THAT ETERNAL ANDEAN MUSIC

By: Ivan Ignacio  

You have probably seen them. Dark skin, long and black hair, nostalgic stare, deep expression, medium height, and slim. They are usually everywhere in the world, accompanied by their inseparable musical instruments that are originally from where their owners come from.

They come originally from the eternal Andean region situated in central South America, formed by the geographic zones of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and in less proportion by Colombia, Argentina, and Chile. In other terms, they are descendents of the ancient Aymara civilization and the denominated Qheshwa Inca empire.

These compulsive globe-trotters usually offer their musical art, wherever they feel comfortable, to earn the possibility of continuing to survive, without caring too much about the scenery. The singular part in them originates in: First, the message and the kind of music that they play, second, the singularity of the instruments with which they play it, and, third, the manner in which they do it.

THEIR MUSIC seems to constitute a very important part in their daily lives. That music that far from being a simple creation and human expression, seems to be a kind of apprehension, interpretation, and experience of a reality formed by: Emotions, illusions, hopes, frustrations, successes, passions, dreams, beliefs, projects, perspectives, communication, etc.

To define their music only by its sound waves and its aural mark would seem too cheap. On the contrary, a more precise conceptualization would make us define it as an energy that is produced and developed from the relationship between the human being and nature, and that expands, retrieves, and projects, transcending its reach in time and space, inexorably and infinitely.

As the source of language and the essence of communication, their music is encapsulated in the propagation and prolongation of the universal energy that appears in a constant and dynamic vibration of the relations between the human being and nature, that in turn define the unreachable search of a world in permanent equilibrium.

This music, with a simple melody, sweet harmony, varying rhythm, and without stridencies, seems to be the reflection of a united community experience, expressed through sound and rhythm. Not few mention the great spiritual strength that this music suggests, capable of ennobling and touching the soul of the most hardened hearts that abound in these times of general crisis.

The ancestral Andean instruments, like the Quenas made out of cane, the Sikus or Zampoñas, the Rondadores, the Antaras, the Pinkillos, etc., and the more contemporary ones like the Charangos, Mandolins, Guitars, Violins, Harps, and Saxophones, form the musical arsenal of these tireless travellers.

Each one of those ancient instruments that constitute the basis of everything that these travellers can do, possess singular characteristics and sounds that help our imagination to reach a depth in our souls, probably unexplored before. Its sonority without frontiers in an always novel combination of melody and harmony turns this music into a beautiful force that inevitably produces intense heart beats that nobody can escape from.

The percussions like the Bombos, the Wanqaras, and the Chajchas (sheep hooves and llama hooves), and the instruments of harmony like the Ronrocos, Talachis, Walaychus, little guitar, etc. seem to be answering to the vibration of that first group of instruments and to be producing a delighting blend of melody and harmony.

The voices, that do not seem to need any academic formation, emerge from the middle of this mix, like passionate bearers of a message turned into song. Through hurting and burning sounds, these voices, that emit words motivated who knows by which luck of dreams or realities, complete the aural mark of this generous symbiosis of humanity and nature.

Finally, the way in which these tireless pioneers interpret their music seems to constitute the event in which the “being” with all its integrity is set in hectic activity, where everyone is possessed by the movement of an almost unpredictable infinite fluid of face expressions and in a harmonious coherence between the sound, the rhythm, and the word.

This event that constitutes the moment of ecstasies, a whole accumulated and processed almost instinctively, does not seem to have ever needed a studied musical formation nor a choreography. Definitely, it is, it would be said, practically impossible to recount this emotional and spiritual state of being that the human being can reach.