EVERY GENRE PROJECT - June 25 - Guarania
Genre of the Day - Guarania
Album of the Day - El Arpa Paraguaya Vol. 1 by Ed Lange and His Trio Andeño (1972)
Paraguay, a country brimming with passion for a variety of enigmas such as polka, yerba maté, and the harp makes its Every Genre Project debut today. Across several columns it’s become evident that instrumentation tastes vary widely throughout the Americas, like the accordion’s kingly status king in many popular musical settings throughout South America when it has no foothold in traditional music in the US. Ornate harps functioning as the rhythm section, the percussive tool, and the melody maker all at once in today’s genre is an even more striking curveball.
The harp is a notoriously massive instrument in the orchestral setting, a wonder to behold in part just because of its size. Its height and intimidating amount of strings make it a beast to conquer, and alluring to listen to given its price tag ensures that players dedicate their lives to it. I absolutely adore the sound of the harp and have been fascinated by it since I was quite young, its rapturous, fluttering dreaminess striking quite a chord (my apologies) with me. Though it’s often contemporarily employed as the soundtrack to weddings and characters in TV shows recalling a memory, the harp’s history runs back thousands of years to 5th century BCE Mesopotamia from which the intricate, large instrument prized for its awe-striking sound fanned out both ways of the Middle East. The harp’s stature is such that it gets a Biblical shoutout in the story of King David when he plays it to King Saul to quell his fears of an evil spirit.
Twelve-string diatonic harps and twenty-eight string Gothic harps of reasonable sizes that could be perched and played on one’s lap carried the harp through Europe’s Middle Ages. As the Renaissance catalyzed innovations and fine-tuning of instruments, craftsmen built larger, chromatic-scale harps appropriate for orchestral settings. As if they weren’t already difficult to play, modulating the notes became possible through the addition of levers and pedals in the 17th century. Thanks to these added sonic ranges, the harp became the sound of luxury and the attestation that one had the resources to learn an instrument that required such a time investment—for one, Marie Antoinette was a talented player and composer. Her sponsorship kickstarted a little harp microtrend in Parisian society in the 1780s. Her patronage stimulated the instrument’s greater use among composers. Though these ornate large harps are at the forefront of most conceptions of the instrument, folk harps abound such as in Ireland and in today’s featured country.
How did Paraguay become a country as harp loving as the French queen? Jesuit missions teaching instrument-making to the population with an inexplicable emphasis on harp, innovative instrument design that produced the standard 36-string Paraguayan harp with a light weight ensuring its portability and popularity, and some intangible local penchant for the magical sublimity of the harp are all contributors. The harp is representative of Paraguay’s idiosyncrasies as a culture—it’s really the only South American country to have widespread bilingualism and harmony between the biggest indigenous language Guaraní and Spanish, both being spoken by indigenous and non-indigenous people and converging in a pidgin called Jopala. In a continent where indigenous tongues dying out is rampant, Guarani’s continued widespreadness gleams with hope. As an uncommon instrument with a universally-lauded gorgeous tone, the harp ends up being an apt representation of the rare, beautiful balance between indigenous and colonial elements in Paraguay. Composer José Asunción Flores conceptualized guarania as a music genre that could represent the Paraguayan nation through the distinctive use of the country’s harp in contrast to other popular forms of music in the country like polka. In this video, a harpist plays one of his compositions, demonstrating how guarania transcended the instrument’s traditional uses by exploring vast melodic possibilities through an approach that can both emphasize its traditional sound and innovate such as playing it like a guitar.
Today’s set by Ed Lange and His Trio Andeño is a riveting listen into the sound of Paraguayan pride and an insight into the harp’s spellbinding sound being transmuted into bouncing, skipping, rhythmic musical worlds. The frenzied, upward glissandos of “Dedos Atareados” strike a contrast with the springing, finger-plucked melodies of “En Lo Alto De La Sierrie.” So mineable is the harp’s potential that it’s only rarely that the musicians pull in other elements, such as in the ritualistic drums of “Fuego en los Pies” and occasional leading guitar. The Paraguayan harp’s timbre is gorgeous and rich, the glissandos and grand melodies accessible thanks to the sheer number of strings paired wonderfully with a smoldering tone resembling that of weighty seven-string guitars. Though every album on this column is fascinating, I feel this one is a must-listen for fans of any instrument and especially my fellow harp stans. I will be exploring the next flight to Paraguay.