Atu~ic iti education
the groups never remain static but keep changing the method and
adapting the activity as the group demonstrates its inclinations. This I
discovered from experience because, after studying for four years in
the U.S.A., I returned to Cuba thinking that it would be easy to put
into practice what I had learned. The adaptation of all the excellent
teaching material to our characteristics has taken many years and I may
add that I still consider myself in the stage of further adaptation.
In Cuba, for instance, the basic instrument for all folk and popular
music is the guitar, which we could regard as our national instrument.
To this we have to add of course the different rhythm instruments,
all played by ear in rhythms so complicated that they are very dficilt
to record. Most of the time there are five different rhythms going on
at the same time. This is why Cuban music is almost impossible to
perform outside of Cuba, except by people such as the Brazilians and to
a certain extent the Mexicans who have similar rhytmical facilities.
Rhythm comes naturally to Cubans in a highly developed way. I once
gave a toy drum to a 5-year-old child to illustrate a song about a
wooden soldier. The little boy, instead of playing the rhythm of the
march, started playing the complex rhythm of a rumba. That is why
any expression of music for Cubans has necessarily to be linked with
their natural aptitude for rhythms.
The basis for our group singing could be said to be two types of
songs : the older songs of Spanish origin, stately and full of cadence,
such as the world-famous habanera ‘Tu’, and the more rhythmical kind
of song, equivalent to what you hear played by rumba orchestras, but
which in Cuba has been very artistically developed; in this group we
have the boleros and guarachas, of slow and fast rhythms. In a separate
style we have our farmer’s songs improvisations with a special kind of
guitar, and involving comments on everyday life. In the baseball league
season, there are improvised ‘duels’ on the radio in which teams make
fun of one another’s players. Again, in’courting, the young man des-
cribes the beauty of his girl and his love for her, and there are songs
which tell about the exploits of a bandit. The facility with which play-
ers improvise verse and music while accompanying themselves on the
guitar is truly amazing.
At the University of Havana in the summer school sessions, we have
large groups of American students who come to learn Spanish and an
equal number of Cuban students come to study English. Every day
after class we congregate to ,sing songs of both countries. Attendance
is completely voluntary and it has proved a wonderful way of getting
students to meet each other socially and to learn about each other’s