As a protected species, cardones cannot now be used, for example, for furniture or in house construction. In 2003, UNESCO declared that everything in the Quebrada, including the cardones, was a World Heritage site. That is why I say we have to mix up, and that is for me a cultural action, to mix different discourses and make a single one.” I think that for any jujeño and especially any humahuaqueño, from the region of the Quebrada, a cardón is a part of your family.”īaliero emphasizes the idea that musical discourse should not be exclusive in any way (be it an orchestra of Germans or of copleras), and that “any musician with a sensibility can play a cactus rather well.” In a private in-depth interview on April 2014, she observed, “If the coplera wants, for example, to do contemporary music, and play Luigi Nono, why shouldn’t she? A poor person must be folkloric, s/he cannot be modern, and that’s how it is. It is like a witness or buoy that indicates where there was life. Underneath, there is history, and that’s where the cactus comes from. Because if underneath lie biological residues, this means that you can have a Spaniard, a coplera, a guaraní, a llama. They stand like sentinels everywhere, watching. Observes Baliero, “The cardones look like soldiers they appear to be the guardians of history. When talking to people from Jujuy, I often heard them mention an unlikely historical anecdote: that during the Spanish conquest, people used to dress up the cactuses to swell the appearance of their ranks. Baliero voices the possibility of a “hidden discourse of the cardón.”Ĭarmen Baliero, Fernando Ariki and author Violeta Nigro Giunta perpare a cardón for playing. This means that under each cactus there is the residue of something that was once alive, bringing to mind the idea that the cactus will not only make sounds but also speak. They grow on hillsides, emerging from biologic residues in the land. The cardones are silent and they live in a silent geography, a silent landscape. These microphones (as well as the eventual lighting and use of electricity in general) cause minimum disruption to both the cactus and the environment. For these sounds to have a better projection, they have to be amplified with contact microphones (pickups or piezos) placed on the cactus. The three basic sounds that come from these cactuses, filled with water, are from plunking the thorns (which have different pitches depending on their sizes) from drawing a bow across these thorns and from stroking the “body” of the plant with drumsticks. Seeing these amazing plants, Baliero imagined what they would sound like. Photo by Julien Hogert.Ĭan cactuses make music? The answer is definitely yes.Īrgentine experimental composer Carmen Baliero took a look at cardones, a species of gigantic cactus (some are over 32 feet) that flourish in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, in Jujuy, Argentina. Argentine experimental composer Carmen Baliero makes music on a gigantic cactus in the desert.
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