Andean Music
Authors: Stobart Henry , Montero-Diaz Fiorella 
Published: July 2019

“Andean music” might be defined as the musical expressions of the geographical region encompassed by the Andes Mountains. Nonetheless, Andean genres have sometimes undergone important developments outside the region (for example in Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Paris), or have received important contributions from individuals without Andean heritage. The expression “Andean music” tends primarily to be applied to genres that might be characterized as indigenous or folkloric, or popular genres that incorporate such elements. Research of such music is typically historical or ethnographic in approach. The Andes Mountains pass through Columbia, Argentina, and Chile, but Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador are commonly identified as the “Andean countries.” In these latter nations, the Andean zone is of special geographical, demographic, and cultural importance. However, even in Bolivia—arguably one of the most Andean countries of the region—only one-third of the country is geographically Andean; the majority of Bolivia’s land area is taken up by the more sparsely populated Eastern “Amazonian” lowlands. While such geographical differences are sometimes accompanied by marked cultural distinctions, a variety of cultural continuities may also be found. Highland/lowland relations have, since the earliest times, been characterized by the exchanges of products and cultural elements between different niches of the region’s vertical ecology. For example, canes and woods used to construct the musical instruments played in the Andean highlands are often derived from tropical lowland areas. The study of Andean music has been notable for its strong historical dimension, informed by archaeological work, accounts of chroniclers following the European invasion (from the 1530s), and other sources. In the first half of the 20th century, studies of Andean music sometimes approached indigenous people and their music as impoverished survivals from an imagined “glorious Inca past,” and until the 1980s few music studies—by national or international scholars—were based on extended field research. More critical perspectives based on extensive ethnographic research, and reacting against structuralism and essentialist approaches, began to appear following the reflexive turn in anthropology of the late 1980s (e.g., Thomas Turino, Raul Romero, Zoila Mendoza). This critical edge was further heightened by the revisionism in Andean anthropology of the 1990s (perhaps best exemplified in the work of Michelle Bigenho and Jonathan Ritter), sparked by Orin Starn’s critique “Missing the Revolution” (1991). Starn accused anthropologists—sometimes unfairly—of idealizing native people as the noble inheritors of pure ancient traditions—lo andino—while failing to notice the rise of Peru’s devastating internal war between Maoist Shining Path guerrillas and the military. Such developments—alongside greater ethnomusicological concern for urban contexts; popular music; mass media; and the rise of indigenous politics, digital media, and piracy—has stimulated new scholarly approaches during the 2000s and 2010s. Among recent research currents, often set against a backdrop of contemporary indigenous politics, are themes such as the explosion in heritage declarations, the escalation of fusions or coproductions between rural and urban middle- and upper-class musicians, and new approaches to material culture.