The foreword, written by renowned Paraguayan classical guitarist Berta Rojas, will introduce the Jeporeka 2021 project, its aims and objectives, along with the seminar series that evolved with it, and on which the book articles are based.

Besides introducing the chapters of the book, the introduction will provide the research context to the critically under-researched music of Paraguay via an authoritative survey of existing literatures written in Spanish, English, Portuguese and other languages. This due contextualisation will lead into a discussion of the transcultural approaches underpinning the seven chapters presented in the book, and the disciplinary differences—musicology, ethnomusicology, cultural musicology, sociology, cultural theory, folklore studies— informing the authors’ cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary, transdisciplinary and international perspectives.

This article is based on the 2021 Jeporeka project, which was conceived and directed by Paraguayan guitarist Berta Rojas as a virtual music participation and education project to promote the creative collaboration between and development of Paraguayan musicians, artists and writers through music composition, and explores the negotiation and expression of Paraguayan national and other identity through contemporary song. Due to their verbal and musical nature, songs serve as a mirror to faithfully reflect processes of national and other identity construction. Being simultaneously spaces of representation and cathartic tools, songs contain thought, language and music that serve certain interests and fulfil specific functions in the construction of this identity. Songs are like photographs that portray an individual and social groups at a specific time and place; they reflect the values, aspirations, ideas and needs, as well as shared history and memory, that individuals and social groups consciously or unconsciously have at a specific moment in time. Informed by music theory and analysis and cultural theory, this article regards the songs of the Jeporeka 2021 project as a window into the present by illustrating the musical and cultural meanings and values ascribed to these songs by the participants of Jeporeka—composers, lyricists and performers—who created them under the guidance of six Latin American maestros. It reveals how the Jeporeka songs identify and connect these young Paraguayans to a set of values—social class, a place, a mood, a desire, an aspiration, and speaks of their shared history, memory and identity.

Though less than three percent of Paraguay’s population is Indigenous, Paraguayan national identity is closely linked to the culture of the Guarani Indians that dominated the area at the time of the arrival of Europeans. Europeans were always a small minority in Paraguay, and the Paraguayan population quickly developed a relatively homogenous mestizo ethnic identity. Though by definition a mixture of European and Indian, this mestizo identity has come to be understood in ways that highlight its continuity with Indigenous Guarani elements over European ones in such cultural expressions as language, foodways, folk medicine, mythology and even religion. While many aspects of Paraguayan culture do in fact derive from Indigenous ones, music is a prominent exception; both Paraguayan música folclórica (folk music) and concert music are overwhelmingly stylistically European. Paradoxically, despite its thoroughly European nature, Paraguayan music has been bestowed a Guarani identity precisely because it is Paraguayan. This article examines the centrality of this mythical Guarani heritage to notions of musical paraguayidad (Paraguayan-ness) in such varied contexts as the language, topics, and traditional instruments of Paraguayan folk musics; the creation of the popular guarania genre in the 1920s as an intentionally nationalistic music expression; the stage persona and music of the guitarist Agustín Barrios (1885-1944); and the reception of the music of the Italian Jesuit missionary composer Domenico Zipoli (1688-1726), and its incorporation into the national Guarani mythos.

Considering that which is socially imagined and transmitted as Paraguayan, and in connection to the activities of numerous composers and performers searching for a specific Paraguayan sound, the act of speaking the Guaraní language has been seen by specialists as a source informing the characteristics of melodic composition in Paraguayan folkloric and popular music. A majority of representative Paraguayan folk-style compositions from the twentieth century illustrate specific cultural themes associated with the sentiment of paraguayidad (Paraguayan-ness or Paraguayan cultural identity). Among such cultural themes, romance, nostalgia, appreciation for the land and its natural resources, Paraguayan history, and Guarani culture–including the language–rank at the highest. In light of my research on composer Florentín Giménez (1925-2021) and the publications of twentieth century Paraguayan anthrolopogists, sociologists, composers and performers, Colman explore questions such as: To some or a large extent, has the Guaraní language influenced the typical melodies found in Paraguayan musical genres such as the guarania and the polca paraguaya? If so, has the Guaraní language been a planned or innate element in the mind of the composer? Has this practice been the consistent approach among some of the most representative Paraguayan composers of the 20th and 21st centuries? The goal of this article is to propose answers to these questions by introducing the proper social and cultural context in which the Guaraní language–among other Paraguayan cultural themes–has been considered by composers, arrangers, and performers as an idealized source to develop the construction of melodies in Paraguayan music.

This article focuses on the use of the indigenous Guaraní language in Paraguayan popular song as it is used by some female music interpreters born between the 1930s and 1980s. It analyses two representative Paraguayan music genres: the polca paraguaya and guarania, whose lyrics follow one of three poetic-linguistic forms: Guaraní , Spanish, or Jopará, the latter being a form where words of both languages may be mixed. Through these forms, the lyrics alternate and combine the Indigenous voice with the one introduced during colonization, in turn reflecting how Guaraní seems to constantly transit, to and from, between a position of disdain and value within Paraguayan society. Through analyzing recordings of polkas paraguayas and guaranias, the article identifies three styles of singing adopted by female singers, who include Paraguayan classical folk, Paraguayan folk and Paraguayan pop folk in their repertoires. The analysis is informed by online interviews with several Paraguayan women singers, which reveal significant aspects of their backgrounds and musical influences. It also draws on autoethnographic approaches, building on the author’s own experiences as a music researcher and singer. Within the current context to decolonize academic research, the article brings together distinct voices and sounds, expressed in Paraguayan popular songs, from an under-represented country and its unique language and gender norms.

This article focuses on the work Homenaje a Teodoro S. Mongelós [A Tribute to Teodoro S. Mongelós] on the album Piano Paraguayo by the Argentine pianist and composer Óscar Cardozo Ocampo (1942-2001). The tribute is based on a compilation of four songs by the poet and musician Teodoro S. Mongelós (1914-1966): ‘Ha Pilincho’, ‘Nde resa kuarahyáme’, ‘Che mbo‘eharépe’ and ‘Musiqueada jazmín guype’. Based on the systematic analysis proposed by researcher Gaya Makaran, the verses of each song will be analyzed in light of stereotypical representations of Paraguayan women. By understanding the historical and social contexts in which these songs were written, the article will explain the numerous ways in which Paraguayan musicians and composers have developed such views within the traditional and “popular” music sphere in twentieth century Paraguay.

This article aims to expand understandings of the New Singer-Songwriter Movement (Nuevo Cancionero) through the stories of those who fought for freedom and hope for political change during the Stroessner military dictatorship in Paraguay (1954-1989). Our research has included a unique interview with the Paraguayan harpist ‘Selva’ Celsa Ramírez Rodas, who, due to her intense activity as a member of resistance movements, was persecuted, imprisoned and tortured by the Paraguayan military regime. The first-hand experiences told by Ramírez shed light on the violence of repression, the firmness of resistance to that repression, and the use of music in two different ways: as a means of torture and as a means of resistance. We also highlight the cultural activities carried out in the Emboscada prison camp and present some music recordings made clandestinely by prisoners. We highlight the importance of the Nuevo Cancionero, and the “rooted and rooting” character that is embedded in these musical recordings.

The processes that govern the evolution of musical traditions across time, both within and beyond their cultural context, dictate and challenge perceptions of relevancy in younger generations of musicians. How is a musical tradition re-imagined so that it connects with a new audience, enters a new social space, and survives the omnipresent tests of time? This article examines how the Paraguayan polca is being re-imagined in the twenty-first century. Ethnographic research explores different musical approaches in Paraguay within a model of the traditionalist, modernist and radical. Research methods combining interviews with participant observation and performance will reveal how the Paraguayan polca (as a traditional music) is being used as a musical influence and as a means of defining Paraguayan identity within new musical spaces of electronic music. I seek to understand how specific musical elements pertain to feelings of paraguayidad and are thus either positively expressed in creative practice, or are contested as they have ‘little to do with the well-known concept of National Being, which proposes the idea of static and frozen whole, oblivious to the currents of time and the pressure of social realities’ (Vera, 2017: 35). I will also reflect on my position as researcher through personal experience of arranging and performing traditional Paraguayan music, from the perspective of a participant-observer.