The final cultural organization I want to write about is the Museo afroperuano de Zaña. Located in the city of Zaña, in the northern coastal region, it has been extremely active over the past several years in activities intended to preserve and publicize Afro-Peruvian culture, including the music and dance.
Founded in 2005, their first major effort was the reconstruction of one of the percussion instruments developed by Afro-Peruvians, a drum called the tambour de botija. "Botija" means "treasure." It´s a bit unclear to me if they mean these instruments are treasures, or if it refers to one specific kind of drum.
In any event, they made a video in which people, mostly youth, are playing various of the drums and other percussion instruments of the Afro-Peruvian community, plus there is some dance, including a long section of the Dance of the Devils (son de los diablos). It´s pretty interesting.
More recently, the museum (which is also very much of a cultural organization) began promoting a come-back of the percussion instrument called the "checo," made out of a gourd which has the same name. This included planting the vine on which the checo grows, turning the gourds into percussion instruments, giving classes in its use, making a video about it, and petitioning the Peruvian government to declare the checo a national, cultual treasure.
And even more recently, they have published a book about Afro-Peruvian musical instruments. This organization is definitely doing a lot to maintain Afro-Peruvian culture, and rescue some elements that were about to disappear.
OUR NEXT POST will announce that for future information about Afro-Peruvian culture, and other aspects of cultural diversity on which we focus, you should go to the blog Palomino Productions.
Showing posts with label drums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drums. Show all posts
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Thursday, October 18, 2012
The checo and the angara: preserving traditional musical instruments
The checo and the angara are two percussion instruments made out of gourds that come out of the Afro-Peruvian tradition. Both are big; that is to say, the checo is very big. The angara is huge.
The angara, both the vine which bears the gourd and the use of that gourd as a percussion instrument, seems to have disappeared. Indeed, it is so little known today that National Geographic´s article on Afro-Peruvian music confuses it with the checo. You can, however, still see it being played in a YouTube video taken from a Peruvian television show filmed in the 1970s.
This great video (above), with host Dr. José Durand and percussionists Abelardo Vasquez and Arturo Zambo Cavero, is the only one in which I´ve been able to find anyone playing the angara.
The checo, on the other hand, is staging something of a comeback, due largely to the efforts of the Museo afroperuano de Zaña, whose directors searched for its seeds, planted a field with those seeds, harvested and prepared the gourds, and started classes for local youth. The organization also persuaded the Peruvian government to declare the checo to be a national cultural treasure.
This is lovely, and delightful.
But why should we bother to preserve traditional percussion instruments...or any traditional musical instrument, for that matter?
First, other than the checo and the angara, what are some of these instruments? Well, think of all the different kinds of flutes made out of bamboo, or cane, or ceramics. Think of drums made out of hollowed out logs, or giant jars, with their heads covered with animal skins (a specific animal favored for each specific drum). Think of zithers made out of bamboo or sticks of wood. Think of conch shells used in the islands of the Pacific as a musical instrument, and the shekere made of ceramic and shells used in West Africa. Think of chimes, again made out of wood or bamboo. Think of rattles made out of deer hooves and bells made out of ceramics or iron. Think of musical instruments made out of animal bones. Think of the viola de gamba, the tambourine, the bagpipe.
Above is some very good checo playing, although not typical--he isn´t singing in Spanish, and in addition, the sound hole is at the top instead of on the side, as is more usual.
For a larger list, which is very interesting but unfortunately restricts itself mostly to traditional instruments from Europe, see this LINK.
There are hundreds of traditional musical instruments in the world, and they bring an astounding richness to our collective musical heritage, in addition to their contributions to the culture of the specific community which developed them.
And why preserve them? Well, if reading the list above doesn´t convince you that they are in fact essential to music including modern music, I´ll add a few more reasons:
Many of these instruments have beautiful and/or interesting sounds that you cannot produce by any other means. No, a synthesizer won´t do it. Doesn´t have the flexibility, the depth of sound, or the sweetness you find in some of these instruments.
More Afro-Peruvian musical instruments...all except the kalimba, which comes from West Africa (Ghana and nearby countries).
Many of these instruments are so deeply linked to the history and heritage of the community which produced them that to lose them is to damage that heritage.
And for a last reason, keeping these instruments alive helps preserve us from sameness, from monotony, from homogenized music in which one composition sounds depressingly like all the others.
Just to let you know that we have put our money where our mouth is: in the home use version our documentary, A Zest for Life: Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz, we have a section in which master percussionists are playing the checo. In addition, in the educational version of the documentary, not only do we have that checo segment but as one of the Extras we have the videoclip you see near the top of this post of someone playing the angara.
So there.
OUR NEXT POST will be news about our documentary, A Zest for Life.
The angara, both the vine which bears the gourd and the use of that gourd as a percussion instrument, seems to have disappeared. Indeed, it is so little known today that National Geographic´s article on Afro-Peruvian music confuses it with the checo. You can, however, still see it being played in a YouTube video taken from a Peruvian television show filmed in the 1970s.
This great video (above), with host Dr. José Durand and percussionists Abelardo Vasquez and Arturo Zambo Cavero, is the only one in which I´ve been able to find anyone playing the angara.
The checo, on the other hand, is staging something of a comeback, due largely to the efforts of the Museo afroperuano de Zaña, whose directors searched for its seeds, planted a field with those seeds, harvested and prepared the gourds, and started classes for local youth. The organization also persuaded the Peruvian government to declare the checo to be a national cultural treasure.
This is lovely, and delightful.
But why should we bother to preserve traditional percussion instruments...or any traditional musical instrument, for that matter?
First, other than the checo and the angara, what are some of these instruments? Well, think of all the different kinds of flutes made out of bamboo, or cane, or ceramics. Think of drums made out of hollowed out logs, or giant jars, with their heads covered with animal skins (a specific animal favored for each specific drum). Think of zithers made out of bamboo or sticks of wood. Think of conch shells used in the islands of the Pacific as a musical instrument, and the shekere made of ceramic and shells used in West Africa. Think of chimes, again made out of wood or bamboo. Think of rattles made out of deer hooves and bells made out of ceramics or iron. Think of musical instruments made out of animal bones. Think of the viola de gamba, the tambourine, the bagpipe.
Above is some very good checo playing, although not typical--he isn´t singing in Spanish, and in addition, the sound hole is at the top instead of on the side, as is more usual.
For a larger list, which is very interesting but unfortunately restricts itself mostly to traditional instruments from Europe, see this LINK.
There are hundreds of traditional musical instruments in the world, and they bring an astounding richness to our collective musical heritage, in addition to their contributions to the culture of the specific community which developed them.
And why preserve them? Well, if reading the list above doesn´t convince you that they are in fact essential to music including modern music, I´ll add a few more reasons:
Many of these instruments have beautiful and/or interesting sounds that you cannot produce by any other means. No, a synthesizer won´t do it. Doesn´t have the flexibility, the depth of sound, or the sweetness you find in some of these instruments.
More Afro-Peruvian musical instruments...all except the kalimba, which comes from West Africa (Ghana and nearby countries).
Many of these instruments are so deeply linked to the history and heritage of the community which produced them that to lose them is to damage that heritage.
And for a last reason, keeping these instruments alive helps preserve us from sameness, from monotony, from homogenized music in which one composition sounds depressingly like all the others.
Just to let you know that we have put our money where our mouth is: in the home use version our documentary, A Zest for Life: Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz, we have a section in which master percussionists are playing the checo. In addition, in the educational version of the documentary, not only do we have that checo segment but as one of the Extras we have the videoclip you see near the top of this post of someone playing the angara.
So there.
OUR NEXT POST will be news about our documentary, A Zest for Life.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Africa: the Beat -- that other really fine movie from the festival
I mentioned that there were two films that really stood out in the Black International Cinema festival in Berlin. Let me remind you that I did NOT see every entry, but I did see an awful lot. This second film, Africa: the Beat, is a truly fine and moving production, a documentary very skillfully filmed (with little in the way of fancy equipment) in Nzali, Tanzania.
The producers-directors are a cooperative called Samaki Wanne that consists of four people: a filmmaker, a painter, and two musicians. The mover and shaker is Polo Vallejo (far right in the photo below), a musician who spent over 15 years visiting and learning about the Wagogo of Tanzania, and decided as a result of his research that it would be important to make a film about them. The Wagogo are a tribe for whom music is an essential part of daily life, of the passing of the year, of the different stages of life, of their relationship to their environment...in brief, an essential part of their existence.
The cooperative decided early on to make the film without the use of a voice-over or any other kind of detailed narration. The Wagogo, obviously, are not speaking (or singing) in any of the language with which most viewers will be familiar. So why did the cooperative decide against a narrative?
Their aim, and it is to their great credit that they achieve this aim, is to let the music and the images speak for themselves. Polo Vallejo explained, for example, that every cut is dictated by the rhythm of the music. Their are a few frames with a bare minimum of printed words (spring, the harvest...) but for the most part, we simply see and experience the complex rhythm of the Wagogo´s life through their music, and their dance.
Aside from the wonderful vicarious experience that this provides the audience, I was interested to learn from Vallejo that only the Wagogo women are allowed to play the drums, and the drums are a very important part of their music. In many forms of music, most or all of the drummers are men, so it is intriguing to find a peoples with such a different tradition.
One of the aspects of this film that I found particularly attractive is the beauty of the music and the dance. This is due both to the intrinsic merit of the music and dance, and also to the skill of the filmmakers. I can easily imagine a film in which the music and dance could be made uninteresting by filmmakers unable to let them shine through. My congratulations, then, to the Samaki Wanne cooperative.
In addition to its screening at Black International Cinema, Berlin, Africa: the Beat has been accepted into film festivals in New York (USA), Montreal (Canada), Florence (Italy), the Canary Islands (Spain), Zanzibar (Tanzania) and others. If you have the chance, I certainly recommend that you go to see it.
OUR NEXT POST will be about a few of the other films from Black International Cinema, Berlin--then, we will return to Afro-Peruvian music and dance.
The producers-directors are a cooperative called Samaki Wanne that consists of four people: a filmmaker, a painter, and two musicians. The mover and shaker is Polo Vallejo (far right in the photo below), a musician who spent over 15 years visiting and learning about the Wagogo of Tanzania, and decided as a result of his research that it would be important to make a film about them. The Wagogo are a tribe for whom music is an essential part of daily life, of the passing of the year, of the different stages of life, of their relationship to their environment...in brief, an essential part of their existence.
 |
| Samaki Wanne--Manuel Velasco, Javier Arias Bal, Pablo Vega & Polo Vallejo (Photo: Carmen Ballvé) |
Their aim, and it is to their great credit that they achieve this aim, is to let the music and the images speak for themselves. Polo Vallejo explained, for example, that every cut is dictated by the rhythm of the music. Their are a few frames with a bare minimum of printed words (spring, the harvest...) but for the most part, we simply see and experience the complex rhythm of the Wagogo´s life through their music, and their dance.
Aside from the wonderful vicarious experience that this provides the audience, I was interested to learn from Vallejo that only the Wagogo women are allowed to play the drums, and the drums are a very important part of their music. In many forms of music, most or all of the drummers are men, so it is intriguing to find a peoples with such a different tradition.
 |
| A Wagogo musican with his dog. Photo: Carmen Vallavé |
In addition to its screening at Black International Cinema, Berlin, Africa: the Beat has been accepted into film festivals in New York (USA), Montreal (Canada), Florence (Italy), the Canary Islands (Spain), Zanzibar (Tanzania) and others. If you have the chance, I certainly recommend that you go to see it.
OUR NEXT POST will be about a few of the other films from Black International Cinema, Berlin--then, we will return to Afro-Peruvian music and dance.
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