The music of Cuba, including its instruments, performance and dance, comprises a large set of unique traditions influenced mostly by west African and European. Song of Myself. Wont you help support Day. Poems 1. 81. 9 1. I celebrate myself, and sing myself. And what I assume you shall assume. For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul. I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, formd from this soil, this air. Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their. I, now thirty seven years old in perfect health begin. Hoping to cease not till death. Creeds and schools in abeyance. Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten. I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard. Nature without check with original energy. Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with. I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it. The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the. It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it. I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked. I am mad for it to be in contact with me. The smoke of my own breath. Echoes, ripples, buzzd whispers, love root, silk thread, crotch and vine. My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing. The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and. The sound of the belchd words of my voice loosd to the eddies of. A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms. The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag. The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields. The feeling of health, the full noon trill, the song of me rising. Have you reckond a thousand acres much Have you practisd so long to learn to readHave you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of. You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, there are millions. You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me. You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self. I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the. But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. There was never any more inception than there is now. Nor any more youth or age than there is now. And will never be any more perfection than there is now. Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now. Urge and urge and urge. Always the procreant urge of the world. Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and. Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life. To elaborate is no avail, learnd and unlearnd feel that it is so. Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well. Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical. I and this mystery here we stand. Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul. Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen. Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age. Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they. I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself. Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean. Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be. I am satisfied I see, dance, laugh, sing. As the hugging and loving bed fellow sleeps at my side through the night. Leaving me baskets coverd with white towels swelling the house with. Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes. That they turn from gazing after and down the road. And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent. Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead Trippers and askers surround me. People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and. I live in, or the nation. The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new. My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues. The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love. The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill doing or loss. Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news. These come to me days and nights and go from me again. But they are not the Me myself. Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am. Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary. Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest. Looking with side curved head curious what will come next. Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it. Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with. I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait. I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you. And you must not be abased to the other. Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat. Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not. Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning. How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turnd over upon me. And parted the shirt from my bosom bone, and plunged your tongue. And reachd till you felt my beard, and reachd till you held my feet. Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass. And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own. And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own. And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women. And that a kelson of the creation is love. And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields. And brown ants in the little wells beneath them. And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heapd stones, elder, mullein and. A child said What is the grass How could I answer the child I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord. A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt. Bearing the owners name someway in the corners, that we may see. Whose Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic. And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones. Growing among black folks as among white. Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. Tenderly will I use you curling grass. It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men. It may be if I had known them I would have loved them. It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out. And here you are the mothers laps. This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers. Darker than the colorless beards of old men. Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues. And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women. And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken. What do you think has become of the young and old men And what do you think has become of the women and childrenThey are alive and well somewhere. The smallest sprout shows there is really no death. And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the. Install Ssl Cert Cpanel. And ceasd the moment life appeard. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses. And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. Has any one supposed it lucky to be bornI hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it. I pass death with the dying and birth with the new washd babe, and. And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good. The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good. I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth. I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and. They do not know how immortal, but I know. Music of Cuba Wikipedia. The music of Cuba, including its instruments, performance and dance, comprises a large set of unique traditions influenced mostly by west African and European especially Spanish music. Due to the syncretic nature of most of its genres, Cuban music is often considered one of the richest and most influential regional musics of the world. For instance, the son cubano merges an adapted Spanish guitar tres, melody, harmony, and lyrical traditions with Afro Cuban percussion and rhythms. Almost nothing remains of the original native traditions, since the native population was exterminated in the 1. Since the 1. 9th century Cuban music has been hugely popular and influential throughout the world. It has been perhaps the most popular form of regional music since the introduction of recording technology. Cuban music has contributed to the development of a wide variety of genre and musical styles around the globe, most notably in Latin America, the Caribbean, West Africa and Europe. Examples include rhumba, Afro Cuban jazz, salsa, soukous, many West African re adaptations of Afro Cuban music Orchestra Baobab, Africando, Spanish fusion genres notably with flamenco, and a wide variety of genres in Latin America. OvervieweditLarge numbers of African slaves and European, mostly Spanish, immigrants came to Cuba and brought their own forms of music to the island. European dances and folk musics included zapateo, fandango, paso doble and retambico. Later, northern European forms like minuet, gavotte, mazurka, contradanza, and the waltz appeared among urban whites. There was also an immigration of Chinese indentured laborers later in the 1. Ancient print of colonial Havana. Fernando Ortiz, the first great Cuban folklorist, described Cubas musical innovations as arising from the interplay transculturation between African slaves settled on large sugarplantations and Spaniards from different regions such as Andalusia and Canary Islands. The African slaves and their descendants made many percussion instruments and preserved rhythms they had known in their homeland. The most important instruments were the drums, of which there were originally about fifty different types today only the bongos, congas and bat drums are regularly seen the timbales are descended from kettle drums in Spanish military bands. Also important are the claves, two short hardwood batons, and the cajn, a wooden box, originally made from crates. Claves are still used often, and wooden boxes cajones were widely used during periods when the drum was banned. In addition, there are other percussion instruments in use for African origin religious ceremonies. Chinese immigrants contributed the corneta china Chinese cornet, a Chinese reed instrument still played in the comparsas, or carnival groups, of Santiago de Cuba. The great instrumental contribution of the Spanish was their guitar, but even more important was the tradition of European musical notation and techniques of musical composition. Hernando de la Parras archives give some of our earliest available information on Cuban music. He reported instruments including the clarinet, violin and vihuela. There were few professional musicians at the time, and fewer still of their songs survive. One of the earliest is Ma Teodora, supposed to be related to a freed slave, Teodora Gins of Santiago de Cuba, who was famous for her compositions. The piece is said to be similar to 1. Spanish popular songs and dances. Cuban music has its principal roots in Spain and West Africa, but over time has been influenced by diverse genres from different countries. Important among these are France and its colonies in the Americas, and the United States. Cuban music has been immensely influential in other countries. It contributed not only to the development of jazz and salsa, but also to the Argentine tango, Ghanaian high life, West African Afrobeat, Dominican Bachata and Merengue, Colombian Cumbia and Spanish Nuevo flamenco and to the Arabo Cuban music Hanine Y Son Cubano5 developed by Michel Elefteriades in the 1. The African beliefs and practices certainly influenced Cubas music. Polyrhythmic percussion is an inherent part of African music, as melody is part of European music. Also, in African tradition, percussion is always joined to song and dance, and to a particular social setting. The result of the meeting of European and African cultures is that most Cuban popular music is creolized. This creolization of Cuban life has been happening for a long time, and by the 2. African belief, music and dance were well integrated into popular and folk forms. Among internationally heralded composers of the serious genre can be counted the Baroque composer Esteban Salas y Castro 1. Church. 7 He was followed in the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba by the priest Juan Pars 1. Pars was an exceptionally industrious man, and an important composer. He encouraged continuous and diverse musical events. Aside from rural music and Afro Cuban folk music, the most popular kind of urban Creole dance music in the 1. English country dance and the derivative French contredanse and Spanish contradanza. While many contradanzas were written for dance, from the mid century several were written as light classical parlor pieces for piano. The first distinguished composer in this style was Manuel Saumell 1. Cuban creole musical development. According to Helio Orovio, After Saumells visionary work, all that was left to do was to develop his innovations, all of which profoundly influenced the history of Cuban nationalist musical movements. In the hands of his successor, Ignacio Cervantes Kawanagh, the piano idiom related to the contradanza achieved even greater sophistication. Cervantes was called by Aaron Copland a Cuban Chopin because of his Chopinesque piano compositions. Cervantes reputation today rests almost solely upon his famous forty one Danzas Cubanas, which Carpentier said,. Norwegian Dances of Grieg or the Slavic Dances of Dvok occupy in the musics of their respective countries. Cervantes never finished opera, Maledetto, is forgotten. In the 1. Non Cubans sometimes called Cuban contradanzas habaneras. The habanera went on to become popular in Spain and elsewhere. The Cuban contradanzadanza was also an important influence on the Puerto Rican danza, which went on to enjoy its own dynamic and distinctive career lasting through the 1. In Cuba, in the 1. Laureano Fuentes 1. La hija de Jeft Jeftes daughter. This was later lengthened and staged under the title Seila. His numerous works spanned all genres. Gaspar Villate 1. Jos White 1. 83. Spanish father and an Afrocuban mother, was a composer and a violinist of international merit. He learned to play sixteen instruments, and lived, variously, in Cuba, Latin America and Paris. His most famous work is La bella cubana, a habanera. During the middle years of the 1. American musician came to Havana Louis Moreau Gottschalk 1. Jewish businessman from London, and his mother a white creole of French Catholic background. Gottschalk was brought up mostly by his black grandmother and nurse Sally, both from Dominique. He was a piano prodigy who had listened to the music and seen the dancing in Congo Square, New Orleans from childhood. His period in Cuba lasted from 1. Puerto Rico and Martinique squeezed in. He composed many creolized pieces, such as the habanera Bamboula, Op. Danse de negres 1. Afro Caribbean drum El cocoye 1. Cuba the contradanza Ojos criollos Danse cubaine 1. Mara de la O, which refers to a Cuban mulatto singer. These numbers made use of typical Cuban rhythmic patterns. At one of his farewell concerts he played his Adis a Cuba to huge applause and shouts of bravo Unfortunately, his score for the work has not survived. In February 1. 86. Gottschalk produced a huge work La nuit des tropiques in Havana. The work used about 2. Santiago de Cuba.