Tarantella music and dancing therapy

Until nowadays, many regions along the world believe music can heal the bit of spiders. For example, many places in Spain or in South America share this belief. Tarantula’s bite, one of the harshest and most feared bite on earth, is the reason of this music.

Tarantella is actually studied in history of psychiatry, because it is thought the real origin of the music is to accompany the dance of the bitten person –who most of the times the bite could not be proved. In order to understand this, we need to get back to the middle ages.

In Italy, the tarantella musicians were mainly considered as physicians, because they were in charge of soul illnesses. This is the origin of many different styles of tarantella: the sad one, the mute one, the frenetic and the libertine one.

We shall start a journey over many Italian regions were this music aroused centuries ago, in order to follow its trip around the world.

There many places where lots of people enjoy Italian music, and this will be seen soon. To begin with, let’s say tarantella is a traditional dance and music named after the city of Tarento.

Tarantella is composed of a sweet melody which combines minor and major tones, gradually increasing its rhythm.
The dance is interpreted by couples of dancers with special dresses, in its “for export” mode. Tradition is not always the same when it’s all about geographical situations of tarantella’s origin.

Tarantella is widely spread in the south of Italy, mainly in the provinces of Puglia, but also in the island of Sicily and, other provinces: Molise, Campania and Calabria. Nonetheless it is ordinarily said that the origin of this dance is the city of Naples.

We are able to say tarantella is a popular music for rural celebrations such as weddings and other important events in life along the villages.

Usually, Italians play tarantella with a wide range of instruments. For example, the “pitipu”, which is a flute accompanied by many percussion instruments, adn others called Zambomba or Rabel.
With a very fast movement, the tarantella dance has a compass of 6 x 8, with the following structure: 2 well defined parts. The first one, usually, has a minor tone, followed by the second part, in a major tone.