GUATEMALA

Santa cruz la laguna, sololÁ, Guatemala - 2013

The ONE marimba I found at the Museum of Musical Instruments in Antigua, Guatemala.

Guatemala was one of those rare chapters in life that quietly rearranges your insides. I went there expecting a straightforward research trip and ended up with a crash course in growth, humility, and actually listening. I lived in a quaint Mayan village on Lake Atitlán. Accessible only by boat and entirely unmoved by my frantic hunt for the national instrument, the marimba. Two weeks of my precious research window were spent chasing an instrument that simply did. not. exist. in Santa Cruz La Laguna (Academic excellence!). But once I stopped obsessing over what wasn’t there and started using my ears (a revolutionary idea for someone studying music, I know) I realized I was surrounded by sound. Everywhere. Daily life, ritual, celebration, even silence had its own rhythm. That shift led me to explore the roles music plays, both sacred and secular, in contemporary Mayan society. My research was later selected for presentation at the Society of Applied Anthropology’s 2014 annual conference in Albuquerque, NM. Here’s the abstract from that study:

In this paper and drawing upon my research carried out in Summer 2013 I will examine the roles that different types of music play in Santa Cruz La Laguna, Sololá, Guatemala. Specifically, I will describe in depth the different types of sacred music and create a window into the phenomena that is the radio and how it has revolutionized the Soundscape of Santa Cruz. I will also discuss the abundance, importance and ubiquitous nature of music in the small lakeside community (whether it be Evangelical, Catholic, Romantic, Pop, Son or Andean, etc...) and how it provides a key role in the aesthetics of everyday life in Santa Cruz.