Temazcal

for amplified maracas and tape

Composer: Javier Alvarez
Year: 1984
Duration: 8 minutes

Temazcal by Javier Alvarez is the infamous maraca piece. Scored for solo maraca and electroacoustic sounds, Temazacal brings the listener through a journey of traditional Latin American music (mainly the Venezuelan Joropo style) and more modern electronic sounds, which are derived from traditional sound sources. Instead of strictly notating rhythms, Alvarez instead provides a list of suggested rhthmic patterns that can be improvised into the larger structure of the piece. The piece ebbs and flows through a mix of elctronic and acoustic maraca sounds, before finally settling on a beach somewhere on the Caribbean.

While the setup is small, a performance of Temazcal requires study and practice of traditional Joropo style music. In addition, the performer needs fantastic sounding maracas. I recommend these, which are very expensive, but definitely worth the money.