The title which brought you to this page ¿Investigadores y/o musicos? translates in English as "Researchers or musicians?". In Chilean musical culture the role of research in historically informed musicking is central.
Here the exhibition presents the case of one particular Chilean musician, Violeta Parra.
In the early 1950s a sea-change would happen in the work of Violeta Parra, and the role of instruments in this change would be essential. Acting on the encouragement of her brother Nicanor, Violeta began to travel throughout Chile with the aim to investigate and catalogue Chilean folk music (Fundación Violeta Parra, 2008). The central aim of these journeys is hailed as an act of preservation, but also of research and (re)discovery. Parra wanted to get under the skin of an “authentic” Chilean folk story, in opposition to the idealised and essentialised variations of folk which she had previously performed. Her aim was, according to her brother Nicanor, to furnish the “rediscovery of folklore” (Morales and Parra, 2003, p. 82). In 1953, Parra met don Isaís Angulo, a poeta popular or “popular poet” and noted guitarronero (Fundación Violeta Parra, 2008) [1]. Don Isaís Angulo would come to be known as El Profeto “the profet” for the profound impact he had on Violeta as an artist, and on Chilean music as an inspiration (Ponce, 2012). In this meeting, he gave an antique guitarrón to Violeta, the first of many she would own. The (hi)story which the guitarrón chileno tells in Violeta’s time would be a reaction to her changing society, and tied to this the search for “authentic” Chilean folk music. The chapter will now consider the ways in which it can be seen to do this.
The guitarrón chileno, or “large” Chilean guitar is a guitar composed of between 24 or 25 strings. Although Parra grew up listening to popular folk music and performing well-known verse, in both rural and urban contexts, the guitarrón chileno came as a surprise to her. At the time when Parra was given her first guitar by don Angulo, the guitarrón was purportedly under threat of “extinction” in Chile (Subercaseux et. Al, 1986; Chaparro, 2010). Having passed from its status as a salon instrument in the colonial era to the popular sphere of the lower classes, by Violeta’s age it was little known outside the close quarters of the popular poets of the time, the majority of whom lived in poverty outside of the centre of influence in the capital (Subercaseaux et. al., 1985, p. 64).
It is widely attested that the origins of the guitarrón chileno are found in the instruments introduced to Chile by the Spanish during their colonization of the area in the 16th century, primarily the lute and baroque guitar (Marisol, 2011,; Chaparro, 2010). In a study of imagination and meztizo culture – a term used to denote the “mixing” of colonial and pre-colonial cultures - in Chile, Facuse Marisol states that “The guitarrón chileno is … testimony to the many musical and cultural legacies that resonate in this particular sound imagination.”(Marisol, 2011). Indeed, in this respect it can be said that the guitarrón manifests an amalgamation of sonoric and instrumental influences. The instrument represented a criollo or meztizo culture based largely in rural areas, from which Chile took its foundations historically.
Although the use of the guitarrón extended from the north to the south of the country, their exact origen in Chile is unclear (Marisol, 2011; Chaparro, 2010). The pan-national quality of the instrument, something rare in a country in which the regions were more isolated by distance than today, lends it to typify as a particularly Chilean instrument. In reaction to the influences of foreign mass culture, particularly that sprouting from North America the use of the guitarrón asserted a Chilean (hi)story, not only of folklore but also of a wider cultural pride.
The close association with popular poets lent it an air of added authenticity not so readily ascribed to the standard guitar, with its mass appeal and use. particularity of the guitarrón chileno as a Chilean instrument, along with the associations with the (hi)story of Chile, past and present, made it a prime vehicle for the story of a changing society. Violeta’s adoption of the guitarrón tells the (hi)story of these changes within society.
Following the completion of her first travels through Chile, Violeta abandoned her previous repertoire, basing her work thence forward on the inspiration she garnered from the artists and work she had compiled during her voyage through Chile. It is this series of journeys which perhaps most mark Violeta as a researcher-musician and marked her as an artist who would innovate through tradition.
[1] In Chile, and most of hispanic America, poeta popular refers to a poet whose work is centred on themes.
Guitarronero is a player of the guitarrón
