From the jagged-topped Andes Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, from the rain forests of the Amazon River to the desert, and from rural villages to modern cities, Peru is a country filled with a great deal of variety. Its long history includes ancient civilizations, original peoples, and Spanish conquistadors. Each facet of Peru supports its own style of music and culture.
Local festivals abound in villages and cities throughout Peru. These events are colorful and lively. Special days such as Fiestas Patrias, "Fatherland Parties," commemorate Peru’s independence and are celebrated nationwide.
Peru’s festivals blend the rites of the Catholic Church with those dating back much further—to Inca times or further back, with the veneration of Pacha Mama, "Mother Earth." In Cuzco the ancient celebration known as Fiesta del Sol, "Festival of the Sun," continues to celebrate the sun in the manner of original peoples.
Some of the instruments played in Peru today have their origins in Peru’s pre-Columbian history. From the original Andean people, the Incas inherited an astonishing variety of wind instruments, including flutes and panpipes of all types and sizes. Inca military musicians also played conch-shell trumpets and timpani. In the ruins and ancient graveyards on the Peruvian coast, small broken clay panpipes and whistle-like flutes producing pentatonic, diatonic, or exotic scales are still found. Although grave robbers usually discard the instruments, archeologists often recover them.
Wind instruments are popular in Peru. Vertical end-blown flutes (like recorders) often were made of llama bone, but are now usually carved from wood. Perhaps the most well-known Andean wind instrument is the panpipe. Panpipes are played by blowing across the top end of a pipe. This produces a breathy sound similar to the sound achieved by blowing across the top of a beverage bottle, but with a more centered pitch. Panpipes come in various sizes and produce a variety of pitches.
When the Spaniards came to Peru, they brought European stringed instruments, like the guitar, violin, and harp, which the Peruvian musicians quickly adapted by inventing their own versions. They fashioned a small type of mandolin from the shell of an armadillo. The Andean harp, with its great, boat-like, half-conical sounding box, adds a bass voice to a Peruvian ensemble. Percussion instruments include deep-voiced frame drums with a soft, hide-covered head. Some ensembles include violin, accordion, or even a conch-shell trumpet as played by the ancient Incas.
Certain types of songs that are the ancestors of contemporary Andean music can be traced back to at least the 1600s, and probably to pre-Columbian origins. These songs were sung by shepherds, warriors, harvesters, and field workers. Some of the popular Peruvian music of today has evolved from those traditional forms. It has elements of poetry, music, and dance, and is primarily rural dance music.
The interaction of the African population with the original Peruvian people of the Andes began with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, and led to the Afro-Andean musical culture, which thrives today in Peru. Dance competitions involving a special type of improvised rhythmic foot tapping and slapping are quite popular in the Afro-Andean neighborhoods of Lima and Chincha. The guitar, the box drum, the occasional donkey’s jawbone, and sometimes goats’ hooves combine with other instruments to create rhythms that accompany Afro-Andean music.
Today traditional Peruvian music can be heard on CDs and on the streets of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and cities in other parts of the world, as street musicians from Peru entertain crowds of entranced listeners.
