An Ethnomusicological Study of the Globalization of the Quena in Andean Music and the World

Home , Lambada, Llorando se fue, Los Incas, Los Kjarkas, Quena, Siku (instrument)

An ethnomusicological study of the globalization of the quena in Andean music and the world

by Galo C. Bustamante

A THESIS

submitted to

Oregon State University

Honors College

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Honors Baccalaureate of Science in Biology (Honors Scholar)

Presented May 18, 2021 Commencement June 2021

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF

Galo C. Bustamante for the degree of Honors Baccalaureate of Science in Biology presented on May 18, 2021. Title: An ethnomusicological study of the globalization of the quena in Andean music and the world.

Abstract approved:______Eric Hill

This ethnomusicological study has examined the forces that have globalized the Andean instrument of the quena and the genre of Andean music as a whole. This thesis specifically addresses the cultural, and socio-political factors over the last century that has led to the quena being circulated across the globe. Much ethnographic fieldwork, and many historical accounts have been published; this thesis takes many of those works and compiles the knowledge into one unified work which tracks the movement of the quena. This was accomplished through review of the existing primary literature and compiling the relevant knowledge into one cohesive body of text. The primary findings show that there have been three waves of spread or globalization: 1) spread from urban migration fueled by Peruvian indigenista movements, 2) a cultural explosion of folkloric interests in cosmopolitan centers such as Buenos Aires and Paris, 3) politicization of the music and a folk revitalization which brought Andean music to the forefront in the 1960’s through the 1980’s in Chile and the United States. These findings should support the existing body of knowledge, and may spark further interest into the quena’s popularity on the continents of Africa and Australia for further research.

Key Words: quena, globalization, Latin-American Music, Andean Music, cosmopolitan

Corresponding e-mail address: [email protected]

©Copyright by Galo C. Bustamante May 18, 2021

An ethnomusicological study of the globalization of the quena in Andean music and the world

by Galo C. Bustamante

A THESIS

submitted to

Oregon State University

Honors College

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Honors Baccalaureate of Science in Biology (Honors Scholar)

Presented May 18, 2021 Commencement June 2021

Honors Baccalaureate of Science in Biology project of Galo C. Bustamante presented on May 18, 2021.

APPROVED:

______Eric Hill, Mentor, representing University Honors College

______Juan Eduardo Wolf, Committee Member, representing University of Oregon School of Music and Dance

______Shaozeng Zhang, Committee Member, representing Anthropology

______Toni Doolen, Dean, Oregon State University Honors College

I understand that my project will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon State University, Honors College. My signature below authorizes release of my project to any reader upon request.

______Galo C. Bustamante, Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As many people know, there is no work composed by solely one person. After the undertaking of this thesis project, I am fully convinced this is indeed the case. It is because of this fact that I am extremely grateful for the support of my mentor, Eric

Hill, and the rest of the committee including Juan Eduardo Wolf and Shaozeng

Zhang. These three committee members have supported me throughout the entirety of this project which began almost 2 years ago. The completed work you have before you would have amounted to nothing without them; it is for their guidance my thoughts have manifested themselves in this thesis.

While my committee has supported me through the scholarly aspects of this project, I would have never had the exposure to this wonderful world of music without my Abuelita who exposed me to the quena and selections of Andean music upon her arrival to the United States in the early 2000’s. The time she spent living with me and my family formed some of the greatest memories and set the foundation for my affinity towards flute and Andean music in particular. It is safe to say that this project would have never even have been conceived without her continued influence on my life, thus the reason why I dedicate this work to her.

I would be amiss if I did not also acknowledge the support and strength I have received from my immediate family. My parents and younger sister have all offered me unwavering support throughout this arduous process. Everything from moral and spiritual support has been provided to me by my loving family which has kept me going when my motivation was wearing thin.

To my roommates who have been very respectful and helpful in this process, I am also very grateful. Whether it was respecting my space and focus so that I could dedicate myself to the work, or even something as simple as sharing food so that I could use cooking time to further my research. In particular, my friend, and “proof of concept” reader, Collin Vogt, has been of instrumental help while I was composing this thesis. Collin has returned countless comments which have helped straighten out my thoughts so that they could be properly conveyed and interpreted by the reader.

Lastly, but certainly not least, is my thanks to you as the reader. The logging and documentation of knowledge amounts to very little should it never be shared. It is through your active hunt for knowledge that this thesis is not done in vain, but rather serves its intended purpose of disseminating the knowledge that I have gained over my work and research. I truly hope that you not only learn from this thesis, but enjoy the knowledge and stories contained in this and that your thirst for knowledge never ceases.

PREFACE

I decided to write and present on the quena and Andean music as it was something special to me. I was raised in a mixed household and my grandmother lived with my family for some time when I was young; she introduced me to

Ecuadorian flute music, which I came to love as a child. This was the foundation that sparked my interest to present on the quena and Andean music in an honors course, and, shortly thereafter, Eric Hill approached me and told me how unique of an honors thesis this topic could be should I choose to pursue it. I knew that this was a topic that greatly interested me, and it was something I could remain engaged with as I began to formulate how, and more importantly what I would study. Although I have only visited Ecuador once, and though I was not introduced to this music in its native country, I came to realize that the aspect of this music that meant the most to me was that it was present in my life. In order for me to gain familiarity with the genre in the

United States, Andean music must have been globalized and well-circulated, so that is what I set out to research, hoping to find various temporal, spatial, and cultural reasons as to its transnational spread.

As I was reading over the literature and conducting my initial research, I realized that there is truly much more to this flute’s history than I had ever imagined.

The intersectionality of race and cultural instances impacting the dispersion of this music as well as geopolitical and even commodification and economic factors have all contributed to bring the quena to far ends of the earth to have its music played and shared by many. Through this study, I will unpack how an originally indigenous instrument has been spread not only over the globe through its use and its

performance, but also how the appreciation for the quena has grown and spread with its performance. Key among this analysis is recognizing that imitation, appropriation, and expatriation may be modes through which we can view the share and spread of an foreign or ‘Other’s’ music, but this may limit how musicians actually let themselves feel and play the music.

Another point of order that will be extremely beneficial to remind ourselves of, is that globalization is a dynamic process. In the sense of this thesis, globalization refers to a mixture between the definitions of “Glocalization” and “Globalization” from What in the World is Music? (2015) by Arnold and Kramer. “Globalization” is the process of progressive integration of the world’s systems, which we can certainly see, and “Glocalization” is the “Term for the processes by which globally distributed goods, services, and forms of expression have been adapted and transformed to meet specific local requirements (Arnold & Kramer, 2015: 250). While we can track the quena on its spread across the globe, the context and features of its use change as time goes on and it spreads to new locales. I want to caution the reader to be cognizant of how the multiple subject roles that we find ourselves in influence our lives and cannot be used to box people into singular modes of cultural ingestion especially with respect to a foreign music. This is to say that my identity as a Latino male, a scientist, an ethnomusicological enthusiast, and my status as a college student all impact the frames in which I perceive new music; the same applies to everyone with their lived experiences and to claim musical appreciation as a one dimensional look into a different culture would be missing the point of our own uniqueness.

INTRODUCTION

Project Intent

This thesis will track the globalization of the quena from its uses in the rural parts of the Andean highlands to its current status in popular culture over the course of the instrument’s historic lifetime. The quena is one of the major melody carriers in the genre of Andean folk music, I would compare it to the equivalent of a saxophone used in jazz. The quena may not be ubiquitous to all music from the genre, nonetheless its presence can be seen as common place and indicative of the genre of

Andean music. In this frame, much of the research that has been done by other scholars and which I have compiled into this thesis holds the assumption that as the genre of Andean music has spread, the quena, being inherently linked to this genre, has undergone the same spread.

I have made an honest attempt to convey this knowledge in a chronological detailing of the facts, while parsing out similar timelines by geopolitical events and national differences. Through this study I provide an overview of the instrument and its ancient history, the general playing technique used, the pathways and events that lead to the globalization and circulation of the quena, and finally some closing remarks on where I believe the quena can potentially grow in the future.

The main objective of this study was to conduct a literature review of Andean music’s spread and the quena to examine how its sound and music has come to be circulated all over the globe. I have wanted to compile much of the current knowledge from ethnographic field work and other review papers into one thesis so that it may serve as a single, unified source that can track the major forces and events

that have led to the globalization of this instrument that means so much to me and many others. My hope is that this serves as a coherent history of the popularization of the quena while also perhaps bringing awareness to this beautiful instrument so that it may spark the reader’s interest in it should they be unfamiliar.

Methodology

The scope of my investigation encompasses the traditional Andean flute, the quena, and how it has been brought out of the Andes from a small participatory setting to a global stage where it is widely played, recorded, and produced. The research methods applied to this project were primarily a review and an in-depth analysis of existing primary literature surrounding the quena, its history, and its global expansion. Through review of primary ethnographic field works from great academics like Thomas Turino, Fernando Ríos, among many others, my hope was to compile many different studies that looked at several of the influences on the quena into one coherent source describing all of the major effects that brought the quena to where it is today.

The vast majority of the works reviewed for this compilation study hailed from field studies conducted in Ecuador, France, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Colombia, and Japan, as well as studies looking at the historical uses and cultural or political events that helped spread the quena and Andean music in general across the world. I truly wish that I would have had the opportunity to go out into the world and conduct my own ethnographic field work however I did not have the resources to do so for this project; this may be the main shortcoming of this work. With that said, I still have

many memories from my childhood and travels that have helped me contextualize and conceptualize many of the themes addressed in the literature, such as the manner in which groups may play, the sounds of the quena and various groups, as well as the actual performance of groups on street corners in metropolitan cities.

I want to also briefly acknowledge some privileges and biases that I may hold and may be apparent in the writing of this thesis. While I have been raised in a primarily English-speaking, white and Latino mixed family, I still feel a strong tie to some of my blood roots in the Andes. This may manifest itself in a similar way that the Japanese and Bolivians may feel tied to each other through Michelle Bigenho’s concept of “Intimate Distance,” the idea where through cultural or geographical distance, people can still share music or cultural exchanges in an intimate manner

(Bigenho, 2012). All the same, my research is based on the work conducted by scholars in the field of ethnomusicology and it is by their work and help that I wish to stand on their shoulders and contribute to the vast pool of knowledge my thesis and compilation of events as to summarize the globalization of the quena through the spread of Andean music.

CHAPTER I

Background and History of the Quena

Description of the Quena

Describing a quena may seem elementary, yet necessary for full understanding of the topic at hand. The quena is a vertical notch flute with six finger holes on the front and one thumb hole on the back for adjusting the pitch of the instrument. With it being a notch flute, the wind from the player actually enters in a

V- or U-shaped notch at the top of the flute for sound production rather than something like a recorder, which is directly blown into the wind canal. This is a large difference in the mechanics of playing the instrument as the quena player or quenista splits the air column themselves to get the resonance that produces sound. The name for the instrument, quena, actually derives from the Aymara language, but there has been much cross-over and exchange with Quechua, one of the most prominent indigenous languages to South America, with its original meaning being related to

“hole” (Baumann, 1996; Olsen, 2004). Most of the ancient quena instruments that have been discovered are fashioned from condor feather plumes, human or animal bones, clay, or stone, however modern versions of the instrument are often made from reed, wood, or cane (De la Calle Aramburu, 2009; De la Cuadra, 2016).

Looking at the sonics of the instrument, it produces a very full and even sound when played for the presentational stage. To help contextualize what a quena sounds like, and its general range, it is useful to make comparisons to other instruments. The contemporary, standardized professional quena has about a three-octave range, with that range being intermediate to the ranges of a melodica and a standard recorder.

Sonically, the fractal harmonics of the quena are even lower in quantity compared to the recorder, and shockingly low compared to that of a melodica (Díaz, 2015). This can be interpreted as producing a sound that is very “clean” or round, with a smooth timbre. In the same study by Díaz, the findings pointed to fractals as being a useful attribute for the sound description of an instrument. Where a tuning fork would have one fractal harmonic, the quena has about ten, the recorder about 15, where the melodica has about 30. Qualitatively, I would liken the quena to a very smoothly played flute with whole sound but no “growl” as one might hear on a reed instrument like a clarinet or an oboe.

History of the Quena

On nearly all accounts the quena is acknowledged to be a pre-Colombian wind instrument, although the exact origins are a topic somewhat still under archeological review, as some scholars, like De la Calle Aramburu, believe the history to be 5000 years old. With that said, most confirmed accounts date the notched quena to 900 BCE with the Chavín era in what is present day Peru (De la

Cuadra, 2016; Molina, 2013). I find that it is very interesting how an instrument with such a long life has only recently, within the last hundred years, received critical acclaim and popularity on billboard type music charts despite its rich history.

Keeping with the pre-Colombian tradition, wind flutes are generally the main melody carrier in Andean music, and the quena has served this purpose for several millennia

(Baumann, 1996).

In Andean music, there are several styles as to how the quena may be played.

There is the tropa approach, in which the entire ensemble is composed of one instrument, in this case, the quena. The musicians can divide into two groups, one playing the melody and the other group playing the supporting lines. This tradition had some variety in sound as each instrument, such as the quena would have different sizes to provide a more varied range and harmony in fourths or fifths (Rios, 2020).

This is the much more traditional style of Andean music as indigenous peoples from the Andes historically used single-instrument ensembles that would be accompanied by percussion (Bigenho, 2012; Baumann, 1996). In this sense, the quena was played in various social and religious settings as it could be for a seasonal harvest, a death of a community member, or another form of supernatural communication or tradition

(Olsen, 2004). There is also the conjunto style which was adopted after the Hispanic colonization of the Andes and stringed instruments were introduced to the culture. In this style we see a mix of flutes, guitars or charangos, drums, and sometimes singing to carry the melody and progress through the song (Baumann, 1996). This conjunto style is largely what has been popularized, mostly by mestizo populations (those with mixed European and indigenous heritage) as we will see in the coming chapters. The quena has remained one of the staple solo and melodic instruments and has been played on stages all over the world in conjuntos and ensembles supported by other rhythmic instruments (Rios, 2020).

Unfortunately, in recent years, perhaps the last thirty years, the quena has seen a slight decline in its global popularity as an instrument (Bigenho, 2012). I would attribute this to the decline in many of the forces that originally brought the quena to

fame, namely folklorization movements and interest in esoteric or global music that were both very prominent in the 1970’s and 80’s in the United States. Now, it seems that the quena may have lived its peak and has returned to its original status as an enigmatic flute, gone from much of the public eye. I do hope that the instrument can make a comeback as it continues to be both played with a level of presentational virtuosity in some musical niches, as well as played as a means of participatory music where the ethos is on community and music as a social life (Turino, 2008a).

Playing Technique of the Quena

The traditional style for playing and breathing is done mostly in the chest due to the high altitude and thin air of the Andes mountains, although one can play with air pushed from the diaphragm for a more whole and rounder sound (De la Calle

Aramburu, 2009). For the grip and positioning of the quena all the subjects held it the same way with the main pressure points being on the pinky fingers, the non-playing thumb, and pressure against the chin to hold the quena in the playing position with the other seven fingers (six fingers and a thumb) being used to play the tuning holes.

There does appear to be some variation in the fingering orientations, some traditional players will use two fingers on top and four on the bottom, where urbanized players may opt for a more even three and three fingers from each hand (Olsen, 2004). More traditional articulations use the diaphragm and fingers to separate the note articulations where more westernized techniques like tonguing between the lips or behind the teeth on the upper palate can also be used with various tonguing syllables.

There seems to be a finite set of techniques that will produce musical sound on the

quena that would be interpreted as either traditional or academic (synonymous with westernized) sounds. The end result of this study’s interpretations being either a breathier and slightly overblown sound on the quena, or a well-rounded and balanced

“concert-like” sound that has been adopted for the presentational performances of the quena.

My Personal Ties to the Quena

I have not grown up playing the quena, but I grew up listening to it in recordings. I have been a lifelong fan of the soft melodies that I have heard played on the quena, including the ubiquitous El condor pasa. I have been an avid listener of groups like Fusión Andina, Los Kjarkas, and Raul Olarte, who is one of my favorite solo quenistas. I can acknowledge that by no means is my listening of discography expansive, nor does it inherently qualify me as an expert in this music, however it has helped me contextualize everything I have learned through this project. On a similar wavelength, I subscribe to the “intimate distance” theory from Michelle Bigenho’s work, which I will detail in Chapter III, where I feel related to Andean music and the quena through some distant ancestor. In my own life, that ancestor is my grandmother, only a couple generations before me, and thus I feel even closer to the quena and Andean music.

CHAPTER II

Indigenista Movements and Urban Migration

The Formation of Genres and Performance Groups

How does an ad hoc, participatory performance ensemble, or an entire genre of music for that matter, become recognized and circulated? Obviously, there must be some large-scale transformation that takes place as a transient rural group that plays for one festival would never be able to gain acclaim. This is exactly what we see with the quena and the genre of Andean, or pan-Andean folk music, from about the turn of the 20th century to today. Not only do we see this shift, but we see numerous causes for it, including informal urban movements and formalized geo-political influences.

With this, there is a common misconception that indigenous musical practices have remained stagnant or unchanging since the pre-Columbian era to today, however this is far from the case as social-evolutionism and globalization are dynamic forces

(Rios, 2020)

Prior to the early 1900’s much quena playing was reserved for the dry season in quiet rural communities (ayllus) as part of the cultural and social life values associated with the ritualistic cycle of the year, most often as part of a festive occasion (Baumann, 1996). This is how we see the use of most Andean instruments, in village communities where the music and instruments are played by the community for festivals and social gatherings. We begin to see a shift towards cosmopolitan interpretations of this same music starting around 1900 in the case of Peru. At this time, José María Valle Riestra composed an opera, Ollanta (aka Ollantay), based on

Incan themes. This sparked the adaptation and coming of indigenous music and

themes into the cosmopolitan circles, a process that would really start to take hold in the 1920’s. In the 1920’s President Augusto B. Leguía made great strides in formalizing the images of Incan society, rural indigenous populations, and most importantly the music. During Leguía’s tenure as president, he instituted the holiday of Día del Indio (Day of the Indian), national folkloric music contests, and other indigenista (classification for movements with heightened interest in folkloric representations of indigenous music and/or culture often by mestizo or middle and upper class populations) movements in attempts to strengthen ties with the indigenous populations, largely through romanticizing the indigenous ancient Incan culture

(Turino, 2008b:103). While the goal may have been to strengthen ties with indigenous populations, the real effect of the indigenista movements was an increase in interest from the upper classes in indigenous and historic life, with little real concern for the current indigenous populations at the time.

Leguía worked with indigenista scholars to help form numerous organizations to spread interest or knowledge. Some of these institutions became involved with the estudiantina ensemble type, one where mestizos would play stringed instruments like guitars while they interpret popular songs for primarily wealthy audiences, and occasionally they would add traditional instruments such as the quena (Turino, 1993:

126, 273). The estudiantina ensembles were based on the idea of playing westernized or elite themed music for their wealthy audiences while slowly incorporating indigenous instruments or themes. While the original goal of these estudiantina ensembles was to preserve and diffuse the indigenous music styles and instruments to the population, one of the real consequences was this blending of indigenous and elite

culture, which led to a new style which is not quite indigenous, yet founded on indigenous principles being adapted for the cosmopolitan setting. The appearance of estudiantinas and indigenismo was not exclusive to Peru as it was occurring in

Bolivia at about the same time and in similar fashion as the quena traveled from

Peru’s estudiantinas to the estudiantina groups of La Paz (Rios, 2020: 58). In Bolivia, the estudiantina role was heavily influenced by the Peruvian indigenismo, similarly focused on elite and mestizo folk genres still played on primarily string instruments, but with more incorporation of the quena or other indigenous instruments in the

1930’s (Rios, 2020: 72). In many ways, primarily the instrumentation, the Bolivian estudiantinas foreshadowed and paved the way for the conjunto style Pan-Andean ensemble format that would later emerge in the 1960’s (Rios, 2020: 77). The estudiantina ensembles and indigenista activities would continue as the primary form for the quena and Andean music diffusion from the 1920’s into the 1940’s. These same ensembles were often the ones playing at the aforementioned musical contests, not to say there were no authentic indigenous ensembles, but at the time estudiantina ensembles dominated the musical stage as the judges and majority of the audience was from elite or mestizo background. Regardless of the origin of the participating ensembles, Leguía was focused on the music and what it meant for the country as can be seen from a quote from a 1928 contest

Nothing better reflects the collective psychology as the music of the people…. In our Inca music exists the race and imperial power, the tragedy of the [Spanish] conquest… and the richness of an overflowing glory after this unfortunate event…. The vernacular artists that have come from all corners of the country to take part in this event attest to the marvels of our folklore. (quoted in Turino 2008b:100 from the Lima newspaper La Cronica, 6/25/1928, Turnio’s emphasis added)

According to Turino much of the speak of collectivity and shared heritage was in effort to link the smaller regions and departments of Peru to the central government as

Leguía was heavily concerned with unification and centralization, thus illustrating how many of his policies and indigenista programs, including the recognition and formation of many ensembles and the Andean genre as a whole, were fueled by political motives.

The Development and Spread of Wayno Music

According to Thomas Turino the term wayno (also sometimes referred to as huayno or wayño) is situationally defined as it refers to the most common mestizo genre of the Andean highlands in addition to a special sub-genre from specific communities or ayllus in the rural areas. For the most part, I will be using the term wayno in the former sense, the common genre almost synonymous with the term

“music” in a broad sense (Turino, 1993; 2008b). In some ways, waynos can be thought of as the second wave of highland music (estudiantinas being the first) in cosmopolitan centers which began in the 1950’s and rather than focusing on Incan identity as a whole, it focused more on sub-regional locales that migrants to Lima or

Cusco formerly called home (Turino 2008b). I would argue that this second wave was more indexical of the actual migrant and indigenous musical culture due to the musicians almost always being migrant mestizos or indigenous peoples. Also having waynos that would directly link one to their home carries a more direct and impactful sentiment than having to imagine one’s shared ancestry dating back several hundred years.

Once the wayno was essentially conceived, it became commercialized very quickly and widely, primarily from Lima, Peru. One influential force was the construction of over 30 coliseos between 1938 and 1970 to function as large outdoor, tent-like, hosting venues for folkloric performances put on by wayno musicians and ensembles. As the popularity grew, so did the number of performers, spectators, and venues. These performances were largely hosted on Sunday evenings and were a way for the migrants to connect with each other, and their music, while being in the large cosmopolitan centers that were unfamiliar to them. There were some “better-known” artists that were paid to perform at these coliseos while others were unpaid and often migrants who wanted to play and perform (Turino 2008b: 106). While this manner of presentational performance was very well known and enjoyed by many Limeños, records and the radio played a larger role in the wide diffusion and adoption of waynos being a commonplace genre heard all over Peru and even in neighboring countries. Records were fantastic ways for musicians to record themselves and then sell them for profit, sustaining their own life in the metropolitan center and spreading the music which could be replayed indefinitely. With that said, in Peru, there really was no better means of diffusion for the quena and the wayno style than the radio.

Much of the improvement in the life of an indigenous Peruvian came from politically motivated reasons during the (1968-1975) presidential regime of Juan

Velasco. As part of his populist military regime, Velasco was heavily concerned with the indigenous peasantry showcased in a large land redistribution where many acres of hacienda land were redistributed to the peasantry. To further his connection with this group of Peruvians, he became intertwined with the music as well. In a manner

similar to President Leguía, Velasco sponsored numerous concerts and contests in which the winners would receive a compensated trip to Lima to play at a huge music and dance festival called Inkari (Turino, 2003). Furthermore, he started the Popular

Music Workshop, which aimed to create Peruvian folklore ensembles in response to the Nueva Canción movement I will talk about in the next chapter, but this was not enough (Ríos, 2008). Perhaps Velasco’s biggest contribution to the quena and

Andean music as a whole was that he created a law which required radio stations to play ‘folkloric’ Peruvian music for seven and a half hours every day, the majority of it likely in the wayno style (Turino, 2003). In the late 60’s and early 70’s, it was this massive push through the Peruvian radio that helped pass the sound of the quena to many people as the folkloric music that was played often had the melody carried by the quena. Not only was the instrument’s sound heard for almost one third of every day, but it was free to do so.

The Spread of Indigenous Styles with Urban Migration

The third wave of the spread of the quena and Andean music was after the

1970’s with many folk revitalization movements and a shift in focus back to real indigenous styles but with a performance focus. This wave of Andean musical spread also comes with international ramifications as many artists began to travel not only to large cosmopolitan centers within their home country, but also to abroad. One of the best examples of this migration was the urban panpipe movement which has been thoroughly documented and explored in Thomas Turino’s 1993 book, Moving Away from Silence. Starting around the 1970’s, having some overlap with the previously

mentioned forces from President Velasco, mass movements of highland peasants were migrating to the capital city of Lima. Some would come on a performance contract for a certain festival where the ensemble was going to play, while others simply moved for the idyllic better life that they believed Lima would provide as upward social mobility was becoming very accessible. With them, they brought their music, and it was shared widely as people were enjoying it. Among one of the many social activities people shared, were meetings at clubs, or regional associations.

Before the 1970’s almost all the regional associations were dedicated to enjoying sports, but by the mid 1980’s hundreds of them had their principle focus on music and dance (Turino 1993). From there, these regional associations were able to act as central hubs for groups of minorities in the capital to band together and share their music, whether it be on panpipes, quenas, charangos, or whatever their preferred instrument was. In more recent years, as high-fidelity recording was becoming more accessible, being in Lima gave many ensembles the opportunity to record and sell

CD’s as another means of spreading the music while supporting themselves.

Similar to the urban migration and CD recordings that were happening in Peru, in

Ecuador there was a healthy contingent of musicians that came out of Otavalo and currently are the ethnic group of musicians most successfully traveling the world spreading their music (Halpin, 2012). While these Otavalan musicians may not constitute a huge permanent migration, walking down the street in many large metropolitan cities, one may come across a group of Latino street performers wearing ponchos, playing quenas and other indexical Andean music emblems. These musicians largely perform with the intent of selling their recordings or selling

instruments that they have previously made. These groups can be seen as a traveling band and artisan workshop. According to Michelle Bigenho, “The Andean street band may seem to represent the quintessential case through which the Other is exoticized for the pleasure of the Euro-American consumer” (Bigenho, 2012: 24). Bigenho is meaning to emphasize the fact that many of these street performers may not be indigenous, but rather mestizo and may tailor the performance to be a lavish representation which people may view as a very distinct culture from their own. As a note, there are some fully indigenous groups that do travel this way and make a living. I remember walking down a street in Miami in 2007 and I came across a group described exactly as above, playing quenas and selling CD’s from a pop-up table while they were putting on a road-side show; this is also a common scene in Parisian subways (Rios, 2008). This is not just a movement from the last twenty years in the

21st century, but this is something that has been going on for several decades, initially primarily to neighboring countries and Europe, with Asia and the United States as more recent markets (Halpin, 2012).

I know that personal stories and sharing as people move around the globe is also extremely valuable to the dissemination of musical knowledge. Just as I had briefly mentioned in the introduction, my own familiarity with the quena stems from my heritage and having my grandma introduce me to this music from a very young age.

From there I have grown up listening to it, and sharing it with my own friends and colleagues, many of whom knew nothing about it. It even prompted one of my friends to go study abroad in Ecuador and take a six month sojourn experiencing life, culture, and learning. My story is but one drop in the bucket of the hundreds of thousands, if

not millions of people with Andean roots, taking with them their music that reminds them of home and spreading the quena all over the world in an immense peer-to-peer network that we do not even think about. Personally, I believe that this is the strongest and most authentic means of globalization of music that was intended originally as a participatory tradition where anyone could play and dance to this beautiful music from home. In a sense, it is almost like paying a small homage to the roots of the digitized playlists we can send each other.

CHAPTER III

From Buenos Aires to Most of the World

Buenos Aires as a Cultural Center

One of the great cosmopolitan centers that became home to many Andean folklorists was Buenos Aires, Argentina. I surmise that one of the leading causes for this locale becoming home to many performers was it being a cosmopolitan cultural center which could provide recording studios and large audiences, while also being geographically closest to the Andes mountains, compared to Paris, New York, etc

(Rios, 2020: 43). Fernando Rios, one of the leading authorities on Andean music traced this migration to Buenos Aires as being as early as the 1920’s. This form of sojourning migration should be acknowledged as distinct from the rural to cosmopolitan migrations of indigenous peoples as mentioned in Chapter II as this wave was smaller and mostly surrounded musicians themselves on their way to popularize their music and gain acclaim. With this migration, the music brought the quena as one of the main instruments for the melody; now the quena had spread across borders to the plains of Argentina and out of its initial home, the Andes mountains. This migration trend to Buenos Aires, largely from Bolivia and Peru, kept up for several decades, well into the mid 1900’s, with groups venturing for performance reasons as well as to make recordings. Such cases can be seen in the travels and performances of Ruiz Lavadenz who in the 1930’s would form ad hoc ensembles with other expatriate Bolivians. These ensembles would promote and play the quena and folklore music in general, in exoticized fashion, in order to appeal to

Argentine interests and preconceived notions of the indigenous instrument (Rios,

2020). In the Argentine capital, the quena and Andean music were allowed to flourish in clubs, cafés, and recording studios with help from several notable musicians. One of such groups was Los Hermanos Ábalos in the 1940’s and 50’s who were some of the first Argentines from elite background to play folkloric music, and based on their background, they adopted a presentational style rather than participatory in order to appeal to their upper class audience in the Barrio Norte neighborhood (Rios, 2008;

Turino, 2008b).

At the same time as Andean music gaining popularity in the capital, several other folkloric styles were gaining popularity there as well. Some of the Argentine emblems with the most prominence at that time were the gaucho and the tango genre

(Turino, 2008b). Many people today are familiar with the tango as it is still a widely popular music and dance form that one might hear on the radio, television, or even at someone’s wedding. The gaucho style, on the other hand, may be more exotic to the reader, it was the Argentine emblem and index of the local cowboy or horseman. As folklore grew in Argentina, it often included elements of the gaucho index to help first localize the folkloric music, then nationalize it to the country as it was maintained by schools, the media, and performances (Turino, 2003). Having these two Argentine folk influences gave the quena a boost in popularity. The gaucho, through its status in popular Argentine culture helped nationalize Andean music to

Argentina. The tango was performed alongside Andean folk music in addition to helping expose the genre to new instruments like the Argentine bombo which became a commonplace drum addition from Los Hermanos Ábalos (Turino, 2008b).

While Buenos Aires served as one of the main cosmopolitan cultural centers that has had a tremendous impact on the quena and Andean music’s spread, we will see that its most important contribution was taking it across the Atlantic to Paris France.

From Buenos Aires to Paris

At about the same time as the migration of the quena to Argentina, performers and ensembles from Buenos Aires were also traveling to Paris as another cosmopolitan cultural center. As Paris was serving as a cultural center at this time, the excitement and fascination with exoticism and indigenous things at the time sparked the inspiration for one of the first studies on Andean music by Raoul and Marguerite d’Harcourt, La Musique des Incas et Ses Survivances (Inca Music and Its Survivals) in 1925 (Turino, 2008b). This started the popularization of the music in Paris at around the same time as in Buenos Aires. Following the thoughts from Turino (2003) and Rios (2008), the music spread in both cultures in many similar ways through cosmopolitan loops in transnational spread. This was through the idea that Buenos

Aires and Paris are actually of similar culture when looked at through the lens of cosmopolitan perspectives towards indigeneity. Over the next fifty years, there are numerous accounts of ensembles being formed in Paris, as well as migrating to Paris from South America due to the popularity and success of Andean music in the French city.

Perhaps one of the most famous Andean conceptions in Paris was the formation of the band, Los Incas who performed primarily in the Left Bank of Paris, specifically a place named “L’Escale”. Around 1955 two Argentine quena players, Carlos Ben-

Pott and Ricardo Galeazzi, and other musicians came together to form Los Incas; influenced in no small part by Los Hermanos Ábalos (Turino 2008b). Ben-Pott was one of the most influential, and in some ways most interesting quenistas in history.

He was an Olympian in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, he was initially in Paris to study art, and he dabbled in performing Jazz at L’Escale until he felt it was “out of place” and he switched to the quena sent to him from his family back in Argentina. Los

Incas was a very influential group as I will get into later as they were one of the groups responsible for the quena and Andean music’s popularization in the United

States in the 1970’s. Shortly after Los Incas inception, they were approached to play at the La Salle Pleyel recital in France that served as their big break, and led to many recorded albums, tours around Europe, and the spot as “France’s best-known music group” for a decade (Rios, 2008: 151). With the group fronted by two talented quena players, we are able to see that the instrument has traveled very far from its rural

Andean roots in just fifty years. This was not the only impact that Ben-Pott left, I would argue that his impact on Violeta Parra may have been even more instrumental in the globalization of the quena. Violeta Parra was a musician and prominent member of the Communist Party from Chile who was first exposed to the quena and

Andean music in the mid-1950’s in the Left Bank while listening to Ben-Pott (Rios,

2008). Parra and her son would later play a large foundational role in the spread of

Andean music back in Chile as Nueva Canción, but not before Violeta Parra influenced the Swiss musician, Gilbert “El Gringo” Favre.

Favre was another jazz musician like Ben-Pott, and he became well versed in the quena during the early 1960’s while being involved with Violeta Parra after her

influence from Ben-Pott. Favre also reportedly had a unique playing style for the quena where he was one of the first to pioneer playing it with a round timbre and vibrato in contrast to the overblown indigenous style mentioned in Chapter I (Rios,

2008). This style of Favre was later spread through much of the world as his playing traveled back to Chile with the Parras for the Nueva Canción movement in the mid-

1960’s, as Violeta’s son Ángel learned to play the quena at this same time. At that same time Favre started his own club in Bolivia where he could perform and later influence numerous other groups and musicians that would come after him (Rios,

2020).

The founding of his popular music club (La Peña Naira) sparked Favre’s other accomplishments surrounding the quena with his founding of the I group, Los Jairas which was one of the first I groups to gain fame and tour in Europe in the late 1960’s

(Rios, 2005; Bigenho, 2012: 37). It was by the fame gained from Favre that many of the Bolivians back home came to view the quena as a legitimate instrument and not just a thing of the indigenous people. It was also Los Jairas that facilitated the conjunto format of small ensembles which adopted the quena-charango-guitar-bombo lineup among I conjuntos (Rios, 2008). The importance of Favre’s contribution to

Andean music and the quena is quite sizeable. It was really through his contributions and performances with his ensemble that the quena became a commonly accepted musical instrument for many musicians to play for the years to come after him.

During the 1960’s Favre’s music and his band Los Jairas had albums that sat at the top of Bolivia’s list of bestselling records (Rios, 2020). It is largely because of Favre that many Bolivian groups began to pop up and eventually helped in the globalization

of the quena, seen not only in the growth in the home country but also through international tours (Bigenho, 2012; Cavour Aramayo, 2010).

Another part of Favre’s legacy on the genre of Andean music was the “Gilbert

Favre School,” a summer camp in France with the focus on teaching children how to play the quena, and other Andean instruments as a means of keeping the tradition alive. Through his many contributions we see that Gilbert “El Gringo” Favre was surely one of the most influential people in helping with the spread of the quena around the world.

I find it fascinating, the circuitous route which the quena and Andean music took upon its arrival in Paris from the 1920’s to its peak popularity in the 1960’s-80’s. The interconnectedness of Ben-Pott, Parra, and Favre, as well as the renowned groups which they formed while in Paris is quite astonishing. Should any one of these figures not have been involved with the Argentine expats in Paris, there is no telling how much the Andean folk movement would have likely suffered. We are now able to look more closely at some of the offshoots in Andean music that were spawned by its early popularization in Paris; we will follow Violeta Parra and her family back to

Chile and analyze the Nueva Canción movement.

The Conception of Nueva Canción

Nueva Canción (New Song) was a leftist political movement in Chile from the

1960’s through the 70’s indexed heavily by Andean music, the ideals of popular revolution and other leftist ideologies. Before the Nueva Canción movement, Andean music was largely non-politicized with many ensembles not taking a formal stance – there has been some documentation however in the 1920’s of the Andes being

associated with leftist politics as “the concept of the Incas as the world’s first socialists enjoyed a certain vogue” (Davies, 1995: 7; quoted in Rios, 2008:154).

Before we trace the leftist sentiment of the Nueva Canción movement in Chile, it is important to track how Andean music gained its association to leftism in Paris.

The initial shift in the Parisian attitude on Andean music from general enjoyment and fun to a politicized leftist connection was with President Charles de Gaulle’s

Third Way project. It was during this project where de Gaulle wanted to create a

“third bloc” which would have the power to rival the USA and the USSR; while the

“third bloc” never actually came to fruition, in promotion of this agenda he established a pro-Latin American sentiment which was linked with the Cuban

Revolution (foundation of leftism) and anti-US right-winged politics which was well received by the French citizenry. After this initial push toward leftism, many Andean bands such as Los Incas began to resonate with the French and started to include

French lyrics in their songs which further indexed the genre as tied to the movement even though some ensembles like Los Calchakis omitted blatant references to leftism thus allowing them to be freely interpreted as leftist by the listener (Rios, 2008).

After the initial link to leftism was established, this is when the Parras as mentioned in the previous section emigrated back to Santiago de Chile where they laid the foundation for the Nueva Canción movement, where presentational, leftist,

Andean music was played and popularized. As mentioned before, the Parras had extensive contact with some of the most talented and recognized quenistas from

Paris, so when they came back to Chile, they were heavily focused on the quena in

Andean music. At this time in Chile, the quena was stylized as Gilbert Favre had

played it, with round timbre and vibrato for the presentational stage as it was played in songs for the Nueva Canción movement (Rios, 2008). Andean music was played in

Chile in the 1950’s, but it remained largely as an indigenous participatory art; it was with the Nueva Canción movement that the genre exploded in Chile, and from there a

Pan-Andean sentiment that was created that would extend from the southern cone of

South America all the way up to Colombia (De la Cuadra, 2016). Before this time, few Chileans knew what a quena was, much less how to play it. Nueva Canción, and the stylings on the quena popularized by Ben-Pott and Favre changed all that. At this time, we can definitively claim that the quena had spread from the rural highlands and the Andes to a global exhibition all over South America and in many parts of

Europe. This was only the beginning, as the Nueva Canción movement took off in the

60’s and stayed strong for quite some time with how there were notable clubs to play at such as the music venue “La peña de los Parra,” hosted by the Parra family, and later in history how the message aligned with President Salvador Allende’s populist government (Rios, 2008; 2020). The quena and Andean music became indices of the

Chilean populist struggle and the Nueva Canción movement, this was the driving force to its spread in Chile and the Nationalistic resonance with which it was received.

Unfortunately, all this changed with the military coup and Augusto Pinochet overthrowing Allende in the early 1973. At this time, Pinochet sought to silence much of this populist movement as to not negatively affect his dictatorial government. In accomplishing this, Pinochet exiled many Andean folk musicians, banned the quena, which resulted in some migration out of Chile. While this may seem at first glance to

hurt the spread and usage of the quena, I believe that this was actually yet another geopolitical catalyst that greatly increased the interpretation and sharing of this music.

When many of the musicians and fans were exiled, or sought refuge from the

Pinochet regime, many returned to Europe and specifically France where the Nueva

Canción movement had its roots due to the strong ties France already had to Andean folk music. The result of the relocation to France with its strong preference for

Andean music was success for many of the ensembles, success that may not have been found in Santiago. Inti-Illimani, a famous Chilean band and former cultural ambassador of Salvador Allende, chose Rome as its new home base due to the Italian

Government’s anti-Pinochet stance at the time. At the same time, another Chilean

Andean folk group in exile, Quilapayún took a world tour to five continents to play and share the wealth that was Andean music (Rios, 2008).

In further response to the injustice that was being faced, Los Calchakis mentioned earlier went on to record Les Chante des Poetes Revoltes in 1974 which brought them out of being apolitical and linked them to Allende and leftism. They also took to speaking out about their success as being influenced heavily by their audience in

Europe with their quena concentrated album La Flûte Indienne Vol IV being the 4th best-selling album on the French charts, beating out John Lennon’s album, Imagine and the Rolling Stone’s Let it Bleed for months (Rios, 2008: 167). Hopefully this contextualizes to the reader just how popular the quena and Andean music had become in France at the time. Ultimately, the Nueva Canción movement had a heavily positive impact on the globalization of the quena by spreading it to the southern cone, and to parts of Europe even under the Pinochet regime. This is yet

another testament to the variety of forces (i.e. Social movements, geopolitical, emigrational forces) that influence the spread of the instrument and music.

The Condor Effect

Up to this point, I have refrained from talking about the ubiquitous song that is perhaps the most widely circulated emblem of Andean music, “El Cóndor Pasa.”

While the most famous version of this song was released by Paul Simon and Art

Garfunkel in the 1970’s, its history predates this by several decades. The effect that

“El Cóndor Pasa” had on the quena and Andean music as a whole was enormous in its way of bringing the genre to the United States, having this song blend with US folk music, and also becoming emblematic of the genre to a point where it has become a staple of any band that claims to play Andean music.

The origins of “El Cóndor Pasa” date back to 1913 Peru, where the song as we know it was really only one movement from a zarzuela, or opera-esque musical, composed by Daniel Alomía Robles and titled El condor pasa… the ellipse being an important distinction between the song and the zarzuela (Turino, 2008b). It was composed and written with sentiments from the loss against Chile in the War of the

Pacific, this historical event gave the contextual background to the zarzuela (Mejía,

2014). The spectacle was first performed in the Teatro Mazzi de Lima and was an instant success, some records indicate that the zarzuela was performed three thousand times in the first five years by various companies on stages all over the world, however Mejía asserts that his is a gross over inflation of the numbers as that would require almost two performances a day for five years straight, nonetheless it is a point of interest that shows the original zarzuela’s popularity. Of the original eight

movement score, which is now on display since 2006 at the Instituto de

Ethnomusicología de la Universidad Católica del Perú (IDE PUCP), the movement pasacalle was the one to gain global fame as it was widely and repeatedly recorded and performed in Lima and abroad. There has also been note from Rodolfo Holzmann that Alomía Robles may have used a popular wayno “Soy la Paloma que el nido perdió” (I’m the dove the nest lost) as the base for the famous melody, however Mejía nor I have been able to find such a wayno (Mejía, 2014). Although such song may not exist for our listening, we can still hear common Andean themes and style that was used in El ondor pasa… on orchestral instruments which illustrates how Alomía

Robles was able to adapt formerly indigenous sounds for a cosmopolitan stage, the first step in this music becoming globally recognizable.

While the authorship of El ondor pasa… rightfully belongs to Alomía Robles, we would not know the tune “El Cóndor Pasa” as the Andean music emblem it is today without the late 1960’s recording of the pasacalle by the group Los Incas in

Paris. Before their recording, in 1958 L’Ensemble Achalay (another group of

Argentine musicians in Paris) recorded an album that included “El condor pasa- yaraví,” which was edited in 1963 by Jorge Milchberg from Los Incas and they began performing and recording “El Cóndor Pasa” themselves. This recording by Los Incas is what would later change the world. In the mid 1960’s Paul Simon was touring in

France, when he likely heard “El Cóndor Pasa” played on the street; he would later meet Jorge Milchberg who gave him a copy of their album containing the tune.

Simon and Garfunkel took this home and recorded over the instrumental with their

English folk lyrics birthing the song “El Condor Pasa (If I could),” which has become

one of their most famous songs from the 1970 album Bridge over Troubled Water.

On this album, the dynamic folk duo Simon and Garfunkel attributed the tune to Los

Incas (renamed as Urubamba) but they discounted Alomía Robles from the music and claimed it was an 18th century Peruvian folk melody (Mejía, 2014). It was said that the tune was a part of the Incan Túpac Amaru II’s insurrection. While this may be an unfortunate misappropriation of the music, it was monumental for the genre and its global awareness as Simon and Garfunkel acted as a musical cultural intermediary sharing with the world esoteric and exotic music that they may have never known.

Through this misappropriation, the entire genre of Andean music was dispersed across the United States in the early 1970’s, this recording and stylization of “El

Cóndor Pasa” by Simon and Garfunkel as well as Los Incas now serves as the primary version for other modern recordings and performances of the song (Turino,

2008b).

With the spread of the song going all over the world through recordings and performances by Andean groups who play the flutes on stage and groups like Simon and Garfunkel who sing over a prerecorded track of “El Cóndor Pasa,” the song has truly turned into a global icon of the Andean genre and the quena as it is the main melody carrier. There are several cases of this idea of “El Cóndor Pasa” being the beacon of light for the genre: Having its arrival and reception in Japan being indexed by the indigeneity tied to the song as expressed by Bigenho, personal communications between Thomas Turino and performers in the streets of Perú where he is prompted to play “El Cóndor Pasa” as a means of demonstrating proficiency in

Andean music, and the influence in Bolivia as Bolivians largely waited for the

Peruvian indigenismo movement to allow “El Cóndor Pasa” to gain fame before the indigenous folk movement really took off in Bolivia (Bigenho, 2012; Turino, 1993).

In its home, Peru, is where “El Cóndor Pasa” has the strongest association and iconicity of the Andes. Many regard the song as the “himno folclórico del Perú” (folk hymn of Peru, my translation), and this became concrete in 2004 with a national resolution from the Peruvian Government. Resolución Directoral Nacional Nº

219/INC declared “El Cóndor Pasa” by Daniel Alomía Robles a matter of Cultural

Heritage and Cultural Interest for the nation for its themes as well as its global fame and recognition (Mejía, 2014). There is no denying that “El Cóndor Pasa” has had tremendous impact on the spread and recognition of the genre from the original composition in 1913 to today as variations can still be heard on folk radio stations. It is this contribution and lasting impact on Andean music and that I call “The Condor

Effect,” everything from the circuitous route that the song took, to the impact this song created; it may be the single most important path that has helped spread the quena worldwide.

Andean Music in Japan

While “El Cóndor Pasa” may be a driving force in Andean music’s spread worldwide, Michelle Bigenho offers a very interesting insight to the means in which

Andean music has spread in popularity in Japan in her 2012 book, Intimate Distance:

Andean Music in Japan. Although “folklore” may have been present for many decades, “El Cóndor Pasa” surely helped the genre’s popularity in Japan in the later years as the music began to give way to new modalities of Japanese life.

To start, in Japan they have bolstered the niche Andean music to such an extent that according to Bigenho, the term “folklore” directly alludes to Andean instruments and music. She focused most of her research on how “folklore” came to Japan, and the connections between Japan and Bolivia specifically. Just as I said that Andean music in Japan predated the boom of “El Cóndor Pasa,” we can see that Japan was first exposed to South American culture in the early 1900’s as some Japanese would go to South America to execute short term work contracts for commodities. Later,

Japanese people at home were introduced to “folklore” on the coattails of Argentine tango which was taken to Japan in the 1930’s, and “folk” artists slowly started to travel with tango companies (Bigenho, 2012: 13). After this initial presence, it took several decades for the art form to really take hold in Japan, yet it happened, primarily through gringo associations and the common path we have seen earlier with

Buenos Aires as a hub. Argentine musicians began to travel to Japan in the 1960’s, although in the case of Bolivia specifically, most of the international touring in Japan was not a common occurrence until after 1970 and the explosion of the “El Cóndor

Pasa” song which is what really got I musicians interested in their own folkloric music. The first ensemble to tour Japan was Los Caballeros del Folklore (The

Gentlemen of Folklore) who got their international break while performing for

Japanese businessmen in Bolivia in the early 1970’s when one of their band members, who happened to be a mix of Latino and Japanese, was approached with an invitation to tour in Japan because of the businessmen’s enthusiasm about the Japanese representation in the ensemble (Bigenho, 2012:16). From this point on, I tours in

Japan became more commonplace, and it was beneficial to both countries, Japanese

people were able to see shows and hear music that appealed to them, and I musicians

(primarily of mestizo background) were able to receive great pay, a 1-3 month tour in

Japan paid enough to sustain their life at home for 8 months (Bigenho, 2012).

From Bigenho’s research in Japan where she was on tour with the I group Música de Maestros (Music of the Masters), she interacted with numerous people in Japan that came to show that their interest in Andean music was beyond fandom. As

Bigenho came to put it, it was a hobby, a sojourn, and a job. While it is true that the

Japanese population involved with I music may be a small proportion of the Japanese citizenry, it is impressive nonetheless that on almost the complete other side of the world there are people who are so passionate about a micro-niche of music. This was apparent by means of Japanese people who would take extended trips to Bolivia after being exposed to the quena or “folkloric” music to learn the culture and music, making it a true sojourn. This pattern of travel between Japan and Bolivia started in the 1970’s, as some of Bigenho’s research and interview subjects told her, and this pattern continues still today. One of the most interesting hobby-turned-sojourn- turned-job stories available is the musical path of Makoto Shishido. Shishido was first exposed to the quena and charango as a young boy, because his parents were followers of Andean music. With this foundation, he gained interest in the band Los

Kjarkas after attending one of their concerts (Bigenho, 2012). He became a collector of Los Kjarkas recordings, made his first trip to Bolivia in his late teens, and studied music there with a former Los Kjarkas member. Years later, Los Kjarkas held a competition to fill a vacant spot for a charango player, Shishido entered that competition and won. He is now a Japanese member of Los Kjarkas since the early

2000’s and claims to be living his dream (Bigenho, 2012: 116). This is but one example of how Japanese people have immersed themselves in the music and instruments of the Andes through decades of enjoyment and playing the music. As

Michelle Bigenho stated,

The Japanese pursuit of I music is strongly marked by long-term sojourning experiences, by multigenerational fandom, and by a significant presence of performing fans who go professional, albeit with mixed commercial success (quoted in Bigenho, 2012:97, my emphasis).

Which hearkens back to the various manners in which Japanese people partake in the music. Consumption of I music in Japan is just as much about production and performance as it is listening.

Do not let the fact that Japanese people or mestizos (who aren’t Indian) playing indigenous I music shroud the affective and cultural economies of transnational pleasures, global work, and connections between the countries. Bigenho stresses the concept of what she calls “Intimate Distance,” the affective and sentimental connection between two cultures or nations through the thought of a distant common ancestor while feeling currently very different from each other and the current indigenous population (Bigenho, 2012; Wong, 2014). There is a strong sentiment of intimate distance seen in Bigenho’s book as people connect through this idea of a shared ancestor that may or may not actually exist. This idea is present not only in the people, but also in the instruments. While we have been focusing on the quena, there exists a “cousin” of the quena that is native to Japan, the shakuhachi. The shakuhachi, similar to the quena is also a notch flute tuned in a pentatonic scale (De la Cuadra, 2016). I wonder if this is mere coincidence and perhaps a case of musical convergent evolution, or rather it be a more concrete example of this concept of

intimate distance applying to the instruments. Preferring to view this example as the latter, I believe it could help explain Andean music’s growth in Japan as well as the fascination of Japanese people with the quena specifically, both sonically and in performance (Bigenho, 2012). Looking at the wide usage of the quena and Andean music in Japan through the lens of “intimate distance” helps squelch ideas of cultural appropriation as people spread this beautiful art transnationally and intergenerationally.

With Andean music’s small yet strong foothold in Japanese society, I believe there to be a huge opportunity for the growth and diffusion of the quena. With the

Yamaha company being one of the world’s largest musical instrument manufacturers should they produce quenas they would be able to instantly reach a large global market. By no means would I want this to overshadow or drive out local artisans or flute vendors as this is an important cultural market, yet I believe that this could spark a new wave of the spread of the quena across the globe, similar to how Los Calchakis sparked a spread of playing the quena with their album La Flûte Indienne Par le

Disque which allowed aspiring quena players to play along with the recording to feel like they were jamming with the professionals (Halpin, 2012; Rios, 2008). Having

Yamaha produce quenas would only be a means to make the music more accessible to the masses from a culture that already has ties to the original interpretations of the music and the means of distribution across the world.

Modern Samples

Just as we have seen the quena and Andean melodies spread around the world historically in the las hundred years, we have many more recent examples on the spread and appropriation of these melodies. Looking at one of Los Kjarkas’s most famous songs, “Llorando se fue,” they composed a jumpy and upbeat melody that was originally played on panpipes. However, this song was not popularized until the instrumental line and many of the lyrics were taken by a different band, Kaoma, and passed off as their song “Lambada” in 1989 where it gained global fame (Bigenho,

2012). The reuse and appropriation of “Llorando se fue” does not stop there. When I first heard the tune, I thought of a very recent song, Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull’s “On the Floor.” The opening instrumental and melody of the chorus of this early 2000’s hit uses the same melody originally composed by Los Kjarkas. I contest that this appropriation of Andean music is not inherently a heinous offense to the music or original composers, especially when proper credit is given. While it may be an offense in some instances, and with some lenses with which we view musical appropriation, I assert that it has actually opened our ears, especially in a new generation of listeners who may not otherwise be exposed to Andean melodies. I would love to see more samples taken from Andean songs, perhaps ones that contain the quena, and are repurposed for modern and distinguished audiences with no

Andean music background. This will yield an end result of having new listeners accustomed to the Andean tune and could thus rapidly broaden the listener base for this folkloric style. Just as we have seen from the initial migration movements, indigenous instruments and melodies were adapted for a mestizo or elite audience

which helped spread the quena and the music, I can foresee this being the new wave of adaptation for a different cultural audience.

CHAPTER IV

Conclusions

Discussion

This thesis has chronicled the circuitous route, and the multitude of driving forces, that have led to the spread of the quena and Andean music as a whole. There should be no denying that the quena has come a long way from the tiny rural communities in the ayllus of the Andes. I know that much of the conversation has been specifically about the genre of Andean music, but it is important to recall the indexical link between our instrument in question and the genre as a whole; the quena is the most popular Andean instrument and often the main melody carrier or solo instrument in conjunto format (Molina, 2013; Rios, 2020: 67). It is possible to think of the spread in three tidal waves over the last hundred to hundred-and-fifty years, each of which can be further analyzed as we have read here. The first of which being the indigenista movements: while they were not perfect in their execution, they certainly helped integrate indigenous Andean peasants into the greater society and shed light on a musical world that was largely ignored prior to this movement. The next wave was the traditional cultural explosion which largely took to cosmopolitan centers and was popularized in Buenos Aires and in Paris as there was ample space for these folkloric movements to pop up and support each other as it was spreading around the globe. Something interesting about this second wave is that while we can look at it from transnational border lines, and spreading to different countries, it can also be seen as a homogenous exchange within cosmopolitanism and similar lifestyles. The third wave was the politicization, urban migration, and hearkening

back to folk roots with folk revivalist sentiment – this is largely what sparked the

Nueva Canción movement, the Condor Effect with Simon and Garfunkel, and even some of the modern spread and usage of Andean rhythms. While I have tried my best to detail these events chronologically, it is worthwhile to consider that each wave has influenced the next and there is no distinct transition between waves as some elements can be found outside of the main timeframe which I am proposing. That is to say that we can see later in the globalization of the quena factors still of urban migration and cultural explosion influencing the spread of the instrument well past the first half of the 20th century as rural indigenous populations largely migrated to cosmopolitan centers in the 1970’s in South America (Turino, 1993; Halpin, 2012).

Among the most historically interesting factors that have contributed to the quena’s globalization are the geopolitical events such as the influence of Presidents

Leguía and Velasco in Peru, or the dictatorial regime of Pinochet in Chile, and the leftist sentiment bestowed to the music by French President de Gaulle, and seeing how their political agendas helped to diffuse the quena and its music in their own countries and across the world. It was after these geopolitically fueled spreads, that

Andean music began to see great commercial success across the world. Some of this success was brought on by the pan-Andean sentiment created through much of South

America as countries were sharing the same music. Other factors for this success was yet again fueled by intracultural exchange through cosmopolitan circles as Paris and

Buenos Aires greatly exemplify the political safe haven and breeding ground for much of the Andean music’s growth before getting picked up by Simon and

Garfunkel and exposing it to much of the US as a folkloric tune.

Through all the historical influences, the result is the same – the quena has been heard on almost every populated continent. As the quena has traveled and globalized over the last hundred years, its interpretations have also changed and evolved. This comes from the process of globalization being one that is inherently dynamic. Not only is the music or instrument spread and circulated, it is adapted to the setting in which it travels. Where the quena was initially interpreted in participatory indigenous festivals and traditions, it was then contextualized to appeal to urban and elite populations on a presentational stage as we saw with the estudiantinas and the wayno genre with its use over the radio. As the wayno genre continued to grow and Pan-Andean music and the conjunto style made its way to the forefront of interpretations for the quena, the instrument experienced yet another change in its most recognized use as the solo instrument for the genre. This transformation can be partly attributed to the development of the Pan-Andean style in

Paris and the influence of many of the virtuosic musicians and groups such as Gilbert

Favre, Los Jairas, Los Incas, and Los Kjarkas.

While Andean music’s heyday may be behind us, as much of the sentiment in

France and Buenos Aires has sizzled off, I remain optimistic about seeing a new wave of spread come about (Bigneho, 2012). I think that because the globalized and digitized framework is already in place, it is easier than ever to spread shared music across the world. I believe that much of this wave will come from the innate drive to share music within interpersonal groups, synergized with the ease of access to music at our fingertips from all over the world and all points in time. By no means am I attempting to limit this to solely the quena or Andean music, as it could spark up for

any musical culture, as part of this project I gained an interest in African mbira music, which would fit this new wave as well. Needless to say, I am excited to be living in this global musical culture where there is ample opportunity for the sharing and learning of all kinds of instruments and genres.

REFERENCES

Arnold, A. E., & Kramer, J. C. (2015) What in the World is Music?. New York: Routledge

Baumann, M. P. (1996). Andean Music, Symbolic Dualism and Cosmology. Cosmología y música en los Andes. Frankfurt am Main

Bigenho, M. (2012). Intimate Distance: Andean Music in Japan. Duke University Press

BIOGRAPHY. Raul Olarte. (2018, April 13). https://raulolarte.com/biography/.

Cavour Aramayo, E. (2010). Instrumentos musicales de Bolivia. Producciones Cima Editores.

Davies, N. (1995). The Incas. University Press of Colorado

De la Calle Aramburu, L. (2009). The Quena and the Siku: A comparison between Bolivian and Peruvian playing techniques. Malmö: Malmö Academy of Music, Lund University

De la Cuadra, P., Balosso-Bardin, C., Vauthrin, C., & Fabre, B., (2016). Optimized Redesing [sic] of the Quena. EuroRegio 1-10

Diaz, A., & Mendes, R. (2015). Analysis/Synthesis of the Andean Quena via Harmonic Band Wavelet Transformation. Int. Conference on Digital Audio Effects

Halpin, B. C. (2012). Flutes, Festivities, and Fragmented Tradition: A study of the meaning of music in Otavalo. [Master’s Thesis]. Kalamazoo: The Graduate College, Western Michigan University

Holzmann, R. (1943). Catálogo de las obras de Daniel Alomía Robles. Boletín Bibliográfico de la Biblioteca Central de la UNMSM 13(2): 25-78

Mejía, L. S. (2014). El cóndor pasa… y sus misterios. Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 11(80): 11-37

Molina, O. J. M. (2013). La Quena, expression artística en la música colombiana. Música Cultura y Pensamiento 5(5): 63-84

Olsen, D. (2004). Aerophones of Traditional Use in South America with reference to Central America and Mexico. In Music in Latin America and the

Caribbean: An Encyclopedia History (1, pp. 261-328). edited Melena Kuss, Austin: University of Texas Press.

Rios, F. (2005). Music in Urban La Paz, Bolivian Nationalism, and the Early History of Cosmopolitan Andean Music: 1936-1970. [Ph.D. dissertation]. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

(2008). La Flûte Indienne: The Early History of Andean Folkloric-Popular Music in France and its Impact on Nueva Canción. Latin American Music Review 29(2), 145-181.

(2020). Panpipes & Ponchos: Musical Folklorization and the Rise of the Andean Conjunto Tradition in La Paz, Bolivia. Oxford University Press.

Todo Nuestro. (2017, April 2). Raul Olarte [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SajM49BRtic

Turino, T. (1993). Moving away from silence: music of the Peruvian Altiplano and the experience of urban migration. The University of Chicago Press.

(2003). Nationalism and Latin American Music: Selected Case Studies and Theoretical Considerations. Latin American Music Review, 24(2), 169–209.

(2008a). Music as social life: the politics of participation. University of Chicago Press.

(2008b). Music in the Andes: experiencing music, expressing culture. Oxford University Press.

Wong, K. (2014). Reviewed Works: Intimate Distance: Andean Music in Japan by Michelle Bigenho. Latin American Music Review, 35(1), 160-163.