CARLOS VEGA /(

ILFE OF THE MUSICOLOGY SECTION OF THE ARGENTINE MUSEUM OF NATURAL

SCIENCES FOLKLORE TECHNICIAN OF THE LITERATURE INSTITUTE
ARGENTINA FROM THE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY AND LETTERS OF BUENOS AIRES

PANORAMA
OF THE

ARGENTINE POPULAR
MUSIC
WITH AN ESSAY ON THE SCIENCE OF
FOLKLORE

HO MELODIES, S SHEETS AND 6 MAPS

Illustrations by Aurora DE Pietro

EDITORIAL LOSADA, S. TO.

BUENOS AIRES
 CARLOS VEGA popular, and that folkloric activity FOLKLORE MUSIC
consisted of singing and dancing. Now we know that it is not.
.the musical facts. — Music and its associations. — The musical complex. - Diversity of
Moreover, there has always been, at all times, a spontaneous realist folk music. — The processes of folklorization. — The influence of the salons. — Popular
approach that took popular elements and brought them to the book or the stage creation.
with no other concern than that of giving the chosen subject the context in
which it develops; and there has always been, also, an awakened curiosity that If, abandoning the general perspective, we wish to restrict ourselves to the
wanted to offer to others in works of various kinds, the beautiful, the specific musical facts that now concern us, we can advance along enlightened
picturesque, the marvelous or the exotic that it discovered in the popular paths by simply reproducing in the particular field of music the discriminations
environment; seriously, sometimes, and even with scholarly apparatus that we made when considering the availability of folkloric groups as a whole.
foreshadowed scientific activity.
None of that is Folklore per se, neither as an attitude of the spirit nor as an THE MUSICAL FACTS. Admitted that Folklore is a historical science, a
enterprise. science of current facts that tell us about the past, folk music, as part of the
The Science of Folklore, which laid the foundations for its organization in lower heritage, can only be ancient music, not extinct; music foreign to the
Europe around 1880, gave its first fruits in Argentina after 1890, and it was men higher environment - in which the person who studies it lives. current in
of science, archaeologists from our museums, who initiated it. Everything that the campaign or anywhere else, representative of a more or less remote stage.
was disseminated among us before that date, on or with popular elements, is
Removed music: music sobreihüienie. These circumstances alone distinguish it
romanticism, costumbrismo, artistic nationalism, traditionism, memorialism,
unmistakably from the surrounding popular and superior. Official music—
travel literature, curiosity for the picturesque, eagerness for "local color"; not
patriotic, scholastic, ecclesiastical, military, and foreign—is music from above
Folklore. The true folkloric movement then weakens and, half vanished,
and, therefore, current and living, weightless from the past, mute for our
sustains itself without an audience amidst the din of the various activities that
science. Ancient facts, institutionalized within the higher groups, are the subject
take advantage of the things of the people. In recent years it has attracted the
of History itself. There is no science that deals exclusively with them.
efforts of many intellectuals and has recovered its original meaning and
Survivor status involves character. If one
purpose.

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Popular music is the same as current urban music, it is not surviving, since it is intermediate age of human music. The two volumes of my Phraseology are
still in force. Killed in the countryside and found among the elderly or in entirely devoted to all these questions (Cf. II, pp. 533 et seq.).
documents, she belongs to historical folklore. There is a large chapter on The accident of time is implicit in those circumstances and in these
history in the study of folklore; I devoted special attention to it in my book characteristics. Folk music is ancient, ethnographic music is very ancient. But
Dances and Songs. Historical folklore is as interesting for the purposes of our we also have an accident of place. Folk music is generally found in areas
science as living folklore. invaded by the influence of modern cities, and more or less close to them;
Now, the condition of survivor does not distinguish folk music from that ethnographic music survives mainly in remote regions, far from interurban
which belongs to primitive substrata, the object of Ethnomusicography. All - routes, in places that do not matter to the economy or politics of the upper
ethnographic music is deleted and surviving music. Other circumstances groups.
establish the distinction. Folk music, like any other type of events specific to the lower classes, is
First of all, folk music is part of a mixed heritage; it lives among the great mainly found in the countryside, yes, but it can also sometimes be found in the
institutions of the higher order (state system, economic system, religion, etc.) possession of individuals from the higher groups. The reader will want to
and, in its specific case, alternates with official music (patriotic, school, know, of course, how it differs from the superior one. The distinction touches
liturgical, etc.). Ethnographic music, on the other hand, is part of an integral the very core of our thesis: folk music in the mouth of urban worship is not the
heritage, free from our superior, and is even in a serviceable relationship with social, institutionalized music of the upper group, and is foreign to the
some of the major institutions of the primitive group itself. environment, although alive; the same music in the mouth of the rural subject is
Enough said here to avoid confusion. But we can still add specific the social, institutionalized music of the rural environment, the collective music
characteristics that reinforce the distinction. Folk music is “measured” music, of the writers. This cultured man is, in this respect, a folkloric subject. Let us
that is, music that belongs to the measurable cycle. This music embraces the add that, if the rhythm of the descent is very fast, the music that went down to
sensation of rhythmic feet and makes typical, brief musical ideas ride on them, the cam-
generally half movement and half rest. Such ideas, like verses (lines) in poetry,
follow one another symmetrically and form, usually four or eight in number,
higher units that we call periods. These units, two, three, four, make up some
type of so-called small forms. The reader will see numerous examples of
folkloric periods in this work. Written according to our analytical system, in
sentences, they present a very characteristic graphic aspect. The small forms,
which always appear associated with tonal systems of speculative origin, and
almost always with incipient harmony, are precursors of the large superior
forms.
It will be ethnographic, by contrast, “unmeasured” music. It is true that
there is a clear tendency towards periodicity, towards the repetition of its brief
rhythmic or melodic schemes; but such a return is only a premonition of -
phrasing. The short designs of the ethnographic environment do not seek the
formation of regular conclusive periods; they are motifs strung together without
a count, for an indeterminate time, and they never seek the articulation of a
“work.” Characteristic of ethnographic music is the absence of small forms, the
lack of harmony and—not always—an incipient tonal arrangement. It is not
unusual to find in this music true measurable phrases, but not in terms of
articulating periods. Between this and higher culture is folk music, the true
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Spain and became folklorizedCARLOS and canVEGA
be preserved in the memory of the city's creations of the higher groups, those of the salon and those of the
cultured elders. ethnographic, are anonymous. Almost all non-folk music found in the domain
Not all popular music is folkloric. Other music, of various nature and of the people is also anonymous, in some sense. If it is claimed that a work is
purpose—indifferent, transitory, occasional—is heard in the village anonymous because it has undergone modifications during oral transmission, I
environment. Urban landslides cross the fields. The official music of the state maintain that the same phenomenon, with a difference in degree, is reproduced
—hymns, patriotic marches—is popular without being folkloric; the children's in ethnographic music and in salon music. Our ignorance of the author, which
repertoire that is disseminated by rural schools generally comes from the city, has become characteristic of the song, is not as absurd as it seems. Ignorance,
and the official music of the Church resonates in rural areas without any strangeness or any impression could contribute to a definition with its
consequences in "worldly" circles. Charangas (military bands) and village contribution of negations, but would require exclusivity in relation to an order
bands squander innocuous and impenetrable touches and marches, while some of facts. This is not the case. The inconsistency of “anonymity” as a
loose melodies, taken from foreign songbooks, appear through particular requirement of folklore is better seen if we think of choreographic species:
vicissitudes in the repertoire of some inconsequential singer. In the domains of with rare exceptions, no one, in any environment, knows who the author of the
the people, there are also remains of music belonging to remote ethnographic dances themselves is. And let's not talk about material species.
strata; and on the surface, dominant and accepted, there is the living music of The traditional aspect is almost always present in folk music, but it is also
the urban salons for singing and dancing, taking root or passing, not yet present in salon music, in non-folkloric popular music and, above all, in
folkloric, still urban. Among all that music, true folk music lives its ancient ethnographic music. I radtaonal does not imply oral. Any kind of writing can
life. act as an agent of transmission; oral communication can help in the
The list of characteristics or circumstances that the authors attribute to transmission of a fact.
folkloric facts in general must, to be valid, admit a rigorous transfer to each
particular species. That this is not the case is demonstrated by the mere idea of
an oral, anonymous, transferring, etc. cart. It is clear that the list was
conceived taking into account only some spiritual folkloric facts (literary,
artistic, etc.); but it is the case that, even when referring to spiritual facts, such
as music, it is inadequate or insufficient for the characterization that it seeks.
However, it will not be useless to review each of the circumstances listed.
If "what abounds does not harm", we recognize the convenience of attributing
to each folkloric species, in addition to the general ones, new features capable
of perfecting its characterization. As an experiment, we could see if it is
possible to successfully transfer to musical species the conditions that fail to
identify folkloric facts in general.
It seems difficult to find music that is not collective; and if it is ever found
in the odd occasional piece, it would be necessary to bear in mind that the
remains may not be collective; and it turns out that the remains are all the
more interesting the less they are shared. The collective requirement is also
present in higher music, in ethno-graphic music, in music that has just reached
the people from the salons, and in all other kinds of popular music.
Not all folk music is anonymous; in the countryside one often comes
across musicians who are at the same time the authors of what they perform. If
“anonymity” refers not to the work in particular, but to the set of systems—
tonal, rhythmic, harmonic—in which it is articulated, then all the erudite

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written 1), inside or outside the home environment. Otherwise, the facts are what complex of a different nature; and both, the musical and the poetic, are usually
they are, written or not. All this cracks the wall that attempts to separate the higher presented, in addition, with dance, that is, with choreographic evolutions, a third
environment from the folkloric one. As for music, notation, however imperfect, complex, also of a different nature. The spectacle in which we generally perceive
almost always leaves something to oral transmission. Obviously, in folklore there is music is a “complex of complexes”; and other elements that are not present now
no notation, but sometimes you can find the system called by number, which is a contribute to integrating the spectacle.
kind of writing. The requirement of traditionality fails especially when applied to This association, a survival of the remote triad, has always existed with such
techniques, uses, customs, etc., because almost all of those in the upper environment persistence that it seems foolhardy to break it up. The languages themselves lack
remain traditional. Like those of the primitives. special voices for each complex. Dance is the word used to refer to musical
The regional condition does not exclude either the superior or the ethnographic composition; the same word is used to refer to choreography. The label of each
fact. Much less so if the fact is to be essentially international. Furthermore, these species is even more prolific: Cueca, for example, is the musical piece, the -
two characters are cabinet conclusions. The beginning folklorist would recognize the choreographic scheme and the poetic composition. Cueca is, in short, the name of
facts that he should study after having completed his studies. two or three things together.
The transferable character, that is, that the fact may have served a different I have seen numerous confusions due to this deficiency. Because the public and
function yesterday, applies equally to the insignia axe of the primitive chief, to the specialists, without distinction, handle one voice and three concepts. When someone
walking stick of our parents or to the Carnival masks. It is not exclusive to anything talks about a Cueca —I continue with the example— one listener refers what is said
folkloric. to the music, another to the dance and a third to the poetry, according to the field of
We see, finally, that, both in general and in the particular species that concerns images that each one mobilizes.
us, the adjectives of the widespread list, applied independently or all together, cannot The form of musical composition that serves dance, the stereotyped evolutions
characterize the folkloric fact. It will not even be necessary to insist that they only that constitute the species
refer to certain assets of the estate.
Furthermore, and this is the serious thing, the collective, traditional,
anonymous, etc. characteristics, common to the superior and the primitive, could be
very useful to the folklorist only after having located and recognized the folkloric
field, that is, when he does not need them at all.
Folk music is old music — it may not be

1) Cf. My article On oral traditions, in the newspaper “La Prensa”, Bs. As., June 13,
1937.
very old—eliminated from our current higher groups or former higher in other
extinct higher groups, surviving and current; and is found mainly in the campaign
between the large institutions of the group that has the direction of the State in its
hands.

MUSIC AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. We have said before that here we are going to
study music, only music. This limitation calls for explanations.
Music alone, as such, is already a complex of elements, an association of
systems —the tonal system, the rhythmic system, etc.—. We will return to this in the
next chapter. But it happens that, in practice, the musical complex is commonly
given to us in close relationship with a text, that is, with poetry, which is a second

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FOLKLORE MUSIC
choreographic, the metric and stanzaic structure of poetry that flows with music, are, The music-poetry-dance association, therefore, results from a confluence of
we insist, facts of a very different nature. These three complexes have, essentially, autonomous currents and is fleeting or temporary, sometimes long-lasting. On the
nothing in common, except the time at which they are squeezed together. They - other hand, we want to know the past trajectory of everything that is presented to us
interest different emotional fields, they are projected on independent planes and - together in “dance”, that is, in the show. How to approach the entire partnership, if
music and dance, at least are directed in different directions. As general each part has its own story, comes by its own way? It is not possible to deal with
phenomena, they have been marching since the depths of centuries in strict music, choreography and text at the same time, because any statement that is true for
association; but a “music” of a certain character, a particular genre of evolution and the musical order may not be true for the choreographic order, etc. Thus, each part
a poetic form in a certain language, united today in the realization of the spectacle, requires an exclusive plan from the writer, and as we have understood this need, in
are only partners without a contract that fortuitous events have temporarily linked. It this book we will deal only with music, and in others with the rest.
is necessary to see in the music, in the choreography, in the text, three currents that
come from different places, or from the same place at different times, and that are THE MUSIC COMPLEX. We stated in the previous chapter that music alone,
evolving independently. Or that, arriving at the same time from the same place, they without the text, without the choreography, is a complex of systems. This is also
find in the new environment other complexes, and they accept this, reject that, mix, important from several points of view.
lose or add something. , . A thousand things. In a melody we have two orders of elements: that of altitudes, generally called
Musical renewal may not coincide with choreographic renewal or with the tonal order, and that of durations, called rhythmic order. In musical expression, both
renewal of poetic forms and style. A dance that today adopts a different structure can orders are inseparable. Altitudes without rhythm-
continue with its music and text from yesterday; a musical species that changes can
continue with its old poetry at the service of an invariable choreography; dance and
music can receive text from another language or style. Different social groups will
adopt the ensemble; different instruments will intervene in the execution; new or old
ways of doing things will adorn the simple forms.
A closely descriptive work avoids complications by focusing on the whole at a
given time; but if we are to study association through time and fields, on a
genealogical basis, the foregoing considerations are of the utmost importance, and a
vast network of precautions must assist our meditations to guard against error.
The authors have committed their greatest mistakes to our subject by not
having taken into account the inconsistency of such associations. The same cause
has given rise to numerous statements, both coincidental and contradictory. Thus:
the verse of such a dance is popular Spanish; therefore, the music and the
choreography are popular Spanish. The text is Indian; therefore, the music is Indian.
The choreography is Spanish, and the music is also Spanish. Or, according to the
general label of the species: the name is African; therefore, the music and
choreography are African. . .
However, it would be a serious mistake to exaggerate the inconsistency of
such associations to the point of depriving research of a legitimate recourse. The
association is not eternal, but it exists. I cannot go into further details of these purely
methodological issues. Suffice it to add that the similarity of two facts far apart in
space can be reinforced if other facts of the complex also coincide, such as the name
and the function... The bad thing is not to reason; the bad thing is to reason badly.

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music—like the scale—and rhythm without altitudes—based on noise—are not true Now, pure folk music is not one and only, of identical character; various
music. The coordination of both produces the melody. currents and pools of old music survive in the folkloric environment. It is in our
It is strange; but the system belonging to the tonal order and the system interest to understand it that we discard the traditional idea of a homogeneous mass.
belonging to the rhythmic order, so intimately united in melodic expression, can We already know that there was and is very ancient Indian music on our
abandon their partner to associate with another, if certain influences act in that continent, that is, varied music that vainly attempts to unify the label. We won't deal
direction. with it. If we pay exclusive attention to folk music itself, the analysis will show us
Now, the melody, a synthesis of two systems, generally admits a third, the the elements of these various currents and backwaters of which we speak. We will
accompaniment system. The melody, as a pure instrumental expression, can be given see how these strata coexist, how they overlap, how they intermingle. We will also
without accompaniment; but it is common that, both in the lyrical function and when see a long layer of music that breathes with, low, over the strata, firm in its
it serves the dance, it is produced accompanied. At a given time and place, the independent old age, while archaic aboriginal remains approach the folkloric
melody appears associated with various fixed resources of accompaniment. It is situation, and new waves of music descend to the popular environment.
important to note that the support system is also separable, that is, it can be replaced The popular environment itself is broken down into sub-environments. There
by another if circumstances dictate a change. are various environments, something like internal veins, more or less autonomous,
The accompanied melody, thus, is a complex of temporally associated systems. isolated or influential, within the popular: subaltern movements, such as that of the
It is true that such systems do not go around separating at every step, but it is suburban payadores, in Argentina; such as that of the brothels, with synchronized
important to know that they may have arrived individually, to form the current - foci throughout the country; etc.
complex, and that they may dissociate tomorrow. If our study is not purely And apart from the diversity of music and the variety of am-
descriptive; if we have to consider this music in time, we must remember that
complexes are not definitely stable.
Many mistakes have been made by writers due to ignorance of such
inconsistency. Some speak of African influence on certain Creole species. They
never gave any real evidence, but reading their works with good will, it turns out that
the African would be “the rhythm”, that is, an element of the musical complex. They
reason like this: the rhythm is African; therefore, everything else is African. The fact
that a particular popular scale coincides, for example, with one of the ecclesiastical
series, does not authorize the assertion that popular music is Gregorian; and if the -
accompaniment system resembles, for example, the Spanish one, we cannot simply
assure that the melody is also Spanish.
I mention arguments that are often repeated in our field, without even stopping to
consider that the main claims ("the rhythm is African", "the range is ecclesiastical")
are not supported by sufficient evidence.
In this book I will pay particular attention to each of the elements that make up
each complex, that is, each songbook; but I cannot lose sight of the complex itself,
which is music, what we hear, what gives us, in short, reality.

DIVERSITY OF FOLK MUSIC. We saw that not all so-called “popular music” is
folk music. Folklore is a part of it: the eliminated survivor; the one that subsists
among the institutions of the superior.

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you have, there are various functional planes, that is, different 1 functions that singers are a scattered echo of those who, with greater vocation, responsibility and
consume certain music. For example, ritual, military service, work, children's experience, have been consecrated by the group as its representative musicians. As
entertainment, adult entertainment. It is not common for a certain kind of music to in our cities, again, on a different scale.
serve two functions—as in the case of lullabies, which are also Christmas carols—it Anyone who persists in the idea that music in popular circles is essentially
is common for one function to consume two or more kinds of music—as in the case different from that in cultured centres will not have access to the panorama I present
of adult entertainment, which allows two or more generations or classes of music in and the solutions I propose. Popular terrain is a great-grandfather; of unknown
the same room at the same time. • appearance, perhaps, but of our own blood. A great-grandfather who went into the -
Folk music is not folkloric because it is performed by popular singers, peasants, countryside, and is still alive. •
illiterate, practical, poor, etc., but because of its status as surviving music. 'Not all
I have hardly seen, in relation to folk music practice, any circumstances or
popular singers, then, are folk singers. The folk singer is defined by the music he
conditions that are not reproduced in the higher environment, with no difference
sings, ;
other than those of degree or intensity. There are naive classifiers in the popular
and not the music by the singer. It's not difficult to find musicians 1 field, the dawn of criticism, and a nascent feeling of artistic ownership, still
who play folk music and modern urban music; They have lived through two stages complacent. And in the heat of this complacency, the creators' dispossession of each
in areas accessible to the influence of the cities. In these areas we also find the 1 other, that is, the recreation based on other people's melodies, often in full
young singers who only know the citizen repertoire, | of which they are introducers consciousness. Anyone who recalls what is known about the courtly musical
and propagators, and the singers ? old people, already "retired", who only know the environment of the High Middle Ages will not fail to see its analogy with this, with
music of their youth, already folkloric, if not extinct. In remote regions, where the popular music of today. The former is an ancient historical stage of the cultured
groups live relatively isolated from modern influences, all singers, young or old, are movement that leads to our days; the popular movement is the same surviving stage,
folk musicians. - a shadow of an extinct body.
I do not see why, when it comes to popular music, the people, the masses, THE PROCESSES OF FOLKLORIZATION. All folk music, over time, loses
should be considered first. " and incorporates elements. It's not a permanent layer of music, always the same.
flat. To say that the people sing is as inaccurate as saying . Placed between the music of the upper world, which comes from the cities and,
have,
sung by the upper classes. In the cultured environment it dyes-! We sometimes, the ethnographic music that lies underground, folk music is not
indifferent to them. Both are related; both can reach the folkloric situation; they are
first, a group of composers in each generation, the original source of folk music.
and around them the destiny of music revolves; secondly, a group of performers, and We have spoken of two processes: on the one hand, the former owners of the
thirdly, the mass of listeners. The first group was extremely small and the series was territory, dominant and superior, conquered by a more powerful and exalted invader,
played in a popular environment. leave their music among the institutions of the victor; on the other, the music of the
We, in campaign, never found the people that . sings. Whatever we thought at salons descends, takes root and becomes folklorized in the countryside. The first
first, experience soon taught us that we should look for music among musicians, like process has occurred mainly in Europe; the second is responsible for almost all
in Paris or Berlin. In each town there are three or four or six musicians, generally - American folkloric musical events. Without exaggerating too much, we could say
performers, sometimes a composer among them. You find them by asking the that, with regard to America, nothing is found in the countryside that has not come
neighbors. They are known. They feed the parties; they liven up the gatherings; they from the cities. That is, from top to bottom. And previously from European cities to
give serenades on their own behalf and on behalf of others. There are professionals American cities.
—without fees and without demands—; there are amateurs; and around the best, When it comes to music, we have little to say about the first process. In only
quietly, there are apprentices. one Argentine folk songbook, in Tritónico, I find aboriginal elements. Another, that
It is clear that any neighbour, more or less gifted, can retain and sing a song, as of the Incas, is completely Indian; but we only have it in a small area of our territory.
in Paris or Berlin, for personal enjoyment; but it is even clearer that these home The second process, city-campaign, is of particular interest to us. But something

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must be said first.

Not all genres of folk music, even within this general process, move with the
same rhythm, nor in the same channel. It depends on the function they perform.
Music related to worship and domestic or work songs are close to the old romantic
ideal of immobility; but both are a minimal part of folk music. On the other hand,
the music that in the various communities is at the service of lyrical and
choreographic species, is constantly renewed according to the rhythm of the cities.
This is the main current of the folkloric environment, and almost the only one that
has deserved attention from the writers. We have to take our time explaining it.
Let's think about all the music available in Western Europe and its areas of
influence, including America. Let us now consider the technically superior cultured
or "erudite" music for minorities, which suffers aesthetic vicissitudes in its
unpopular stratospheric sphere; let us recall secondly, that less complicated music,
based on small forms, for everyone, current in various types of songs and dances;
and finally, in the last instance, let us consider primitive music, always in the regions
dominated by European culture. Graphically:

MUSIC SUPERIOR

FROM THE LIVING

MUSIC
ROOM

MUSIC PRIMITIVE

Note that folk music does not appear as an independent stratum in our table.
Does not appear. Well, I include the main mass of folk music in the great “universal”
current of salon music. Both give us different sensations, but they are not essentially
different, genealogically speaking. Much of folk music is old music from urban
salons that has already become established and accommodated in the rural
environment.
In the reader's mind, there is undoubtedly a certain resistance to admitting the
essential unity of "salon music-folk music." It's a matter of labels. We speak of
“salon music” because in this way we can concentrate the reader’s attention on a
core that is familiar to him; but his desire for understanding and our efforts at clarity
are hindered by this limitation of place—the salon.
The aristocratic salon, as a stage, is equivalent to the bourgeois living room, the
modest room, the suburban patio, the peasant ranch, the ramada track, the descam-

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sky-covered meadow. The same music at the service of the same dances, the same America are explained by the action of Lima, the great colonial capital, of Rio de
songs, passes from one stage to another, through imperceptible steps, on the way to Janeiro and Santafé de Bogotá later —in the background and on a smaller radius—
death. The same music everywhere, but at different times: today's folk music is and of two republican centers, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires. This action was
originally the superior music of yesterday; country music was previously the music supported by La Paz, Montevideo and Asuncion, Paraguay. The Argentine process is
of the cities. However, it has not descended intact, as each social environment has mainly explained by the decline of Lima and the corresponding rise of Buenos Aires
required readjustment and compromise. The installation in the folkloric field to the forefront.
imposes on the music that arrives the process that we call folklorization. But what, in It is worth remembering that, in the early days of the Colony, our capital was,
the new territory, requires accommodation to the music that arrives, is not anything barely, the Lima countryside and, on a much smaller scale, that of Rio de Janeiro.
climatic or of a physical nature (mountain, jungle, etc.) but musical; that is, the Almost what the comedian, fearful of urban overcrowding, was asking for: the
music that was there. And not all of it, but the music that played the same role in the construction of the city in the countryside. . . From 1810 onwards, Buenos Aires
folkloric environment as it does now. To put it in an example: the dances that come increased its influence over the surrounding countryside and continues to advance to
down from the cities clash with the dances of the countryside, and not with the this day, disputing the territory under the influence of Lima. The eastern half of
lullabies; the ballroom dances, with the ballroom dances, and not with African or Argentina's provinces and all the capital cities are now theirs. That is why there are
Indian dances. still choreographic species in the western folklore field that were never performed in
It should be noted that ex-superior music rarely survives intact in the folkloric Buenos Aires, but rather in Lima and its advanced strongholds of Santiago de Chile
environment. It is not true, in all cases, on the other hand, that the music of a and Mendoza, La Paz, Tucumán and Córdoba.
particular rural group has descended from the big city that influences it today. THE INFLUENCE OF SALONS. After Columbus, the American continent was
Radial foci are not permanent. There is music that survives the decline and approached by a series of great migrations. On varying degrees, the same thing has
replacement of food cities. happened everywhere, including in Europe. Those who arrived met those who were
The bidding between the music that arrives and the music that was there there. The property of the residents was either taken back with its owners or mixed
occurs between immediate generations of singers. Young people, open-minded to all with that brought by the newcomers.
innovations, disdain the purity of their heritage and damage traditional formulas, not In music, the problem of origins is generally easily solved. Within popular
without protests from their elders. When these young people grow old, they consider music, which is mainly found in the countryside, there is a part of folk music,
pure what they “adulterated” yesterday and they protest against the innovations - removed from the upper environment, surviving. Of this music, which did not
introduced by their descendants. But not all generations are equally dynamic. The belong to the former inhabitant of the place, it is music that descended from the
times when the offspring are educated in strict respect for their fathers' customs are urban salons where the invader settled. The particular origin of each of the folkloric
times conducive to conservation. Of course, political, social and economic events are musical elements is a more delicate matter, and in many cases inexplicable.
not alien to the pace of such processes. The frank opening of South American ports, For us, the indigenous contribution is only important in very small areas; the
a consequence of the independence revolutions, for example, is a fact of European contribution is important for the main part of our folk music. The
transcendence for the life and customs of the new republics. difference between my conclusions and those of the authors who preceded me could
In the particular case of the scholar who observes the Argentine facts, the not be greater. It is essential; of understanding, of interpretation. We agree on one
admission of our findings encounters obstacles that are opposed by the special - thing because the authors formulated all the imaginable hypotheses; all of them, so
historical background of our country. We say that folk songs once belonged to the as not to be wrong; all of them, except the most important one, the one that considers
capital city, and the scholar sees that in central and western Argentina there are the urban contribution.
many rural species that were never cultivated in Buenos Aires. And so it is. But it They attributed this to spontaneous generation, to race, to peasant psychology
must be kept in mind that the cultural capital of central-western Argentina, until well and to the local topography, an influence that I reject; they conceded to Gregorian
into the 19th century, was not Buenos Aires but Lima. music and to the music of African blacks an intervention that I am unaware of; they
The folkloric processes and the irrigation and migration movements in South saw the Indian influence in non-indigenous music, while ignoring the little that is
truly Indian that survives in our folkloric field; in short, they agreed on the presence
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of a large dominant layer of Spanish popular music.

I never cease to be amazed every time I think about how the idea of our musical
Spanishness could have been accepted without discussion and reaffirmed without
doubt for an entire century. I myself adopted it, like everyone else, before
undertaking these studies, and even several years later. I did not imagine, at first,
that the overwhelming coincidence of several generations could have been
established in disregard of the facts. There is a small European songbook in
America, outside the salons, which is also folkloric in Spain; but the writers did not
refer to it; they considered our lyrical and choreographic songs to be popular in
Spain. Popular, in the restricted sense of regional, folkloric.
This claim was never based on specific facts. It was a simple inference: if
several tens of thousands of Spanish soldiers and settlers - peninsular people - came
to America in the first centuries, it is logical that they brought their music, and that
they cultivated it in America, and that they transmitted it to their descendants. All of
this seems very clear, and yet things did not happen that way. Each regional group
brought something with them, but nothing Spanish folklore took root in the new
territory. If we remember what we have said before about urban currents, the
explanation is not difficult: the European capital cities feed the American cities, and
these, the countryside. The court, the aristocratic salons, sent to the viceregal centers
the music, the dances, the fashions, the customs that the Spanish people adopted in
America. Transmission occurs through the channels of the superior, from hall to hall,
not from town to town. Tarde said: "He makes himself imitated. . . the nobleman for
the peasant. . . "the man of the cities for the villager". . . And Simmel confirmed:
"the lower classes look and aspire to higher things. The metropolitan courts sent the
things that were coordinated by the Hispanic environment itself, first, and once the
Bourbon wave began, what they received from the French courts.
This explains why the people of Spanish America barely resemble those of the
parent peninsula. The language, yes; but the language of the Castilian courts, not the
regional dialects. What was folkloric in Iberia did not prosper in America. The lower
classes of the conquest and colonization lost almost all of their small spiritual
possessions and replaced most of their belongings. The viceregal courts.

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Through small and persistent irrigation they delivered new elements to the appetite If a songbook is not accepted in Paris, it is useless for a million men to
of the American generations. travel with it; if Paris gives it prestige, the action of one man alone is
The analogies or parallels between Iberian and American folklore facts are not enough to determine its roots anywhere. Things don't happen from town to
explained by a direct transplant from people to people, but by the same process of town, but from living room to living room.
transfer from top to bottom carried out simultaneously and independently in Iberia I have said all this several times in previous posts. Perhaps due to
and America. And let not anyone who observes be misled, because many of the insufficient explanation, some readers have interpreted me as they wished.
events that are folkloric today belonged to the upper classes just a hundred years Some time ago I wrote that the English Contradanza that Paris sent us via
ago. The South American people, thus, do not reproduce the actions and feelings of Madrid around 1730 gave rise to three rural dances in its image in the
the Iberian people, but rather, mainly, those of the colonial aristocracy, just as the Argentine countryside. A local journalist, in a singular article, agreed with
latter reproduced those of the European courts. “Our cities were extra-European me, and, addressing the unbelievers, reminded them that from 1576 to 1600
episodes of European culture.” . ., says Ricardo Rojas in Eurindia. many English navigators passed through the Río de la Plata. . . I thought it
It seems incredible that so many thousands of Spanish colonizers, common was then that dances, music and even British customs and clothing flew
people, have not left any Spanish folklore in America. And so it was. I offer concrete from the ships to the beach.
data from a great modern experience that makes the incredible evident. I hasten to confess that musical facts are, by nature, so sensitive, so
In 1850, Argentina had less than one and a half million natives; between 1850 changeable; they lack historical documentation to such an extent, that the
and 1900, nearly two million foreigners entered the country. In 1900 we had about evidence accumulated in this work may not be sufficient to communicate, in
three million Argentines; from 1900 to 1910, one million one hundred and twenty all cases, definitive certainty to the cautious and skeptical reader. This same
thousand foreigners arrived and stayed in the country. In just ten years! Two thirds plan, however, applied to dances, makes our conclusions evident.
of them were Italians and Spaniards, peasants, true folkloric subjects; and no one The ideas we express have not been born in the musical field, the least
prevented them from bringing their clothes, their dialects, their customs, their songs communicative, but in several at the same time,
and their dances.
It is not just a matter of a few thousand settlers who, over the course of two
centuries, have grouped together among millions of Indians, but of millions of
foreigners who settle among just as many natives, in a few years and protected by
laws that allow them to sing and dance whatever they want. Well, where is your
music, where are your native folk dances? Argentina does not recognize them. If this
seems too mysterious, anyone can go ask themselves. In the Federal Capital alone
we have nearly a million, more than half of them Spanish and Italian. Their songs
and dances came with them; and that huge mass of peasants emigrated
He may have carried out his works in the family environment, but he was unable to
incorporate them into the dominant social current.
Yo At the same time something happens that deserves attention. Ha
In the 1850s, two dances that Paris took from Bohemia and Poland took root in
Buenos Aires: the Polka and the Mazurka. Not a million French, not a million
Bohemians, not a million Poles come with them. They arrive alone. After fifty years,
while the Italian and Spanish folk dances have died with their bearers, the Polka and
the Mazurea have passed to the smaller cities, have penetrated even the last village,
and are now Argentine folk dances.

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For music obeys in common the springs that move all of man's creations. The lower classes of Argentina, the rural classes, have not created their
This is actually my starting point. Music observes its own conduct in detail; traditional music nor do they create to the extent necessary to modify it; the upper
but, hidden in the whole, a modest part, it experiences the vicissitudes of its classes of Argentina and of America have created at various times in their history.
heritage, it shares the general fate of Culture. Note that we are now talking about creating, about producing something new, as it is
understood in the environment of cultured composition.
POPULAR CREATION. Anyone who observes that we handle elements, systems, The people do not create, and yet traditional music, over time, evolves and
songbooks, in this way, objectively, like someone reading cards, might be inclined to transforms. We must find out, then, how the rural masses, that is, their musicians,
believe that music passes through men without taking man into account. We have reach results similar to those of the cultured composer, a true creator.
said that the artistic products of ingenuity obey norms or laws. According to this, it The modification of the surroundings may not even require the intention to
seems that the musician immerses himself, during his auditory education, in a world modify; the intervention of the spirit is enough for there to be modification even
of forms and norms that guide what he learns, monitor what he retains, regulate what without the will to create. It must be kept in mind that to understand is to modify.
he expresses, condition what he produces. If so, music makes the musician, but only Nothing musical that reaches the spirit is installed in it as it was expressed by
the forgetfulness that the spirit means something can exclude the intervention of the another spirit. The mere act of perceiving means the friction of what arrives with
individual in music. what was there and both, brought together, are moved. Secondly, to conserve is to
If we take the opposite position and say that music is immersed in the spirit, we modify. Nothing that remains in the spirit remains as it came. And thirdly, nothing
will conclude that the musician makes the music: and this would mean forgetting that comes out of the spirit returns as it came or as it was in
that the experience of generations is capitalized in individuals through forms and
norms.
But if, admitting the strong pressure of traditional systems on the individual,
we want to estimate the action of the individual on the systems, we will have to
dwell on the old problem of popular creation and, in any case, examine the
mechanism that produces modifications or renewals in the practical environment,
even when the spirit intervenes in a passive form.
The act of creating requires, as a basis and condition, a certain degree of social
autonomy from the group to which the individual belongs. It is necessary that men of
the lower classes should not be concerned with what the upper classes do; it is
necessary that the spirits should not be in an attitude of imitation. The popular
classes, in general, live aspiring, waiting, imitating. And the spirit in submission,
does not create. The upper classes of the "new" countries live, for their part,
imitating what the centers of universal prestige produce, and thus, on the ashes of the
colonial political regimes, our great spiritual colonies survive.
Collective movements of rebellion—the return of the eyes to the social body
itself—bring about the motorization of ingenuity; the simple renunciation of
imitation, out of despair, turns even the humblest defeated strata into creators.
All this means that the intervention of the spirit in the traditional current is
imperceptible as long as the group caresses its social dependence; and that the spirit -
always creative, in potential - only produces when it rejects the influence of those
who were in charge of the task of creating for all the others.

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he. To externalize - and, much more, to express - is to modify. All this, absent the intervention of many individuals in series, produce events that affect the system, but
will to create. only as exceptional cases. Only the simultaneous orientation of the entire mechanism
To grasp, retain and express, therefore, are acts that imply modifications, but in one and only one direction can give rise to the derivation of heritage songbooks.
minimal modifications, insufficient to upset the broad forms and norms of which we But what force, what centre of attraction, determines this collective orientation
speak, incapable of altering the notation, since the writing of music is a writing of towards a new direction? The arrival of a different songbook; the presence of new
systems—the only thing that can be written in music. From this point of view, elements that, like the previous ones, descend to the domains of the people from the
minimal modifications are equivalent to conservation 1). It is not a paradox. halls of the educated classes. Or, in general, from the upper to the lower strata.
It is said that the interpreter is a creator. It is, in a way. Interpreting, which We have given a name to this new kind of modifying action: hybridization.
involves the three acts we are talking about, is minimal creation. In the spectrum of “Hybridization is, at its core, a recreation; but unlike recreation per se, which takes
creation, the performer is at one extreme and the composer at the other. - elements from its own songbook, hybridization takes in elements from another,
Interpretation and creation lead to results of the same nature, but rather to the different and neighboring songbook” 1).
opposite mental attitude: the interpreter wants to be faithful to the author; the The intervention of the individual, therefore, in the traditional current, alters
composer wants to be unfaithful to the past. They both create, and often even get and modifies, even without the musician assuming the attitude of the creator. There
close to each other. There are performers who almost create and composers who is no pure creation in the domains of the popular classes. The songbooks are derived
almost interpret. Both are bad: one for being unfaithful to the author; the other for mainly by recreation and hybridization. The people, over time and through several
being faithful to the past. generations, produce like the spirit of a cultured creator. He is a cultured creator with
Variation and recreation12 are two degrees higher than interpretation (minimal a slow pace.
involuntary modification) and lower than creation (maximum voluntary
modification). Both processes engender modifications that do not alter traditional 1) Cf. Phraseology, pp. 494 ff.
forms and norms. They are movements inside the house. All this is absent or in
force, the will to create; all this is the intervention of the spirit without altering the
system.
When I say movements within the house, I also mean that small creation of
songs and dances that, respectful of all traditional forms, multiplies the repertoire
without moving the songbook. I have often found in the countryside, among
numerous repeaters, that type of creator who corresponds exactly to the one who
produces waltzes or fox trots in cultured salons. The proportion in which it is found,
among the group of singers, is insignificant; it varies, moreover, according to the
groups. But it is best to avoid confusion. These famous authors, who performed fifty
or more original Cuecas, were musicians in provincial salons, and performed when
the dances that are now folkloric were part of the repertoire of the educated classes.
We do not deny, with this, the existence of current popular composers, although we
are aware of their rarity, but all their work leaves intact the fundamental lines of the
musical heritage in which they were formed, as long as it depends on their will to
create.
These inconsequential springs of modification can, when added together by the

1 Cf. Phraseology, pp. 483 ff.

2 Cf. Phraseology, pp. 490 and following.

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That is why songbooks, sets of organically consolidated elements, move and evolve more slowly the more intensively their species are cultivated and the more
unprotected they are in the areas of mixture. Because for the individual to work on his songbook, the spirit itself must be renewed.

CLASSIFICATION OF MUSIC
“Reality is complex by nature; simplicity
does not go beyond the ideal, it does not reach
the concrete.” — PROUDHON.

Towards a universal classification; the criteria. — Three major stages; choice of

criterion; the tonal order. — Songbooks; character; tonal, rhythmic and plunsonantal
systems; ways of voicing. —Organicity of the songbooks; the remains. — The species,
— First identification of our songbooks.

The rankings deserve neither great praise nor special disdain. A

classification can be good or bad; classifications, in general, are simply
necessary. Criticism has failed to make the classifier worthy of jail time. Man
in freedom, his renewed attack against innocent disorder fills dense chapters
in the history of all sciences.
In music, the human spirit has produced without stopping for long
millennia. To encompass his creations and order them systematically is to
advance, through understanding, towards the knowledge of one of man's most
extraordinary achievements.
It is necessary to seriously consider a universal classification of music.
The lack of data on the songs of the primitives increases the difficulties of
such a vast undertaking, but perhaps the clearing of the field can already be
started, if only to stimulate the purpose.

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