Victor E.

Diaz

2020SP Cuban Music Culture & Society (LMAS-260-001)

Prof. Bertram Lehmann

Final

To talk about the electronic Cuban music scene, we must first talk about its origins. Juan

Blanco, an avant-guard music writer, can be considered responsible for giving Cuban electronic

music a place in his native country. Born in June 29, 1919, Blanco wrote more than 200 pieces,

which include music for choir, electroacoustic music through old computers, multimedia shows

and different cycles of works that include music for dance, theater, and cinema. He studied

music, and graduated from the Municipal Conservatory in Habana, and later studied civil rights

at the University of Habana in 1942. He is known to be a pioneer in the composition of

electroacoustic Cuban music.

Blanco is a key component of Cuba’s twentieth century musical history for his innovative

foundational labor in the music scene, and cultural artistry. One of the things he did to provide

positive changes to the community and opportunities to fellow musicians, was to found the

ICAP, (Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos), a workshop in which he would provide

training to participants interested in learning electroacoustic music. In addition to founding the

ICAP, he founds the Cultural Nuestro Tiempo Society, as well as the Writers and Artist Union of

Cuba. He was also president of the Sección de Música in 1961. In 1981 he organized the first

international electroacoustic music festival called Primavera en Varadero. All these

accomplishments and the constant desire to educate people in an unknown musical trend, gave

Blanco well deserved recognition and admiration on behalf of his fellow citizens and colleagues.
 The new direction of musica nueva, as Juan Blanco refers to, was initiated in the early

1960s by him and composer/guitarist Leo Brower, often working closely together. Musica para

Danza, an electroacoustic piece composed by Juan Blanco in 1961, and the composition

Sonograma I by Leo Brower, were the first aleatoric electronic music pieces to be introduced in

Cuba. By refusing limitations brought by the academic tradition; they wrote for jazz musicians

and listened to rock. Juan Blanco thrived during the early years of the revolution, when the

avant-garde was not censured and musical establishments were open to young experimental

artists.

Being more of a progressive composer rather than a compromising composer he

introduced Cubans to innovative musique concrète techniques in the world of computer music

and their instruments such as synthesizers, MIDI systems, real-time music software and direct

digital synthesis techniques. Jesus Ortega, a virtuoso guitarist and part of the Sociedad Amadeo

Roldán (founded in the 1940s to promote the study and presentation of contemporary works),

said: "The fact is that the music of Blanco is Cuban music. He cannot get away from Cuban

music. Regardless of his selection of instruments or themes . . . he could base a piece on an

Asian theme, and it would still be Cuban music. He is Cuban-deeply Cuban, in the purest sense

of the philosophy represented by idiosyncrasy of a Cuban people."

“No other composer living in Cuba has applied this rich perspective to such a wide range

of electronic or computer-based means for making music. His contributions as a composer and

as a specialist in the field of electronic and computer music constitute a landmark in the history

of Cuban music.”. (Leonard, N. (1997). Juan Blanco)

 In Juan Blanco’s early tape music, his piece “Música para Danza”, the primary motif is a

one-bar ostinato played by a single sine-wave generator, dubbed to tape four times. Each dub is

the same motif at different speeds. The high pitch dub creates an ambience of cricket sounds.

The four parts enter in sequence, each gradually spun down to its unique fixed speed before the

next entrance. The combination of the same motif at the different rates creates a great

counterpoint movement. Similarities are seen between this piece and Benny More’s Banda

Gigante in the brass section with their ostinato.

https://open.spotify.com/track/0rxc1ALODSWhxIStSLwTJP?si=fq5LCJjzSy-lr7iBEvPQOQ

His second electroacoustic piece, “Interludio con Máquinas” focuses on acoustic sounds

and the manipulation behind it using tape recorders. It’s based on mechanical rhythms provided

by printers. Later on, a quasi-industrial environment is called upon by recordings of trains and

Cuban percussion. The piece climaxes in a train-like sound accelerated into a frenzy, which is

abruptly cut off, then followed by a I-sec fragment of the printer heard at low speed.

https://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=1656

Cirkus Toccata is a collaboration between Guillermo Barreto (timbales) and Tata Guines

(congas) in which involves a live performance of Afro-Cuban percussionist improvising to a tape

that Blanco recorded. Blanco owned a Roland Jupiter 8 synthesizer and an eight-track tape

recorder and with that he created a tapestry of patterns and contrapuntal textures. He made a

graphic score but Guines and Barreto rejected interpreting the parts in favor of improvising along

with the tape.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7zvjsz7ENFb0tpjfObzR5m?si=G1XaOQTQTJK48q3HBYyYAw
 Comparing Juan Blanco’s work in electronic music to the music scene in Puerto Rico

(my home country), Blanco’s music and genius mind conducted a more artistic, academic and

innovative mindset rather than a “pop” or commercial way to present it to the public. For

example, to my knowledge there is no center for studies of such subject in my island Puerto

Rico, making this type of electroacoustic music almost unknown. The way electronic music is

seen in Cuba is very different from the way it is seen in the rest of the islands of the Caribbean

thanks to him. Blanco had an artistic point of view rather than an entertainment point of view

thanks to his effort in educating and discovering.

Blanco was the first to bring the unique rhythms of electroacoustic music and later after a

documentary was filmed by various people from Germany, where the presentation of various DJs

in the capital was recorded, it brought the culture of electronic music throughout Cuba in 2004.

This made a division of what electronic music was in Cuba, as to of what electronic dance music

or electro acoustic music is in the present. Today there is an important moment, at least in terms

of quality, favoring this thriving musical movement that ranges from the so-called purely

electronic genres to the most danceable music that could exist.

References:

Juan Blanco

https://www.ecured.cu/Juan_Blanco

Leonard, N. (1997). Juan Blanco. Retrieved from

https://finearts.uvic.ca/icmc2001/info/Leonard_blanco.php3

Leonard, N. (1997). Juan Blanco: Cuba's Pioneer of Electroacoustic Music. Computer Music
Journal, 21(2), 10-20. doi:10.2307/3681105

Espacio sonoro en Casa de las Américas

http://cubasi.cu/es/cubasi-noticias-cuba-mundo-ultima-hora/item/25270-espacio-sonoro-
en-casa-de-las-americas

Dal Farra, R. (2003). Juan Blanco. Retrieved 2003,

from https://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=1597