The above piece is La
Lluvia (The Rain), played by the
group Alpamayo. Alpamayo plays traditional music from the Andes regions of
Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. This piece utilizes the violin, drums, flute, pan
flute, guitars, vocals and I believe the jawbone of a donkey for the snare drum--like sound at the beginning of the piece. (see video below)
In our reading this week we were introduced to the subject
of ethnomusicology, or the study of world music that differs from ones own
musical upbringing. This piece brings out a couple uniqueness’s of the style of
music from the area of the Andes. The first of these is the use of the jaw bone
of a donkey to produce a rattling sound like that of a snare drum. The second
unique feature of this music is vocables
that not only display enthusiasm but undoubtedly have meaning for the listeners
of the area. The study of ethnomusicology is contextually driven which means
that each genre or style of music is studied within the context that it is
written and performed without bias or value-based comparison to other music. These
musicians would have performed this music without any formal training. They
would have learned the music via an oral tradition, passing down music from one
generation to another. Music would not have traveled far from its original
village and would have been primarily used by the village at public times. In
short, ethnomusicologists study specific ethnic music with an emphasis on
discovering the cultural and social components along with musical instrumentation,
vocalization and transmission.
