Al Ritmo del Cajón
The sound of more than 500 pairs of hands filled the sky as they played a cajón during a Peruvian fall. The chaos that normally lingers and defines Lima could not compete with the sound waves of one of the most elemental instruments of Afro-Peruvian music, and for one afternoon the noise of traffic did not reign supreme.
When I first arrived in Peru one of the events I found out about almost immediately was the weeklong festival, held each fall, to celebrate the cajón, a percussion instrument widely associated with Afro-Peruvian music. I had the opportunity to speak with several musicians about this event and finally, eight months into my grant, I was getting the opportunity to attend (and document) this festival. For the last four years the Festival Internacional de Cajón Peruano has been celebrated at the Centro Cultural de España in Lima, and this year was no different. The event kicked off with several musical workshops taught by musicians from all over the world. Musicians from other Latin American countries and Europe each had an opportunity to share their specific talents with anyone who wanted to learn more about percussion instruments, not just the cajón, from all over the world. The picture below demonstrates one instructor as he teaches the opening workshop at the outset of the festival:
Ritmos Viajeros
Every year all of the Fulbright participants of South America’s Andean region come together for a week. During this week we all get to share our experiences and research with one another, as well as enjoy the beauty of the country where the regional seminar is hosted. I wasn’t really aware of this opportunity until I first arrived in Lima, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this year we’d be going to Ecuador. Seeing as I’d never travelled outside of the United States before coming to Peru, I was pretty excited, but I soon forgot about it as soon as I delved into my research.
It wasn’t until the end of March that an email reminded me of this event. I was already pretty excited to travel outside of Peru, but I was even more excited once I found out that instead of going to Ecuador the conference would actually be in Colombia! After arriving from another filming trip in Northern Peru, I packed my bags and got ready to board an early flight out to Bogota.
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When a new baby is born…
Here in Senegal, relationships between families are of the utmost importance and ceremonies that refresh such relationships are the most valued and anticipated. These ceremonies, which usually revolve around weddings and births, are a chance for people to have fun and catch up with family members they haven’t seen for long periods of time. A while back I attended one such ceremony… a “nguente” (pronounced ngen-tay) or baby naming ceremony of a friend who had had a baby.
For Muslim families in Senegal, when a baby is born, no name is given until one week after it takes its first breath of air. An Imam then comes to the house, verses from the Koran are recited, and the baby’s name is given. This is the smaller, religious portion of the naming ceremony called a “tudu”. About a month later, a big festive party with extreme gift giving and food eating and singing and dancing and celebrating happens. All of the relatives of the new parents come into town and celebrate the baby and strengthen the ties between the families. This is particularly important because in Senegal, most women move to their husband’s family’s house when they get married and the celebration is a chance for the wife’s whole family to get to know the husband’s.
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Music Makes My Heart Happy
In the field of ethnomusicology, interviews are a critical part of researching a new musical culture. It allows for the “outsider” to understand (or try to understand) the “insider’s” perspective of his or her own musical culture. This poses some problems when the “outsider” is not proficient enough in the appropriate language. While my three-month intensive language study of Bahasa Indonesia was enormously important and helpful in my current research, I have faced a few dilemmas in working with children. Conducting informal interviews with adults is also still a challenge, and I am not quite fluent enough to record and transcribe word-for-word, but I am able to take down comprehensive notes and some short quotations from conversations I have had. The Indonesian adults I have spoken to are also very sympathetic to my lack of fluency, and are very helpful in trying to explain what they mean, answering vocabulary questions, or even trying to stretch back to their own English lessons from high school.
When I began my research at SDKE Mangunan, I wanted to have discussions with the children and maybe even conduct short interviews with them about their music, Indonesia’s music, Javanese culture, and all things related. However, there are many moments when I simply do not understand what the children are saying to me. It is no fault of their own, and I do not think them inarticulate, but they truly speak a different Bahasa Indonesia, one that is more informal, more innate, and sometimes sprinkled with Javanese. But the outsider endures and must always find a solution! So I decided to conduct a series of surveys and discussions in which the children would write down their responses. This would allow me to later look up words I did not know off the top of my head and translate at my own pace. [Readers, I should warn you this is a data-heavy blog entry.]
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Checos y Cuy
Since my arrival in Peru I have had the good fortune of being in contact with a family from Villa El Salvador, one of Lima’s most populated districts. In several of my blog posts I’ve mentioned Jaime Zevallos and his family’s dedication to keeping the Afro-Peruvian musical tradition alive from generation to generation. While I’ve hung out with the family and learned about Afro-Peruvian musical culture quite a bit as a result, it wasn’t until March that I realized what a big role this family was beginning to play within the production of the documentary I’m working on.
Although I’ve interviewed several musicians and dance groups within Lima, the Zevallos family has provided a different perspective on Afro-Peruvian music and the significance it plays in the family’s everyday lives. Having been in contact with the family since September I have now had the opportunity to meet most of the family living in Lima, and their accounts of the importance of Afro-Peruvian music in their daily lives has helped give me a broader sense of the role which music can play in the lives of people who do not practice Afro-Peruvian music for a living. Not only did I get to experience the impact of this music within the family’s lives, during the month of March I was able to film how the family’s passion for the music transcends the boundaries of their living room.
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Up to four awards will be available to pursue projects around an aspect of international contemporary or popular music as a cultural force for expression. Preference will be given to creative projects that are conveyed in a dynamic fashion and are accompanied by a feasible plan. In addition to presenting unique projects on music as a global force for mutual understanding. Deadline to apply is March 1, 2012.