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Music of El Dorado: the Ethnomusicology of Ancient South American Cultures. - book review

By Dale A. Olsen University Press of Florida (Gainesville, FL), 2002, ISBN 0813024404, 320 pages, hbk., $55.00

If you ever tried to pull sound from a dove-, frog- or turtle-shaped clay ocarina or tried the South American panpipes, you were putting your lips in touch with a thousand-year-old tradition. Music of El Dorado by Dale A. Olsen, is a fascinating exploration into the use, meaning and sounding of ancient American wind instruments: a decades-long journey into archaeo-ethnomusicology. There are thousands and thousands of ceramic works depicting ancient South American musicians; what do they mean? Whom do they represent?

In traditional cultures, music is not mere diversion, but is wept and warf of the social and spiritual world of the people. The sounds, the instruments that make them, and their representations (clay figures, paintings) all have meanings we may never glean, but hope to understand.

This work is not mere intellectual conjecture, but is steeped in fieldwork in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and among some of the best and largest collections of Meso- and South American artifacts. A classically-trained flutist as well as an ethnomusicologist who has spent thirty years studying the musical instruments of ancient South American cultures, Olsen was not trapped by his training. He notes that just because an instrument has holes like a flute, one should not assume they know how to play it. He allowed his research to answer the questions and not his own past experiences. Olsen also studied with traditional elders and shamans, such as Eduardo Calderon of Las Delicias, Peru. He examined literally thousands of artifacts, and shares his conjectures and conclusions in this book, a job well done.

Olsen wants people to access this information. He created a web page with extra information, illustrations and sound samples to compliment the book. There are fifty-two MP3 files you can download, featuring examples of some of the possible sounds emitted by the flutes shown in the book. It's fun to read about a 900-year-old flute, and then go on-line and hear, if not how it was played, at least what sounds it may make.

The nearly 300-page book is organized into three major sections. Part I, "Prelude," discusses Olsen's influences and methodology, defines his terms, and sets the stage for the discussion of his engaging findings. Part II, "Musical Topical Studies," lets you in to get a "feel" for the instruments themselves. Part III consists of case studies of the different peoples who created these ancient instruments.

The whole book is full of amazing photographs of flutes and ocarinas, and pots and bowls stunningly decorated with musicians, or even shaped like musicians, conch trumpets or drums. It reminds us of the magic in music; keep the magic alive.