Talk:Rumba/Archive 1

Untitled
There's a whole range of modern music based on the rumba beats, that is being played in night clubs. Specifically, the BarRumba in London. If anyone has any knowledge on the issue, I would love to learn more about this -- Skaag

Origin of Rhumba
I just want to remind you guys that Rhumba is a music/dance style in Africa. While other countries (particularly Latin America) have their own version of it, the original form is from Africa. Latin music is based off of African music (remember, Africa is a "continent" w/ over 800 languages/dialects). The African slaves in Latin America were from different groups/tribes and families were rarely sold together, so that led to a fusion of cultures (they're very similar, but still different). This fused music, dances, fighting styles, food, language, etc. together. Here in the western regions of africa (origin if most slaves) hip movement is a major part of our dancing. The native music itself is mainly percussion and vocals (few string instruments; examp: gourd), but muusic today incorporates all instruments in addition to the original rythms. The real proof is in the time period. Notice that it wasn't untill the slaves arrived that all this music/dances showed up in Latin America. That's also why most of the black races/communities there are very familiar with the music & culture. This also goes for samba. mambo, etc.

Therefore "rhumba" should remain here but also be able to branch off into the other styles that had the African influence.

Edited: Jan. 30, 2007 7:24PM

danzon, not son
Though son is unofficially considered to be Cuba's national music, the official national music of Cuba is danzón. kashasu
 * you're right; edited section accordingly.

Tobias Dammers 09:41, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

rhumba
For all I know, ballroom rhumba has nothing to do with Cuban rumba at all. When asked for a rhumba, musician typically play a slow son-montuno, or a bolero..

Bolero
For what I know rumba is nothing but another name for bolero, used in american ballroom circles.
 * Sorry, wrong. mikka (t) 16:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Bolero and Rumba are danced to different range of meters although the songs used sometimes overlap. Bolero has a distinct rise and fall action not present in the rumba.

Rumba is also called as "woman's dance", because it absolutely presents women's body line beautifully. This 'body line' and how it is presented is not elaborated upon. What are we supposed to do with this blather? It's an opinion presented as fact. It's out of place here.

I tagged this article
I'm not sure if the tag I used was the right one, but this article needs a bit of retooling. For one, it should be made quite clear that Ballroom rumba is not in the same family at all as Cuban Rumba, nor did it directly decent from it (although the two are somewhat related).

The music to which ballroom dancers refer to as Rumbas is usually bolero, or at least very related to the Cuban bolero, as someone else mentioned earlier. Mikkalai, your "Sorry, wrong" does not cut it. The music does not follow the rumba clave, but rather the son clave, and is clearly falls into the son music family. Just have a look at that little snippet of sheet music found at the bottom of the page. It is closer to a son rhythm than rumba.

More common examples of confusion caused by the conflating of these two totally different music and dance styles into one article include the information in the info box. It says under Mainstream popularity that it is significant in Latin America and Africa, rare elsewhere. This applies to Cuban rumba (ie, true rumba), but not at all to ballroom rumba, which has no mainstream popularity in Latin America, nor Africa. The cultural origins given are: African slaves in Havana and Matanzas. This again applies nicely to Cuban rumba, but not at all to ballroom Rumba, which again is a decendent of the son, not of rumba, and has a different history. I could go on. So, why are these two in the same article?

As imprecise use of terminology and poor classification have caused this article to be quite misleading, I sincerely suggest that sections devoted to ballroom rumba be removed from this section and placed in one of its own. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Acwiki (talk • contribs) 1 September 2006.
 * I have changed the tag to disputed. --Ezeu 20:02, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Brazilian Rumba?
I've got a CD called "Rumba and Bossa Nova", played by various famous Brazilian musicians, the booklet with a Brazilian carnival dancer and the Cristo Redentor figure on the Corcovado, the songs have titles in Portuguese, and it is from a "Millenium Collection" where other CDs are "Italian Favourites" or "Flamenco". Is there a tradition in Brazil to play rumba or is it just a misleading title? Happily ever after 20:39, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Split article
I suggest we split the article in rhumba that follows the rhumba clave and Ballroom rumba that follows the son clave (known as Bolero in Cuba). Then Rumba should re-direct to Ballroom rumba or Bolero, and Rhumba to cuban rhumba or whatever.

Furthermore, the first section states that there is a ballroom dance called rumba, presenting a re-direct to the ballroom dance rumba/bolero. But this article fails to mention that there is a dance danced to this rumba music (following the rumba clave). So if that dance is not mentioned here a separate article should be created for this dance. 62.142.46.22 00:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with you in principle, but just not all the details of how the redirect should work. The word "Rhumba", with the 'h' inserted, is widely associated with the ballroom version of rumba.  Neither afro-Cuban musicians nor afro-Cuban music scholars would ever refer to Cuban rumba as "rhumba".  By the same reasoning, it should be "rumba clave" not "rhumba clave".  So my suggestion is then to re-direct "rumba" to real Cuban rumba, with a note refering people to Ballroom rumba in case that's what they really wanted to search for.  Rhumba could redirect directly to Ballroom rumba. --Acwiki


 * Yes, sorry, confused the both terms. Also, is there really a difference between Bolero and Rumba? Some sources say Bolero is a bit faster, but my dance teacher says they are synomynous.
 * And yes, the split principle was just a suggestion. Further ideas are of course welcome.62.142.46.22 23:01, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * First of all: Bolero (as in the Cuban musician's definition) does not follow any type of clave, but has its own one-bar rhythmic structure (each character representing an 8th note, . = non-accented, S = slap, H = high open, L = low open tone): ..S..LHL
 * Ballroom dancers use both the terms "bolero" and "rhumba" to mean more or less the same thing. From the "Cuban" point of view, bolero is more correct.
 * Finally: Yes, please please split the article. Rhumba and Rumba aren't even closely related.

--82.171.132.253 22:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Please split this article into two or more separate articlesRicardovacilon 02:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

A further note
The article on Rumba (dance) suffers from the same problems as this one. I've put in my thoughts for that page on the discussion page there, but I suggest that we retool both this article and that one at the same time. --Acwiki
 * Agree with these suggestions as well as those in the article rumba (dance). On the contrary, the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Cuban_music has a lot of useful (and to my knowledge correct) information. However, in the section Rumba, there is a link titled Rumba (main article), but that re-directs to the ballroom version of rumba - it should of course be to cuban rumba.
 * One further idea is that the main cuban rumba styles Yambú, Guaguanco and Colombia be mentioned at section-level, as opposed to just in one sentence in the section cuban rumba.62.142.46.22 23:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
 * That's a very good idea. I think we should do that as soon as we've separated rumba out from ballroom.  I'll be happy to help expand the information on the three types of rumba.  I suppose we should wait a little bit longer to make sure we have full concensis and then let's get these two articles ship-shape!  --Acwiki
 * Be bold. Happily ever after 23:10, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Rumba and Rhumba
As many people have brought the problem of this up, extracting what is Rhumba and placing it on its own page should begin as soon as possible. -- Z leitzen (talk)  19:30, 24 March 2007 (UTC)