---
title: "A listener's glossary"
url: https://radiodiabla.com/guides/latin-music-glossary
description: "A listener's glossary: Vocabulary that turns up in sleeve notes and on air. A reference guide from Radio Diabla."
published: 2026-09-06
updated: 2026-09-06
---

# A listener's glossary

Published 2026-09-06

Latin hits, non-stop

[Radio Diabla](https://radiodiabla.com/)

These are the words that turn up in sleeve notes, in radio links and in conversations about the styles covered on this site. Each entry is short on purpose.

**Clave**: The two-bar reference pattern of Cuban-derived music, and also the pair of wooden sticks used to play it.

**Son**: The Cuban song form, built on a sung opening section followed by a repeating call-and-response section, that underlies most of salsa.

**Montuno**: Both the call-and-response section of a son or salsa arrangement and the repeating rhythmic piano figure played during it.

**Tumbao**: The anticipating bass figure, and the conga pattern that sits with it.

**Coro**: The short sung chorus that repeats during the montuno section while a lead voice answers it.

**Pregon**: A vocal line modelled on a street vendor's cry, used as a hook in Cuban song.

**Soneo**: The improvised lead vocal lines traded against the coro.

**Mambo**: In an arrangement, the written horn passage that lifts the intensity after the montuno begins.

**Guaguanco**: A rumba form whose rhythmic language feeds into many salsa arrangements.

**Dembow**: The one-bar percussion pattern that defines reggaeton, named after the dancehall record whose rhythm was sampled.

**Requinto**: The lead guitar in a bachata group, played with a thumbpick and used for the runs between vocal lines.

**Guira**: A metal scraper played with a stiff brush, supplying the continuous fast layer in merengue and bachata.

**Tambora**: The two-headed Dominican drum played with one stick and one bare hand.

**Timba**: The dense, harmonically adventurous Cuban dance style of the 1990s whose vocal and horn language carries into cubaton.

## In brief

**Term groups**: Rhythm, arrangement, voice, instruments

**Entries**: Fourteen

**Languages**: Spanish and Portuguese terms with English glosses