Some Formal and Harmonic considerations on the Argentinian Zamba

Abstract

The zamba is a dance and a musical genre, one of the most popular Argentinian folk-music genres. Considered from a musical point of view, the zamba has a specific form. This paper attempts to conceive the form in this genre from a formal-functional approach, in the tradition of Schoenberg-Ratz-Caplin. Another influence is the dialogic conception of form, as proposed by Hepokoski and Darcy, which allows us to establish the normative and conventional aspects of the genre. We present the fundamentals of this approach, together with several musical examples, and concentrate on some specific harmonic aspects of the first module of the estrofa, especially the harmonic pattern known as departure-return