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Marimbas in Latin America
The book on Latin American marimbas was published this year at Georg Olms Verlag
in Hildesheim (Germany) within the book series Studien und Materialien zur Musikwissenschaft under the German title Marimbas in Lateinamerika: Historische Fakten und Status quo der Marimbatraditionen in Mexiko, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Kolumbien, Ecuador und Brasilien.
This book is the first supra-regional comparative study on marimbas in Latin America and is mainly based on the author’s UNESCO missions as a field consultant within the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity programme. After an introductory survey of historical and modern African xylophones, it describes the historical development of the marimba from the earliest records in the 17th and 18th century to the present time, and it analyses non-musical, political, social and economic influences on the use of the marimba in the individual countries. Further chapters deal with the geographical distribution of marimbas in Latin America and analyse to what extent the marimba tradition is maintained at the beginning of the 21st century. It discusses the musical potential of the individual instrument models and techniques of marimba playing in the different regions. A major part of the book is devoted to an ergological description of all contemporary Latin American marimba models. The enclosed Audio CD contains marimba music from ten different Latin American countries.
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