What are the instruments in the Peruvian music and the most important Peruvian musical artists?
Music in Peru
Heritage of its multi-colored and multi-cultural history, music (or rather musics) of Peru are an amazingly rich and various.
From the Pre-Inca Period, Andean people kept several instruments: zampoña, this panpipe with which they perform El Condor Pasa; quena, a kind of flute made of wood with a very distinctive sound, charango, kind of mini guitar with 12 strings and very acute harmony and pututo, shell in which they blow inside, like a foghorn. These Andean melodies are still played in every community and support every king of dance: this is the perfect picture we have of Peruvian music. The most well-known is huayno, both typical music and dance in the Andes.
On the other hand, on the coast, influence of Afro-American rhythms is very important: landó, supported with drummers and the typical cajon (sounding box used as a percussion). Two singers embody this musical tendency: Susana Baca, named Minister of Culture in 2011 and Eva Ayllon, both with black African origins, with charisma unparalleled with their pride of their Afro-American origins.
Then, legacy of colony, the musica criolla is a style of music that is always very appreciated by Peruvian people. Raul Garcia Zarate, the best guitarist Peru has ever known, became famous thanks to Creole music. Two singers also deserve to be mentioned, Chabuca Granda and Lucha Reyes, which songs are part of Peruvian classical repertory, that would be for French-speaking Edith Piaf or Jacques Brel.
Apart from these great musical tendencies, the fashionable music is a mixture of several styles. What they name chicha music is a mix between sonorities from Andean instruments, cumbia rhythm coming from Colombia or Bolivia and influences of rock that cross all Latin America, to create the incomparable style of the group Los Shapis.
