The Paraguayan Polca: Re-imagining Tradition in Creative Musical Practice
Music, Meaning and Value in Paraguayan Song - Alfredo C Colman
Matt Dicken [+]
Bath Spa University
Description
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.