Merengue

ue Both Merengue and Trujillo have shaped the landscape of the Domincan Republic today, but what is not commonly known is how each influenced the other. Rafael Trujillo was a ruthless dictator of the Dominican Republic who killed thousands during his thirty-one years of rule. It is often overlooked, however, that he also reorganized the country, left a lasting infrastructure after his death, and made merengue the national song and dance of the Dominican Republic. Merengue is a type of folk song and dance of the Domincan Republic popularized during the Trujillo era, which can be immediately recognized by its noticeable instrumentation. Through library research, movie analysis, and a brief interview with Paul Austerlitz the topics of merengue and Trujillo will be deeply examined. Although merengue was not created by Trujillo, the culture surrounding this music was indeed created by Trujillo and without his dictatorship, this style of music and dance would never have developed through its different styles and caught fire across the globe. Merengue, performed on the accordion, the tambora, the marimba, the güira, as well as the occasional alto saxophone, broke sound barriers as the dominant style in the early twentieth century in the Dominican Republic. The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the aerophone family. It is used by expanding or compressing a bellows while pressing keys, causing pallets, to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called reeds, which then vibrate to produce sound inside the box. The tambora is a short two-headed cylindrical drum played with a stick on the right head and a palm on the left head. The heads are made out of goat skin. The marimba is a wooden box with between four and eight metal tongs fixed across an opening in the front. This instrument is then plucked by one’s thumbs. The guira is the metal version of the guiro, which is a wooden scraper. It is played with the metal wires attached. In

References: Austerlitz, Paul. (1997). Merengue: Dominican Music and Dominican Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Austerlitz, Paul. (2002). “Dominican Music in New York City.” The Schirmer Reference. Brown, Isabel. (1999). Culture and Customs of the Dominican Republic. West Port, Connecticut. Greenwood Press. Manuel, Peter. 2006. Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Peguero, Valentina. (2004). The militarization of culture in the Dominican Republic , from the captains general to General Trujillo. University of Nebraska. Sellers, Julie. (2004). Merengue and Dominican Identity. United States.