Music in the Andes and Amazonia accompanies nearly all ritual and everyday events in one form or another. It is a favorite source of entertainment and is intimately connected to cultural and ethnic identity. Beyond the joy it brings to people, music is considered to be a special language that communicates secret knowledge about the mutual and nurturing relationship between people and nature.
The charango is a small string instrument traditionally made out of an armadillo shell. Adapted from European instruments, the charango quickly became pervasive in the Andes. It typically has 10 strings arranged in five courses of parallel strings and can either be plucked or strummed. Tuning of the charango does not follow an ascending or descending configuration. Instead, pitches progress from high to low and then back to high. This is known as re-entrant tuning. Many myths surround both the tuning and playing of this instrument.
Jonathan Hill (2011) writes that in order to appreciate the prevalence of aerophones or flutes among indigenous cultures in Latin America, we must first understand indigenous conceptualizations of “breath and breathing as expressions of life force” and the use of aerophones as a way of channeling that breath into powerful forms of healing and regeneration.
The charango is a small string instrument traditionally made out of an armadillo shell. Adapted from European instruments, the charango quickly became pervasive in the Andes. It typically has 10 strings arranged in five courses of parallel strings and can either be plucked or strummed. Tuning of the charango does not follow an ascending or descending configuration. Instead, pitches progress from high to low and then back to high. This is known as re-entrant tuning. Many myths surround both the tuning and playing of this instrument.
Pan flutes found throughout the Andes are known as sikuris, antaras or zampoñas. These reed instruments come in sets of gendered pairs. The arca (female, larger pipe) and the ira (male, smaller pipe) complement each other, playing in hocket, to create a complete pentatonic melody.
This drum, used extensively in Canelos Quichua festivals, is now considered an “ethnic marker” during public performances by emergent Zápara and Andoa Amazonian indigenous peoples. It is also a “power symbol” in that a man may, on his own, summon spirits to his house by beating the drum and circling around. The flute that is paired with the drum is played by a taqui or musical specialist who convenes a kinship festival (ayllu jista). The taqui plays an Andean melody on the flute while beating his drum. The flute and drum combination appears exclusively during the ayllu jista. Information on this performance is guarded as secret knowledge. (Whitten and Whitten 2008)
