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​3“The Chinese Food of Ethnic Music” Work​And​VAlue​in​MusicAl​otherness After arriving in Japan, recovering from jet lag, and holding a first rehearsal , we launched into an intense first week of work in which we were giving three performances a day in multiple locations, all in the still scorching summer temperatures. The temporal and physical demands of that first week quickly set a rhythm of activities that would remain with us for the duration of the tour. Music tours are not always the labor of love about which many musicians dream. Repetition dulls the artistic senses and reminds one that this kind of music making is indeed work. Our daily school performances varied little. Although Música de Maestros has a vast repertoire at home, cultural performances in Japan privileged a fixed program, carefully chosen to teach students about cultural differences as encountered through music of this South American country, and to fit within a time frame that was precisely measured to the minute. The occasional full concert program was aimed at a different audience of fans and enthusiasts, but during three months of touring we performed mostly for school children. Knowing the exact time frame for each show, usually forty-five or fifty minutes, Hishimoto would advise us to add this tune here, take out that tune over there, move this way, dance that way. We also changed a few pieces, depending on whether we played for elementary or high school students. In these carefully structured performances we would give the audience a taste of Bolivia’s musical diversity—a kind of cultural quickie in a school assembly before students returned to their studies and we packed up our musical magic and headed for another town. Nearing the end of the tour, I begged Hishimoto to substitute just one piece, any piece within our now well-worn program. “How about something different here, but in the same genre?” I asked. Hishimoto responded by sighing quietly, shaking his head, and telling me that the piece I suggested did not include a part for the bombo—the large goatskin-covered drum. The inclusion of this deeply resonating percussive instrument was considered crucial for animating young audiences at our performances. Disappointed with this response, but respectful of Hishimoto’s decisions Work and Value in Musical Otherness 61 as to what was best for our work on the tour, I mustered up a smile and feigned enthusiasm for performance number seventy-one, playing music that, under different circumstances, is absolutely thrilling to me. I was not alone in this struggle against the monotony of musical repetition , but many musicians who were well seasoned in the challenges of international tours seemed practiced in the acceptance of these conditions .The Japan tour is a temporary job and a relatively well-remunerated one at that. Musicians mentioned receiving individually between $1,000 and $2,500 per month, quoting these sums in dollars. For many musicians, the dangers of boredom on this tour were put in perspective against what is often referred to somewhat disparagingly as “playing on the street” (tocando en la calle). Once again let me call forth the image of that Andean band in the subway station or on the street corner of a cosmopolitan city. I attempted but failed to get interviews with Andean musicians who were performing in the streets of Tokyo. Those I contacted were understandably suspicious of a stranger asking them questions about their work, and I did not have the necessary time in Tokyo to secure their trust. While my fieldwork did not encompass interviews with those who were presently “playing on the street,” musicians often measured their circumstances next to these experiences that most of them knew all too well from previous moments in their lives. For Bolivian musicians, “playing on the street” lurks as a possibility behind all other venues in which Andean music is staged. “Playing on the street” implies uncertainty in everything. Will the police be after them? Will they sell enough recordings to buy a proper meal? (A principal way that street bands make money is by selling their own independently produced recordings.) Where will they sleep at night? When will they make enough money to buy their airline ticket home? Bolivian musicians told me stories about tours that fell apart midway. Promises coaxed them into the international context: a certain number of concerts in theaters, a reasonable short-term living accommodation, the prestige of an international tour, and a respectable...

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