Argentine Folklore as a method of Governmental Resistance
The right to freely express your thoughts and musical ideas is something that is often taken for granted in this country. How does a community who thrives on this freedom react when it is forcefully taken away from them? There are many who hide and practice their passion in secret or not at all. Then there are those who take their passion and actively resist the unfair rules by utilizing their music to do so. When this happened to the Argentine Folk Music community they responded with the utmost determination to uphold their beloved cultural values of music. They would perform songs that were banned and speak out about the government. They didn’t care about the consequences as they believed in their freedom of speech and actively disobeyed a terrifying fascist government.
El Humahuaqueńo and its respective genre Argentine Folk music, has been utilized to fight unfair regimes and resist musical oppression laws. While the resistance theory usually involves slaves and masters, Argentine folk music instead portrays the valiant oppressed musical artists against the tyranny of fascism and musical repression who not only bans certain songs but also executes artists for controversial lyrics. My artist, and other Argentine artists are able to resist through their music by openly expressing their opinions over the constant repetition of rhythmic and melodic guitar strumming and defiant lyrics that both soothes the soul and openly defies the government.
Octavio Corvalan was a pioneer in the Folk Music Genre, before him, folk music was hardly ever recorded anywhere in Argentina. His careful and melodic repetitive guitar strumming that would shape its tempo and sound around the lyrics, would be revolutionary for folklore. Corvalan, especially in his song, El Humahuaqueno, demonstrates the unique technique of playing the guitar and his voice off of each other in order to better tell the story. When Corvalan’s voice goes soft so does the guitar and when it gets louder so does the guitar. This helps set the mood for the listener and broadcasts his song across multiple languages as you can feel the rises and falls in the story through the tempo of the guitar. Corvalan stressed the importance of the music not over powering the story and vice versa. The repetition of the guitar helps to better get his story across as it sticks in the listeners head. These techniques set the bar for people to have a platform for resistance through folklore. Octavio Corvalan, through his musical techniques, enabled himself and many other artists to utilize Argentine Folklore as a method of resistance against the government,
