Andean Music and its Relationship with the Community, Nature, and the Cosmos

Abstract

The article “Andean music and its relationship with the community, nature, and the cosmos” explores the deep connection between Andean music and the worldview of the peoples who inhabit the Andes mountain range. Using an ethnomusicological and therapeutic approach, it analyzes how Andean music transcends its aesthetic dimension to become a means of spiritual, communal, and healing communication. It highlights its links with natural cycles, agricultural rituals, and collective practices that strengthen identity and social cohesion. The text proposes integrating Andean sounds into contemporary music therapy, recognizing their potential to promote emotional regulation, community belonging, and identity re-signification. It also raises the need for interculturaland decolonial music therapy that values ancestral knowledge and avoids exoticizing or reductionist views. In this sense, Andean music is presented as a therapeutic and cultural resource of enormous relevance, capable of articulating the relationship between the human, the natural, and the cosmic.

Editorial Comment

The author, musician, and psychologist from the northern region of Potosí, who lives and works in La Paz, Bolivia, offers us a characterization of the music of the Andes region. Music is present in rituals, in communication with ancestors, in the cycles ofnature, and in its capacity for dialogue with other types of music.The notion of sonic identity allows Julio to explore the strong relationship between the Andean soundscape and the personal and cultural identity of those who participate in musical experiences in that context.