recurseros, roughly translated as resourceful, and (3)
cachineros, trading and sometimes scavenging for
second hand goods (López, 2008). Contrary to the
position of the avant-garde musician of the global
north who takes a decision towards underground,
DIY, or Lo-Fi cultures, as an ethical declaration of
self-sufficiency, or even as a statement against
academic specialization; the Peruvian sound artist
engages in these practices as a result of a contextual
constrain and in a need to adapt to a continuous state
of social insecurity. Most, if not all, of theses artists
are self-educated in musical technology, but not
necessarily by decision. By the time I presented my
research in 2008, homemade analogic synthesizers,
old drum machines, guitar pedals, and consumer
based second hand cheap electronic keyboards, were
the tools of the trade for experimentation.
Figure 1: El Lazo Invisible, IONAXS, Eric Ravina, and
Paruro, performing at Paruro Street, 2012.
The absence of opportunities to select a personal
computer as the easy solution for musical
composition, affects the musical output being
produced. The level of complexity and variety of the
resulting musical products is determined not by a
knowledge or academic professional training but by
exposure to popular music products from an
international music industry. It is difficult to talk, at
this historical stage, of compositional techniques (in
the traditional academic sense) for electronic music in
Peru, as most of the work done by these underground
communities is based on live improvisation. This
being said, a morphological analysis of the musical
products of these communities is still needed.
While contemporary conditions have changed and
the rapid democratization of access to personal
computers have reached Peru, the lack of
implementation of academic discourses to
accompany the machines, prevents both the amateur
and the academically trained musician from engaging
into an informed musical practice that implements the
aesthetics and conceptual possibilities given by the
machine frameset and its alternative languages. Many
students of music in the country regard the multitrack
Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) as the only
software worthy of attention, and most papers and
undergraduate investigations by the students at the
university level, explore the notions of the home
studio or the complementary capabilities of
technology for the production of music by traditional
instrumentation and harmonic models in a traditional
studio setting.
Having exposed the general circumstances
surrounding the lack of implementation of academic
training related to computer music practices, and
therefore, laptop musical experimentation, an
essential question will always remained unanswered:
given the opportunity for educational training in
computer music issues, would the Peruvian musical
output have dramatically changed? If the country is
now capable of reproducing most foreign musical
styles and confront all the possibilities given by
contemporary musical hardware and software, I
believe a lack of connection with the original
environments for computer music training and
academic exploration has affected dramatically the
way these musical styles are perceived and, therefore,
the probability for novel or innovative practices in the
country. This work explores some of the attempts
being made to change this historical course.
2.2 Accepting the Machine
The Technology Acceptance Model - TAM
developed by Davis (Davis, 1989) attempted to offer
a rationalization of the elements present in computer
acceptance, including the main variables of (1)
Perceived Usefulness, and (2) Perceived Ease of Use.
Venkatesh Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of
Technology (UTAUT), would expand this notion to
the presence of performance expectancy, effort
expectancy, social influence, and facilitating
conditions (Venkatesh et al., 2003). A multitude of
alternative models have been presented in the
following years, and while most of them approach the
problem from a pragmatic perspective not always
applicable to artistic endeavours, what has become
clear is that a multiplicity of factors can disturb the
processes of acceptance (Evwiekpaefe et al., 2018).
In the Peruvian case we face here, the external factors
associated with a reluctance to approach technology
for music composition or interpretation, are not
directly related to the aspects presented in these and
other models, and composers and interpreters