One of the things that has always appealed to me about salsa is the high degree of subjectivity within the discipline.
Unlike most other forms of dance, there is not ONE correct way of doing
anything. There are pretty much as many styles of salsa dancing as there
are dancers.
This obviously extends not just to teaching, but also to the culture itself.
Ask 5 teachers where salsa comes from, and you’re likely to get 5 different answers.
The terminology is not fixed. Several teachers use the same name for different steps, or different names for the same step…
Below are a few examples of things I’ve heard and read that illustrate this:
- I read an article once that affirmed that “salsa” was the music and “mambo” was the dance.
- One teacher I learned from said “inside” and “outside” turns applied
to followers, “right” and “left” applied to leaders. Another teacher
used “inside” and “outside” for traveling turns, “right” and “left” for
turns on the spot. Another will use the terms indiscriminately,
depending on the leaders relative positioning.
- I could draw a long list of songs that claim to belong to a given genre, but clearly don’t.
Why am I thinking of this? Well, I’ve been studying pachanga steps of
late, trying to learn by studying online videos (much as I learned my
0n2 8 years ago). I was discussing this with a friend, who asked me what
was the difference between charanga and pachanga. And I couldn’t
provide a solid answer. The issue is further muddied by the fact that,
for instance, Eddie Torres uses pachanga or charanga music
indiscriminately when he teaches pachanga shines.
So where to start?
First, my subjective feeling, on a musical level, is that pachanga
and charanga are almost identical, but charanga tends to incorporate
more violin and flute. So basically, if I hear as song that could be
either, I decide which way depending on the instruments’ presence.
However… If you listen to the lyrics of La Pachanga Se Baila Asi, a
classic pachanga with many covers including Charlie Palmieri, the lyrics
state unequivocally that “charanga” is the band, and “pachanga” is the
dance. This argument is somewhat supported by the fact that there are
dozens of bands with “charanga” in their name, whereas only one to my
knowledge that has “pachanga” in its name. By the way, I’ll note that a
good number of these “charanga” artists don’t in the least play music
that is either charanga or pachanga…
Next, some exploration of wikipedia. Although I find the detailed
information incomplete and somewhat inaccurate, the inclination is
clearly in the direction that pachanga is a dance/music whereas charanga
is a band/music. I’m still not satisfied, and wonder if wikipedia in
Spanish might be better. But that proved a false hope. Wikipedia spanish
is Spain-focused, not Latin-America focused, and their definition of a
charanga is that it is a colloquial word for party… Surprisingly, it’s
the French version of wikipedia that gave me the answers I liked best:
French wikipedia has two definitions of Pachanga: a musical style
whose heyday was in the early sixties, between those of cha-cha-cha and
of boogaloo. Derived from charanga music, it was popularized among
others by Fania’s Johnny Pacheco (some erroneously believe that Pachanga
= Pacheco + Charanga). Second definition, according to the pianist of
Orquesta Aragon, is that a pachanga is a guaracha (kind of rumba)
interpreted by a charanga (kind of band).
As for Charanga, French wikipedia defines it as a musical ensemble of
Cuban origin that incorporates violin and flute, that originally played
danzon. Structurally speaking some modern Timba orchestras are very
similar to Charangas (explaining why some use “charanga” in their name).
What does it all mean, you might be asking? And my answer is that we
can make up our individual minds about things like that. Don’t let
anyone tell you that they have the final answer.
Keep in mind that salsa was called salsa because it became necessary
to create one name to market all the different kinds of afro-caribbean
music that were cross-influencing one another in the late sixties/early
seventies.
