The folkloric music of Argentina traces its roots to the multiplicity of native indigenous cultures.In Argentina the word "folklore" is generally written with "k", being valid in Spanish the forms that are written with both "k" and "c". It was shaped by four major historical-cultural events: Spanish colonization and forced African immigration caused by the slave trade during the Spanish domination (16th–18th centuries); the large wave of European immigration (1880–1950) and the large-scale internal migration (1930–1980).Aharonián, Coriún: Factores de identidad musical latinoamericana tras cinco siglos de conquista, dominación y mestizaje. in: Revista de Música Latinoamericana, Vol. 15, Nº 2: University of Texas,1994, pp. 189 - 225. "American culture in general and American music in particular, and we refer here to the American continent as a whole, are the result of the interaction of three great aspects: the indigenous, that is, the native of the American lands; the western European, that is, the conquistadors and invaders; and the black-African or aguisimbia, that is, the peoples brought as slaves from a third continent. The distribution and the proportion of each one of these three aspects in the long and wide American territory will determine through the centuries a very varied miscegenation of the contribution of each one of them, with very big differences between one region and another one... The outline of the three cultural aspects is only valid as a general outline. Because, first of all, America was not populated, in 1492, by a single ethnic group. And the very diverse ethnic groups were not culturally homogenized. There were a great number of cultural systems and these systems were rarely confined to precise geographical limits. Moreover, cultures, languages and music coexisted in a diffuse territory, with islets and islands and small islands dotted in spaces of many thousands of kilometers. Indigenous America is a beautiful conglomerate of very dissimilar cultures and musics, with different structuring principles and syntactic logics".
Although strictly speaking "folklore" is only that cultural expression that meets the requirements of being anonymous, popular and traditional, in Argentina folklore or folkloric music is known as popular music of known authorship, inspired by rhythms and styles characteristic of provincial cultures, mostly of indigenous and Afro-Hispanic-colonial roots. Technically, the appropriate denomination is "music of folkloric projection of Argentina".
In Argentina, the music of folkloric projection began to acquire popularity in the 1930s and 1940s, coinciding with a large wave of internal migration from the countryside to the city and from the provinces to Buenos Aires, to establish itself in the 1950s, with the "folklore boom", as the main genre of national popular music, together with tango.
In the sixties and seventies, the popularity of Argentine "folklore" expanded and was linked to other similar expressions in Latin America, due to various movements of musical and lyrical renovation, and the appearance of great festivals of the genre, in particular the National Folklore Festival of Cosquín, one of the main festivals of the genre in Argentina.
After being affected by censorship and cultural repression during the National Reorganization Process, folkloric music regained visibility after the Malvinas War of 1982, although with expressions more related to other genres of Argentine and Latin American popular music, such as tango, the so-called "national rock", the Latin American romantic ballad, the cuarteto and the Colombian cumbia.
The historical evolution was shaping four large regions in folkloric music of Argentina: the Cordoba-Northwest, the Cuyo, the Littoral and the southern Pampa-Patagonian, at the same time influenced by, and influential in, the musical cultures of the bordering countries: Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Atahualpa Yupanqui is widely regarded as one of the central figures in the history of folkloric music in Argentina.
Indigenous roots Salvador Canals Frau, in his book Prehistoria de America, explains that music, together with song and dance, possibly appeared in America together with the first human beings who arrived in that continent. Among the first musical instruments found in South America are the primitive flute and the churinga, the latter of great diffusion in Australia and especially present in the Patagonian cultures, one of the similarities considered by the anthropologist Antonio Méndes Correia to sustain his hypothesis about the Australian origin of the American man and his entrance through the southern end of the continent.
In the current Argentine territory there were four great areas of indigenous cultures: the Central-Andean, the Mesopotamian-Littoral, the Chaco and the Pampa-Patagonian. The first two would fall under Spanish domination in the 16th century, but the second two would remain independent until the end of the 19th century. The Carlos Vega National Institute of Musicology has a collection of more than 400 indigenous and folkloric musical instruments, each one of them with its respective organological analysis, some of which can be seen in the Virtual Museum of Musical Instruments that it maintains on its website.Museo Virtual de Instrumentos Musicales Archived February 6, 2009, in Wayback Machine., Instituto Nacional de Musicología «Carlos Vega». [retrieved. 20-01-2009]
Central-Andean area
The cultures of the Central-Andean area were characterized for having developed sedentary agro-ceramic civilizations. These cultures have had a strong influence on Argentine "Andean" folklore, both in terms of instruments, musical styles, aesthetic-musical lines, and even the language, mainly Quechua. Among the instruments, their influence has been decisive for the development of wind instruments, characteristic of Andean folklore, such as the siku, the quena, the pincullo, the erque, the ceramic ocarina, and so on, generally built on a pentatonic scale, as well as the caja, which plays a central role in the bagualero song.
Among the indigenous musical styles, contributed to the Argentine folklore, stands out the baguala, coming from the Diaguita-Calchaquí nation. Also the yaraví, antecedent of the vidala, and the huayno, come from the pre-Hispanic Andean civilization.Peruvian Folklore (in Spanish) Archived April 9, 2008 in Wayback Machine. Embajada del Perú. [retrieved 20-01-2009] The carnavalito jujeño, a pre-Hispanic dance of great folkloric importance, was already being danced in the northern zone when the Europeans arrived."El carnavalito" Archived November 29, 2011 in Wayback Machine. Cultura, official site of the Government of Argentina. [retrieved 20-01-2009] The chaya, which would later characterize Riojan folklore, also comes from the Diaguita art dedicated to celebrating the harvest.
Leda Valladares, in particular, has highlighted the importance of singing with caja in Andean culture.
Littoral area In the littoral area, the Guaraní agro-ceramic culture stood out, which is the origin of many of the elements of today's folklore. Many of these elements disappeared with the Conquest, such as most of the musical instruments (congoera, tururu, mburé, mbaracá, guatapú mimby, among others).«El chamamé» Archived June 25, 2015 in Wayback Machine., El Folklore Argentino. [retrieved 20-01-2009]
During the Spanish colonization, the Guarani culture would evolve in a special way in the Jesuit missions, creating an autonomous musical culture, which would considerably influence the Argentinean littoral folklore.
Pampa-Patagonian area Unlike the Central Andean and Mesopotamian-Litoral regions, Spain did not manage to conquer the indigenous communities living in the Chaco and Pampean-Patagonian regions, which were finally militarily subdued by the Argentine State between the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. For this reason, in many cases, indigenous music in these areas is performed, even in the present, without fusions with music from other cultures present in Argentina.
Several cultures settled in the Pampa-Patagonian area, among them the oldest of those that lived in the current Argentine territory. Some of these peoples are: Tehuelche, Pehuenche, Mapuche, Ranquel, Yahgan, Selkʼnam, and so on. Of all of them, the Mapuche culture managed to dominate a large part of the region, from the 17th century onwards, influencing the Patagonian and Pampean cultures, with the exception of those of Tierra del Fuego.
Mapuche music is still played as it was before the so-called Conquest of the Desert (1876–1880), the war through which Argentina conquered the Pampa-Patagonian territories. It is characterized by a strong sacred component, characterized by an a cappella singing, and the use of musical instruments of their own invention, such as the cultrun, the trutruca, the torompe, the cascahuilla and the pifilca. Among the musical styles of Mapuche origin, the loncomeo stands out, which includes a group dance to the sound of cajas and horns.
Among the testimonies of Patagonian indigenous music, the recordings of Selkʼnam (Ona) and Yaghan songs made by Charles Wellington in 1907 and 1908 stand out. Also of great value are the songs performed by Lola Kiepja, known as "the last Selkʼnam", compiled by Anne Chapman in two records produced by the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, under the title Selkʼnam chants of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina (in Spanish: Cantos selkʼnam de Tierra del Fuego, Argentina), some of which can be heard on the Internet.
Chaco area Cultures such as the Guaycurú (Abipon, Mbayá, Payaguá, Mocoví, Wichí and Pilagá), the Qom and the Avá Guaraní settled in the Chaco area. Like the Pampan-Patagonian cultures, they had in common the fact that they resisted the Spanish conquest and prevented colonization.
The indigenous people of Chaco used —and still use— a great variety of musical instruments, such as the novike or n'vike, the cataqui or water drum, the yelatáj chos woley (musical bows), the guimbarda or trompl, the rattles of nails and gourd, the coioc,'Instrumentos musicales, Rubén Carrasco. [retrieved. 20-01-2009] the naseré, the sereré and the Chaco flutes.
The music of the Chaco cultures tends to the interaction of the musician with the natural sounds. Instruments such as the naseré, the sereré and the coioc, simulate the song of the birds and provoke the response of these, which are integrated in this way to the musical experience. One of the main instruments of these cultures, the nobique or n'vike, a one-stringed instrument similar to the lute, has inspired a musical legend, which attributes to the instrument the origin of the Morning star (Venus).
Among the ancestral songs that have been preserved is Yo 'Ogoñí ('the dawn'), a Qom chant that was performed daily to sing to the rising of the sun.
Among the groups and artists that perform Chaco indigenous music is the Toba Chelaalapi Choir, some of whose performances can be heard on the Internet.
African roots
The Africans brought as slaves to Argentina during the colonial period, and their descendants born in the territory that is now Argentina (Afro-Argentines), contributed to the construction of the Argentine Nation and its culture. Music is not an exception, and within this, the folkloric music.
Candombe was folklore until shortly after the fall of Rosas. It is still played in the present, in several of its versions (Afro-Porteño, Afro-Correntino, and so on); among them stands out the candombe porteño. Other Afro-Argentinean rhythms are also preserved, such as the zemba or charanda, a rhythm associated with the cult of San Baltasar in the Northeast of Argentina, especially in Corrientes and Chaco.