Amazing Travel Adventures

Posts Tagged ‘marimba’

Guatemala’s national instrument is the marimba. This is a percussion instrument of the xylophone family. The marimba is played across the country, even in the most remote places.

In every city there are wind and percussion bands that play during Lent and Holy Week processions and on other occasions.

The Garifuna people descended from African-Caribbean, which is hardly found in the northeast Caribbean coast, has its own variety of popular or folk music.

La Cumbia, a Colombian variety is also very popular, especially among the lower classes.

Guatemala has about five centuries of tradition in the art of music. It extends from the early liturgical chants and polyphony introduced in 1524 to contemporary music. Most of the music composed in Guatemala from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century is resurging again thanks to the scholars who drive their recovery.