Street roots., June 21, 2013, Page 10, Image 10

Street roots
June 21, 2013
TRASH, from page 10
others not...”
When asked how sound is maintained and
Cola - one of the workers at Cateura with
how instruments are taken care of, Gomez
experience in carpentering - realized the
replied while showing us a violin whose
orchestra’s need for more instruments and
shell was made of tin. He said: “You have to
offered to assist by building them with
tighten the casing well so that it doesn’t
whatever materials he could find. In the
move at a ll... if it moves then it will make a
beginning, the instruments made were
different sound altogether. Recently I have
educational and
been making a living
simple but after
from this, although I
Gomez trained in
° T h e w o r ld s e n d s u s Its
am still a rubbish
stringed instrument
collector.”
construction he built w a s te « W e | I w t h e m b a c k
Building musical
m u s ic « "
the first ever violin
instruments from
from recycled
FAViO SANCHEZ recycled material
F O U N D E R O F T H E R E C Y C L E D IN S T R U M E N T S
materials.
O RCH ESTRA OF C A TEU RA , PA R A G U A Y
resulted in original
Working with
objects with beautiful
Sanchez, Gomez
sounds and increasing
continued to try out
numbers of children
different materials and shapes in order to
and young people wanted to join the
build various instruments and then they
orchestra. The trouble was that the
realized they had an infinite source of
situations the young musicians’ families
materials from the landfill site.
faced often stopped them from having
“We started to look in the piles of rubbish instruments, which held back their musical
as that was where we would find the
development. In addition, the need to
materials that would be of use,” Sanchez
improve their playing required daily practice
explained. “I am this orchestra’s first
with instruments. “We saw ourselves with
musical instrument producer. I now have a
the dilemma of whether or not to give the
workshop in my house and we have already
few conventional instruments that we had to
made lots of violins,” says Gómez. “I have
the children to take them home, with the
access to the landfill, so I go in and look for
risk they would be returned damaged or not
materials... sometimes I’m successful,
at a ll... considering that a conventional
violin costs more than the house of some of
those children,” Sanchez pointed out.
Inspired, in part, by the musicians and
comedic actors from the Argentine comedy-
musical group, Les Luthiers, they began to
experiment. However, the first violin was
not as functional as they had hoped.
Nonetheless, it was useful to show them
what worked and what did not.
Sanchez says participating in the project
“has taught them (the children) many values
necessary to play an instrument in a group:
discipline, responsibility, respect, social
interaction, tolerance, perseverance,
persistence, the desire to study, obedience,
leadership, creativity, sensitivity,
concentration and more.” For Sanchez, the
above list has helped shape the children’s
characters, distinguishing them in a
community dealing with many problems.
“There is a lot of drugs, alcohol, violence
and child labor — many situations that you
would think unsuitable for teaching values
to children. However, they have a place in
the orchestra, like an island within a
community, a place where they can develop
those values,” he says.
Practice eventually led the innovative
musical group to play live concerts and tour,
which required a bigger commitment from
parents.
“For us, putting the children on stage not
only involves putting them on a platform to
play their instruments, but it is
fundamentally about making them and all of
the problems that affect them visible,” says
Sanchez.
Faced with their first big trip abroad, a
show in Buenos Aires, they realised the
majority of the children did not have
identification cards. “Some had not even
been registered as having been born,”
Sanchez explained. Today, all have
documentation including passports and this
pushed siblings, neighbors and relatives of
the children into doing the same.
Sanchez coined a phrase that perhaps
sums up the spirit of the orchestra’s
experience: “The world sends us its waste.
We give them back music.” A proud Sanchez
expressed in conclusion that, “These
children are role models for others of their
age that want to play music and stand out
like them. The children in the orchestra
know that to attain that they must study and
work hard. That is why they have made
having intelligence and talent fashionable,
above and beyond mobile phones or
clothes.”
Translated by Stuart Taylor. Street News
Service, a news collaboration o f the
International Network o f Street Papers.
A craftsman fo r the Recycled Instrum ents Orchestra in Cateura, Paraguay, fashions a discarded fork and other trash into a violin.
It
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