Last Wednesday, May 28th, a presentation of Sonido Amerindio was held at Universidad Mayor. Its creators, José Pérez de Arce and Luis Felipe Saavedra, provided an overview of the podcast episodes, highlighting the idea of ​​making music from a perspective opposed to that of the West, in which sounds and expressions are constructed collectively and complementary. For example, they explained that people play two instruments, while listeners hear only the sound of one. This can be seen in the Aymara people’s concept of duality, which is the understanding of unity, and from this perspective, they conceive the world.

Regarding the practitioners of Chinese dances, José Pérez de Arce stated that they are not making music as listeners perceive it. In addition to playing the flutes for several hours, they enter special states of consciousness. “It allows them to connect with a completely different universe. That’s spirituality, we can call it whatever we want, but it’s not music. By doing that, many of them are, for example, paying a vow because they have a sick child or something like that. That’s not music either.”

Chapter’s construction

Luis Felipe Saavedra was the editor and director of the radio series that premiered late last year, first on the Valentín Letelier station in the Valparaíso region and then through major streaming platforms. The project’s importance lay in bringing this music to a wider audience, as it is not usually heard on the radio, nor is it released through record labels or concerts as folk groups. The journalist explained that a compilation of material was made from the Soundcloud of the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, plus the research of José Pérez de Arce, Rosa Quispe (Aymara performer), and Claudio Mercado (head of the Pre-Columbian Intangible Heritage area). The idea was to turn all of this into a sound artifact by mixing the same sounds with contextual information.

Listen to Sonido Amerindio here: