse, chorus, bridge w/ modulation, etc.).

The bassist plays bass guitar, outlines the 'typical' guitar line harmonically, while accentuating a 1 - &of2 - 3 - 4 rhythm. He/she has a lot of freedom, compared to other Latin music, to perform fills, and solos.

Bachata bassists often employ slap and pop techniques, and many melodic runs to provide contrast to the dance rhythm that can be repetitive.

Some good songs (with a strong bass lines):

'Me Duele La Cabeza' by El Torito
'Bachata en Fukuoka' by Juan Luis Guerra
'Por Un Segundo' by Aventura

Those are just a few of my favorites. They have great bass lines and nice melodies. I hope you check them out. Have an open mind and you might find yourself playing some bachata bass before you know it.

[Mark Perry]

Very nice. I can hear flamenco elements to.

Thanks for the heads up

[BagelBruin]

Thanks for the music!

[fmoore200]

Glad you like it! Was kind of expecting to get either no response, or flamed. Lol

[Ursus Tyrannus]

Not bad, I like it but I think I might still prefer the more traditional sounding Latino music styles.
I am as white bread suburb redneck as you can get but in 2000 I moved to a largely Latino neighbor hood. In the summer there was a house one block over that had monthly parties with live traditional merengue music and at the end of my street there was a community center that held huge outdoor events all summer long with live music as well. It was a crazy neighborhood with big family parties, fireworks and cookouts all summer long. It was the best home I ever had and some of the best years of my life and I quickly began to associate that type of music with good times. Sadly I no longer live there as of 2009 but between thrash and death metal albums I always find some time for some merengue, salsa, and tejano music.