We, the founders of this institution, are a group of five research masters students at Maastricht University who for the past two months have each undertaken a research project. While each project is quite distinct in character, they are thematically bound by an examination into musical cultures. Our starting point was exploring how different musical actors translate aspects of complex historical cultures in order to create new cultures of performance and listening for the twenty-first century. We each sought, within the parameters of our own personal interests, to explore what musical practices consist in; how they are contingent upon social and historical contexts; what assumptions may underlie contemporary attempts to reconstruct musical cultures from the past; how these assumptions may manifest themselves materially. What you see beyond these doors is the culmination of these efforts; a unified exposition of our individual projects. The name of our museum is an amalgamation of the practice of Historically Informed Performance (HIP) and Christopher Small’s concept of “Musicking” (1988). In Small’s view, music is not to be conceived as a static object, but rather as a dynamic process. Small substitutes the noun ‘music’ with a verb ‘to music’ to indicate that music cannot be simply located in any score, instrument or text, but can be thought of as any human activity relating to music performance that takes place in temporal and spatial dimensions. We do not intend to present this collection of “old ideas” as definitive or closed, but as a discursive insight into a “novel”, if not strictly new, self-reflexive manner of observing and practising the presentation of research on the matter. The aim of the collection is not to conclude, but to stimulate and develop discussion into the future, from the past. The Museum of Historically Informed Musicking therefore proudly presents an interconnected collection of artefacts, activities, relationships and locations involved in historically informed musicking; a fusion of the past and present.

Lyrical Timeline

The lyrics of Quilapayun's song El Pueblo Unido (1973) - particularly the line "The people united, will never be defeated"- has come to signify a slogan for solidarity in Latin America and further afield.

Here you can see examples of lyrics written by Chilean musicians, and how they reflect historical moments in the country's past.

Lyrical timeline

While she was there - in Paris - in Chile things were moving quite a bit, like a boat on water. Things were shaky.

And, we had a government in the year 63, from the right, of course. And the president at this time was called Jorge Alessandri ... he wanted to roar loudly, but he didn't have the fire of his father, he took out his claws, creating a repressive police force not like anything the people or students had seen before. In this environment, Violeta Parra wrote "La Carta"

Victor Jara, addressing a crowd in Habana, Cuba before playing the song "La Carta" by Violeta Parra. Trans. L. Gray
(Clinic.cl, 2014)

Letras que hablan de los raices - lyrics that speak of our roots.

Lyrics represent more than a textual accompaniement to a score or stand alone spoken-word. Lyrics also represent history, as evidence and as historical "scribes" in themselves. If they do not hold direct reference to events, they are nonetheless a part of a wider societal fabric in which they were crafted.

In Chile the importance of lyrical expression, social cause and history has found a particularly forceful outlet. Gaining momentum and a purported "beginning" in the work of artists Violeta Parra and Victor Jara. Parra and Jara blended traditional folk arrangements from Chile and the spanish speaking world with lyrics concerning the everyday reality of poverty, inequality and struggle, as they saw it. Lyrically both Parra and Jara drew on themes which planted their work firmly in the Chilean soil of their reality.

“It was not only about the platform [Hip-Hop] we were on but also the one

which we come from, to explore our history and music. To turn to our

history and our musical identity.”

Anita Tijoux quoted in interview, Cricket

Wireless, 2014. Trans. authour.

Rolando Alcarón, Si Somos Americanos

Si somos americanos, seremos hermanos,

Si somos americanos, seremos una canción

Si somos americanos, no veremos fronteras

Watch a performance of Si somos Americanos by the polyphonic choral group of the symphonic orchestra of Concepción accompanied by cueca dancers.

Growing panamericanism leads to the diffusion of songs, particularly from Chile, which foster this sentiment.

1969

If we are Americans, we will be Brothers

If we are Americans, we will be a song

If we are Americans, we will not see borders

Extract from Vuelvo para Vivir "I return to live" by Illapu, 1990.

Trans. Lucy Gray

Vuelvo a casa, vuelvo compañera
Vuelvo mar, montaña, vuelvo puerto
Vuelvo sur, saludo mi desierto
Vuelvo a renacer amado pueblo
Vuelvo , amor vuelvo
A saciar mi sed de ti
Vuelvo, vida vuelvo
A vivir en ti país

1990

The Chilean people vote "No" in a plebiscite, outing the dictatorial government of Augusto Pinochet. This opened the way for many Chileans living in exile since the early 1970s to return to Chile.

Watch the music video for Vuelvo para vivir here <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8y_0y-cT5g>

I'm coming back, I'm returning, partner

I'm back sea, mountain, I'm back port

I'm coming back south, I greet my desert

I'm coming back to be reborn beloved people

I'm coming back, love, I'm coming back

To quench my thirst for you

I'm back, life, I'm back

To live in you, country

Extract from Vengo "I come/I come from" by Anita Tijoux, 2014

Trans. Lucy Gray

Vengo como un libro abierto
anciosa de aprender la historia no contada de nuestros ansestros
con el viento que dejaron los abuelos y que vive en cada pensamiento

de esta amada tierra

vengo como tu en busca de la huella de la pieza del árbol
y de su corteza que guarda en su memoria que el canto de victoria

I should make a song about bringing these ideals back again, almost in a manifesto of the planet being born again, and understanding the history of countries with new eyes, decolonizing everything that you've learned. Reclaiming our identities and relearning everything in our lives.

Ana Tijoux, quoted in Rolling Stone Magazine, March 2014 (Escobedo, 2014)

2014

Follow this link to watch a perfomance of Vengo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_hyPFcubyU

I come like an open book

anxious to learn the untold story of our ancestors.

With the wind they leave behind, our grandparents live in every thought

of this beloved land

I come, like you, to find the huella [footprint, trace] in part of the tree

and from its bark which it keeps in its memory, that sings of victory.

Some conclusions...

Lyrics are more than an accompaniement to a melody. They both recall and create a past, through reference (to historical events and musicians who preceeded them), tropes particular to the culture in which they were written.

Lyrics, particularly in popular music which is not solely instrumental represent a textual expression which is an integral part of the musicking in which they were written.

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Lyrical timeline