Inca Music: El Condor Pasa, The Flight of the Condor

"El Condor Pasa", see an example of the sheet music or a video, is a typical Inca dance, based on authentic Incan folk melodies. Around 1916, Peruvian composer Daniel Alomia Robles notated this popular traditional melody and used it as the basis for an instrumental suite. The English Lyrics, 'If I could, I surely would' words, are by Paul Simon (Simon & Garfunkel)!

The Andean Condor is the world's largest bird of prey that lives in the mountains,  The adult height of this enormous bird is four feet, and it has a wing span of 10 feet. It usually weighs between 20 to 25 pounds. The Andean Condor’s cousin is the California Condor.
See the Andean Condor in Nazca Lines, Sierpinski Triangle and Machu Picchu, and About Peru.

"Inca music often accompanied ritualized religious dancing. Musicians used repetitive rhythms and dissonant tones to induce an almost hypnotic state in the dancers. Inca instruments were made of wood, reeds, pottery, bone, shell, and metal. The Incas played two basic kinds of instruments: wind and percussion. Wind instruments, such as horns and flutes, produce a sound when a musician blows into a tube or hollow chamber. Percussion instruments, such as bells or drums, produce a sound when a musician strikes the instrument. Drums and flutes were the most common instruments used by the Incas. Flutes came in many varieties. The panpipe—a series of cane or pottery flutes tuned to different notes and tied together in a row—are still common in the Andes today." MSN Encarta.

Inca Music according to Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
Inca Music: The New York Times 1920
El Condor Pasa: Lyrics
El Condor Pasa: Music Sheet
El Condor Pasa: Index
 

Videos:
 

El Condor Pasa by: Espiritu Andino, Incas Wasi, Los Incas (Urubamba)-1963 Roxsana Ambicho, The Inkas, Placido Domingo

El Condor Pasa by: Paul Mauriat, Gigliola Cinquetti, Marc Anthony, European version, Los Pasteles Verdes, Agua Marina

El Condor Pasa by: Mariachi Vargas, Chinese version, Simon & Garfunkel, Different versions, Condor Condor Raul Garcia Zarate

Inca Music: from the writings of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1609)

"The Colla Indians and all those in their district had a certain knowledge of music. They played reed or cane instruments, made by joining four or five tubes together, each one of which furnished a higher or lower note than the preceding one, as in the case of organ pipes. There existed four such instruments, each keyed to a higher or lower scale, in the same way as the four human voices: soprano, tenor, contralto, and bass.

When one Indian played, a second answered him, shall we say, in fifths, then a third on another harmony, and the fourth on still another, each one in time. These were professional musicians, who practiced in order to give concerts for the king and nobles of the Empire.

They also had flutes with four or five holes, like those played by shepherds. But since these were never played on in concerts, each player carved his own in his own manner, according to what suited him best. With this flute he accompanied his love songs, which recounted, in even meters, the favors or disfavors of his ladylove.

In the year 1560, when I left Peru, there were five Indians in Cuzco who played the flute so well that they could interpret any piece of organ music you put before them; and today, in 1562, I am told there still exists a considerable number of excellent musicians." The Royal Commentaries of the Inca, Garcilaso de la Vega, 1609. Book II.

Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616) Peruvian-born Spanish soldier, historian, and translator. The son of an Inca princess, he vividly retold Peruvian history and folklore in his Comentarios Reales (1609).

Music of the Incas. The New York Times. Published: January 18, 1920

Carlos Valderrama, a Peruvian pianist and composer, will present some original folk music of South America at his first public appearance here on Wednesday afternoon in Carnegie Hall.

"Inca music," he explained yesterday, " is the natural melody of s great, lost race of Americans, telling the story of their joys and sufferings. To find it I went to the placed where thousands of native Peruvians retreated in the days of the Spanish invasion which destroyed the civilization of the Incas."

Senor Valderrama was born in Trujillo. Peru, and :knew of the existence of this music, for generations sung only by savages in their remote villages. To these he journeyed. He had a guide to take him to the first two tribes, but after that ye went by himself through the almost impenetrable forests. "where one might travel for weeks without seeing the sun."

At every village he persuaded the Indians to play for him their tribal music. Inca music, he said is based on only five notes, played on hollow bamboo rods resembling flutes but yards in length. As the natives play the sound for miles in the high Andes.

El Condor Pasa Lyrics: Quechua, Spanish, English

El Condor asa
A folk lyrics version from the Quechua, the official language of the Inca Empire:

Oh mighty Condor owner of the skies
take me home, up into the Andes, Oh mighty Condor.
 I want go back to my native place to be
with my Inca brothers,
that is what I miss the most, Oh mighty Condor.

Wait for me in Cuzco, in the main plaza,
so we can take a walk in Machu Picchu and Huayna-Picchu