page_title: Music of El Salvador
section_title: Popular music and instruments
hierarchical_section_title: Music of El Salvador / Popular music and instruments
caption_attribution_description: Gobernando con la Gente Sonsonate 15
context_page_description: The music of El Salvador has a mixture of Lenca, Cacaopera, Mayan, Pipil, and Spanish influences. This music includes religious songs used to celebrate Christmas and other holidays, especially feast days of the saints with Tubular bells Chimes. Satirical and rural lyrical themes are common and played with Xylophone.
  Popular styles in modern El Salvador include Salvadoran Cumbia, Salvadoran hip hop, Rock and Native Mesoamerican Indigenous music which historically have had a long and large significance and impact to modern El Salvador music styles.
context_section_description: Popular music in El Salvador uses Xylophones, Tubular bells, Fanfare trumpets, guitars, Double bass Harmonica, Glass harmonica, pianos, flutes, drums, scrapers, gourds, and Theremin. Indigenous instruments such as drum and flutes are a standard in all Salvadoran music used as a solidarity with El Salvador indigenous ancestry, "El Sombrero Azul" for example, is a cumbia song by Salsa Clave which starts with an indigenous tune. Tubular bells are a cue for El Salvador's Christianity and majestic fanfare trumpets for El Salvador's national pride, the national anthem itself start off with majestic fanfare trumpets.
  Music from Colombian mainly and other Caribbean, South American and Central American  music has infiltrated the country, especially salsa and cumbia. For example, the very famous Favorited La Sonora Dinamita is a Colombian salsa group with one Salvadoran vocalist (Susana Velasques). As one of the first Cumbia groups to reach international success, it is credited with helping to popularize the genre throughout Latin America, and the world.
  Political chaos tore the country apart in the early 20th century, and music was often suppressed, especially those with strong native influences.  In the 1940s, for example, it was decreed that a dance called "Xuc" was to be the "national dance" which was created and led by Paquito Palaviccini's and his "Orquesta Internacional Polio." That was one of the many orchestras he led during and in the mid 1940s, his other hit was known throughout the country. "Carnaval En San Miguel" was commonly known to the whole country as the first Salvadoran band that went on to receive numerous awards in the years to come. Paquito Palaviccini, being known throughout Central and South America, made tours to Cuba, Buenos Aires, where Paquito Studied, and other Latin American countries.
  The inspiration came to Paquito to develop the "Xuc" and "El Baile del Torito" in a tour they had in Cuba. The 1960s saw an influx of American and British pop and rock, inspiring like-minded Salvadoran bands, while the following two decades were dominated by a wave of popular genres from across Latin America, mostly folk-based singer-songwriter genres like Chile and Nueva Canción. This new type of Salvadoran rock music was called "Guanarock" (portmanteau of Guanaco, a nickname demonym slang Salvadorans use to refer to themselves which means "brother" in native American indigenous Poton Lanca language of northern and eastern El Salvador, Guanaco comes from the word Guanacasco which means "gathering brotherhood" in Poton Lenca Mesoamerican language), which inspired bands such as Ayutush.
  Dominican merengue and Bachata also became very popular. In the last ten years, hip hop and reggaeton has influenced the majority of the Salvadoran youth, which has formed groups like Pescozada and Mecate. Also former Reggaeton producers like Wilfredo Rivas (Dj Emsy) and Jose Castaneda (Mambo King) who had worked with vary of famous Reggaeton and Hip hop artists such as: Dj Flex, Cheka, The Black Eyed Peas, Nicky Jam, El Torito and many others.
  Salvadoran cumbia is related to but very distinct from Colombian cumbia, which is better known outside of El Salvador. Chanchona ensembles, led by a pair or a single violin, are popular, especially among the immigrant community in the Washington D.C. area.
caption: Salvadoran boy playing the guitar
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5616", "Image ImageLength": "3744", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 5D Mark II", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2015:12:19 15:38:37", "Image WhitePoint": "[313/1000, 329/1000]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[16/25, 33/100, 21/100, 71/100, 3/20, 3/50]", "Image YCbCrCoefficients": "[299/1000, 587/1000, 57/500]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "432", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "1240", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1354", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6129", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8000", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "2000", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:12:19 10:14:25", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:12:19 10:14:25", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "13", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "120", "EXIF SubSecTime": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5060", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3373", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R03", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1208", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "5616000/1459", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1872000/479", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Gamma": "11/5"}