ABSTRACT
The discourse of Latin American difference, that Western construct which imagines the continent as essentially different from Europe and North America, put down deep roots in music history through the genre of the villancico. It is commonly believed that since Latin America includes an Indian component, it must therefore be different from the West. In musical terms, this (prejudiced) idea of difference principally affords the region the possibility of hosting national musics, that is, musics that belong to Latin American nations and are also intrinsically diverse from the Western European tradition, chiefly because of their use of rhythms, motives or themes marked out as non-Western. This way of constructing identity, based upon essentialized difference and, to a certain extent, not managed from within the continent but rather imposed from without, has become a condition for marketing music. Composers whose works fail to exhibit the desired difference are not distributed, performed, nor recorded as much as those that follow the international dictates. While even the staunchest supporters of Latin American’s differential identity have had to recognize the failure 410of much Latin American music to comply with these a priori stereotypes, the notion has served as a guiding force fuelling scholars’ curiosity, defined the questions for them to ask, and completely dictated some of the answers.
