MUSIC: Folk Music Losing its Identity in Panama

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Silvio Hernandez

PANAMA CITY, May 12 1998 (IPS) - Folk music that attracts a weekly average of 50,000 people to dances and public concerts in Panama is in danger of losing its identity, say folkloric enthusiasts.

Traditional instruments have been replaced by instruments from abroad, and typical rhythms are being lost in fusions with rock, salsa and Mexican ranchero music, they say.

The debate started late last year when Samy and Sandra Sandoval, a brother and sister who have a band that plays typical Panamanian music, admitted they could not define their musice when they were invited to ‘Sabado Gigante’ – a programme broadcast throughout Latin America from the U.S. city of Miami.

The Sandovals finally decided that their music could be described as “urban cumbia”, which local folklorists say is incorrect because the typical Panamanian rhythms “cumbia” and “punto” are eminently rural.

Writer Carlos Changmarin, the author of several books on Panamanian folklore, says the classic rhythms of “cumbia” and “punto” began to disappear back in the 1950s when the accordion – of German origin – was introduced as a basic instrument in folk music bands .

Local folk music was originally played with a three-string Ravel violin, a “mejoranera” or “bocona” guitar, a small box and the “guachara”, Changmarin told IPS. The sonorous five- stringed, violin-sized “mejoranera” guitar and the “guachara”, made of a gourd, are typical Panamanian folk music instruments.

After the accordion was introduced, the “mejoranera” guitar was gradually replaced by a bass guitar and an electric guitar, the box was replaced by a couple of large conga drums and several kettledrums, the “guachara” by a metal bottle gourd or maraca rattles, and the female “cantalante” was displaced by a male singer.

The change of instruments occurred when the music moved from the rural hamlets and slum quarters of towns in the interior towards Panama City, where “pindines” – typical dances – were organised by people from the interior, says Changmarin.

In that process, the musicians “stopped playing for the love of art,” and began being paid, he added. Male singers replaced the “cantalantes” due to the influence of Colombian folk music bands, in which singers are male.

But in Changmarin’s view, the most serious aspect is that Panamanian folk music has “degenerated” into fusions with rock, ranchero music, salsa and other rhythms from abroad which have nothing to do with Panamanian folk music.

With respect to the “lack of definition” regarding the genre of music played by bands from the interior, Changmarin said that for the music to be “cumbia” or “punto”, the musicians would have to return to the original instruments with which such rhythms were played.

But Sandra Sandoval defended the changes that she and her brother have introduced, including rock and salsa strains and new dance steps, because young people now flock to dances where typical music is played, which “is good for our culture.”

Folklorist Francisco Cruz maintained that the music played by the Sandovals and around 10 other bands that enliven the extensive offer of typical dances or “pindines” can only be defined as pop music.

Cruz, like Changmarin, said Panama’s typical music had lost its essence through fusion with other rhythms. But he applauded the ability of today’s bands to tkae the music from Panama’s interior outside of the popular “pindines” to the country’s most prestigious dance halls.

On his last album, “La Rosa de los Vientos”, internationally reknowned Panamanian “salsa” singer-songwriter and actor Ruben Blades included a song played on the accordion and sung by folk singer Osvaldo Ayala, who won a Grammy in the United States in 1997.

History professor and folklorist Dora Zarate says in her book “Our Typical Music” that the folk music bands “should observe the established rules with respect to the instruments, lyrics and rhythms” to be used in folk music, in order to be defined as producers of typical music.

Otherwise, they should define themselves as pop music bands, because what they perform “is not typical music,” proclaims Zarate, whose late husband Manuel created the Guarare “mejorana” festival, the only one of its kind in Panama, around 30 years ago.