Prochaine Station

For many years I had been fascinated by the sound of Andean Music and  culture. Consisting of raucous and loud melodies that include a wide variety of traditional instruments, Andean traditional music goes back to before the European discovery of South America. The artist featured in this article, Ramiro, is from Bolivia - one of the most mysterious countries in the world and where life rests upon three pillars: coca, Indian culture and Andean music. Ramiro is a singer, songwriter, musician, from La Paz (Bolivia’s capital), which is 3600 meters above sea level and even gets a mention in the Guiness book of world records for the highest altitude capital in the world. From a very early age, Ramiro developed a passion for music and singing, exhibiting his natural skills in school talent shows and within his community. When Ramiro was 10 years old, he began to play with the zampona, the quena and the charango, three instruments from the Andean region. Later in his c...

After an evening class (duh, thinking about school assignments), our involuntary motor system took us to the Guy-Concordia metro and we were lucky to stumble upon the music emanating from the strings of  Gilbert’s  guitar. The moment we heard his strumming, the memory part of our brains sprung up and made us realize that the idea for this blog had actually been framed after listening to his music a couple of days earlier at Snowdon metro. We stood near him, wondering how this guy plays at such a frenetic rhythm, whilst being in his own realm, oblivious to the surrounding noise of chatter, laughter, hurried footsteps, and people gawking at him. Gilbert opened his eyes and saw two guys with awkward smiles wanting to ask him something (yes, it was us) and cheerfully spoke to us at length. What struck us during our interview was the positivity in his thoughts and action. Gilbert started as a hip-hop artist, who became a dancer and then started playing guitar ten ye...