Study Guides

Unit Summary

Pupils are introduced to Reggaeton, including the context of the style and the influences. They learn about the dembow beat, the tresillo and hooks and riffs. They also develop their understanding of DAW capabilities including low-pass filter sweeps.

Lesson Summary

You will learn to create a dembow beat and understand the key features of reggaeton.

Key Notes

• Reggaeton is a style popularised in Puerto Rico in the 1990s.
• It draws on hip hop, reggae, dancehall and other Caribbean styles.
• It is an energetic style, typically performed in Spanish that is usually danced to.
• It uses synthesised sounds combined with Latin American percussion sounds.
• The dembow beat is the defining rhythmic feature of reggaeton, which is based on the tresillo rhythm.

Vocabulary To Learn

• Reggaeton: Reggaeton is a style of music popularised in Puerto Rico. It is influenced by hip hop, reggae, dancehall and other Caribbean styles of music.
• Dembow beat: The dembow beat is the typical drum groove heard in reggaeton music, which uses the tresillo rhythm and has a strong beat on the kick drum.
• Tresillo: The tresillo is a three-note rhythm in the pattern 3-3-2.
• Dancehall: A style of electronic music that evolved from reggae in Jamaica and influenced reggaeton.

Common Mistakes To Avoid

• The tresillo ('triplet' in Spanish) uses three equally spaced notes.

3 Quick Questions (With Answers)

More Lessons In This Unit

• Arranging reggaeton Study Guide
• Hooks and samples in reggaeton Study Guide
• The global reach of reggaeton Study Guide