> > You are correct that the Andes are varied, I was using shorthand for a > particular sound. There has been a considerable immigration, or at least > visitation, by the Andean Indians (pardon the non PC designation). I fact > the first time I heard them was on Isle St. Louis in Paris some thirty years > ago. For the last twenty years they have been selling CDs (if we've had CDs > that long) and playing in NYC subway stations (along with Juilliard > violinists, and jazz saxaphonist - the latter mainly incompetant). They also > attend the flea market in Englishtown, NJ, where I live. One of the larger > in the US, where they play and sell the instruments (and most of those are > incompetant, and the instruments mass made). > > The nature of the music is mainly a rhythmic "puff", both on the end blown > flute and the pan pipes, accompanied with a simple hide drum. The music is > harmonic, but not necessarily Western harmonies. The rhythm is complex, but > not as polyrhythmic as the African. The end blown flutes make a somewhat > "woofy" sound, in contrast to the purer sound of the Western side blown, or > the clear end blown whistle with its fipple and blade. > > My guess is that most of these musicians are Bolivian, but that wouldn't > preclude the Northern Peruvian. I have no idea about the rest of the Andes, > nor any idea as to what they play at home. But the musicians are definitely > of native Indian origin, by their appearance. That has been told to me by an > old bartender friend, a Peruvian Indian who ended up tending bar in an Irish > joint in Hoboken. > Not willing to fall into an endless discussion about an item that doesn't fully interest many of us, I should say that most of you hear in the streets played by South American musicians trying to make a living, has little to do with their original (authentic?) music.- It is a bit like the tango that people dance here in the European streets. You wouldn't see that in a "milonga" (the place where people dance) in Buenos Aires- Normally they take a melody and give to it a kind of "exotic" atmosphere, but that's it. I know people who spent many years doing research over that music, and if something can be said about it, is that isn't easy or simple.
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