Bibliography of Maya Music, especially musical Instruments

We list theses, PhD dissertations, articles, and web sites which are not just copy-and-paste from others. We indicate where you can download free copies (when they are available).

In addition to doing reading on Maya Music, visit Casa K’ojom Musica Maya

Even though I was a student intern at Bonampak already in 1962 (a while ago), and even though I have been at Bonampak many times since then, it still helps to visit a museum with the actual Maya musical instruments.

We at FLAAR recommend you visit Casa K’OJOM, a museum of Maya music. This is a few minutes outside Antigua. I have been there twice and we appreciate the hospitality of the manager and staff there.

www.Kojom.org is their web site.

You can also see ceramic musical instruments at the National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, near the Guatemala City airport. And you can see other ceramic musical instruments such as ocarinas, and flutes at the Museo Popol Vuh, Universidad Francisco Marroquin.

• ALFARO, Daniel
• 1982
• Folk Music of the Yucatan Peninsula, PhD dissertation. University of Colorado.
  
  

• ANLEU DÍAZ, Enrique
• 1940
• Historia de la música en Guatemala. Guatemala Tipografía Nacional 1986. De las paginas 133-140.
  
  

• ARRIVILLAGA CORTÉS, Alfonso and STÖCKLI, Matthias
• 2007
• Por los senderos de la música 30 años del Área de Etnomusicología. Centro de Estudios Folklóricos, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala.
  
  NOTA: Disponible en línea
  http://c3.usac.edu.gt/admin_revindex/articulos/editor5-r364_pi9_pfi18_ra7141.pdf

• BOURG, Cameron Hideo
• 2005
• Ancient Maya Music Now with Sound. MA thesis, Dept. of Foreign Languages and Literatures. 77 pages.
  
  NOTE: Surprisingly few illustrations and effectively no photographs.
  

• CASTILLO, Jesús
• 1891
• La música maya quiché: región de Guatemala. Guatemala: Piedra Santa, 142 paginas.
  
  

• Calavan, Jeff and JoAnn Calavan
• 2005
• “Native American Flutes.” The Oregon Flute Store..
  
  Available online:
  www.oregonflutestore.com/flutes.htm

• Campbell, Karen
• 2000
• Sculpture and music in one object. The Christian Science Monitor. 6.
  
  Available Online:
  http://csmonitor.com/cgibin/durableRedirect.pl?/durable
  /2000/09/06/fp17s1-csm.shtml

• CONTRERAS ARIAS, Juan Guillermo
• 1988
• Atlas cultural de México. Música. Secretaría de Educación Pública-Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia-Editorial Planeta, México, D.F.
  
  

• CONTRERAS ARIAS, Juan Guillermo
• 1994
• La colección de instrumentos musicales del CENIDIM. Bibliomúsica 7: 49-54.
  
  

• CRESSON, H. T.
• 1884
• Construction of ancient Mexican Terracotta Pitch Pipes and Flageolets. The American Naturalist. 8: 498-510.
  
  

• DE GANDARIAS IRIARTE, Igor
• 2015
• Aspectos fenomenológicos del son guatemalteco tradicional. Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. Vol. 2, 2409-3475
  
  

• Donahue, John A.
• 2000
• Applying Experimental Archaeology to Ethnomusicology: Recreating an ancient Maya Friction Drum through Various Lines of Evidence.
  
  Available Online:
  www.mayavase.com/frictiondrum.html

• DUKE, Bethany
• 2014
• Palatial Soundscapes: Music in Maya Court Societies. MA thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 122 pages.
  
  NOTE: Free Download
  http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/25824/DUKE-THESIS-2014.pdf?sequence=1

• FLORES DORANTES, Felipe and FLORES GARCÍA, Lorenza
• 1981
• Organología aplicada a instrumentos musicales prehispánicos. Silbatos mayas. Colección Científica No. 107. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México, D. F.
  
  

• FLORES DORANTES, Felipe and FLORES GARCÍA, Lorenza
• 1984
• Clasificación musical de silbatos prehispánicos mayas. Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología, Pages 439-446.
  
  

• FRANCO A., Samuel
• Although only 44 pages is very informative.
  
  NOTE: Free download from several places, including Casa Kojom.
  www.kojom.org/archivosarchives.html

• HAMMOND, Norman
• 1972
• Classic Maya Music: Drums. Archaeology, Vol. 25, 124-131. Part I
  
  1972 Classic Maya Music: Rattles, Raspers, Flutes and Trumpets. Archaeology, Vol. 25, 222-228 Part II
  
  

• Harcourt, R. d’
• 1930
• “L’ocarina à cinq sons dans l’Amérique préhispanique.” Journal de la Société des Américanistes. XXII.
  
  

• Harcourt, R. d’
• 1941
• “Sifflets et ocarinas du Nicaragua et du Mexique.” Journal de la Société des Américanistes. XXXIII.
  
  

• HEALY, Paul F.
• 1988
• Music of the Maya. Archaeology 41(1):24-31.
  
  

• HOUSTON, Stephen
• 2008
• The xa syllable as an example of onomatopoeia?
  
  Online:
  https://decipherment.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/the-xa-syllable-as-an-example-of-onomatopoeia/

• Joyce, T. A.
• 1933
• The Pottery Whistle-Figurines of Lubaantun. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. LXIII: xv-xxv.
  
  

• LOOPER, Matthew
• 2009
• To be like Gods: Dance in Ancient Maya Civilization. University of Texas Press. 269 pages.
  
  

• MARTI, Samuel
• 1968
• Instrumentos musicales precortesianos. 378 páginas.
  
  

• MARTI, Samuel
• Canto, danza y música precortesianos. Fondo de Cultura Económica
  
  

• Menchaca García, Rolando and Roberto Velázquez Cabrera
• 2000
• Análisis Acústicos de Artefactos Sonoros de Viento del México Antiguo.
  
  Available at
  http://mx.geocities.com/curinguri/Azul80.pdf

• MILLER, Mary
• 1986
• The Murals of Bonampak. Princeton University Press.
  
  This is based on her PhD dissertation.
  
  

• MILLER, Mary
• 1988
• Boys in the Bonampak Band. En Maya Iconography (editado por E. P….
  
  

• MILLER, Mary
• Bonampak
  
  This is based on work after her PhD research, including continued cooperation with INAH.
  
  In addition to her PhD dissertation, Mary Miller (Yale University) has published two large monographs on the musicians shown in the murals of Bonampak.
  
  I must admit that I really like these murals, since at age 17 I worked as a student volunteer for the INAH Bonampak project. I was staying in a hotel in Tenosique Mexico and I overheard people talking about Maya archaeology so I introduced myself and said that I had visited Palenque at age 16 (by myself, as a backpacker). Based on my visit to Palenque I had returned to high school and written my high school thesis on the Maya. It won first prize and I got into Harvard. So I returned to Mexico at age 17 (so before I was at Harvard as a freshman) and by coincidence was in the same hotel as the INAH group. They accepted my offer as a volunteer. So they flew me to a landing strip in the Lacandon forest. From there we hiked many kilometers to Bonampak. Like everyone else I helped carry baggage.
  
  I stayed at Bonampak about a week to help set up things. Then I asked if I could continue my studies of the Maya by going to Yucatan to learn about Puuc architecture. So I wandered back and then explored Labna, Sayil, etc (a tad remote in 1962).
  
  One thing led to another and I held three post-graduate research positions at Yale (after graduating from Harvard and with an MA degree from Brown). I then was in Graz, Austria and got invited by the professor there to enter their art history PhD program, so got my PhD there, with 8 years research on Mayan iconography and cosmology.
  
  

• O’BRIEN, Linda
• 1975
• Songs of the Face of the Earth: Ancestral Songs of the … Maya. PhD dissertation, UCLA.
  
  

• Pacheco Silva, Mónica and Gonzalo Sánchez Santiago
• 2011
• Los instrumentos musicales mayas en el Museo de Etnología de Hamburgo. (Editado por B. Arroyo, L. Paiz, A. Linares y A. Arroyave), pp. 909-922. Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala.
  
  NOTA:
  www.asociaciontikal.com/pdf/74._Pacheco_Sanchez_rev.pdf

• Payne, Richard W. and John D. Hartley
• 1992
• Precolumbian Flutes of Mesoamerica. The American Musical Instrument Society. 18: 22-61.
  
  

• RIVERA Y RIVERA, Roberto
• 1980
• Los instrumentos musicales de los Mayas. SEP INAH, Mexico D.F. With photographs by Nicholas Hellmuth, FLAAR.
  
  

• ROSSAL S.J., Roberto
• 1988
• Aproximación a la música vernácula de Guatemala: un ensayo bibliográfico, en busca de nuestra identidad nacional. Guatemala Serviprensa Centroamericana. Universidad de Texas. Páginas 125.
  
  

• SANCHEZ SANTIOGO, Gonzalo A.
• 2010
• Las culturas musicales en el Itsmo de Tehuantepec. Una aproximación antropológica a los instrumentos musicales prehispánicos. Tesis de maestría inédita, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología social, Oaxaca.
  
  

• SANCHEZ SANTIOGO, Gonzalo A.
• 2005
• Los artefactos sonorous del Oaxaca prehispanico.
  
  NOTE: Our focus is on musical instruments of the Classic Maya, but when a book of this class is available on music of other pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica, we feel it should also be mentioned, especially when the entire book is available on-line (at no cost).
  http://en.calameo.com/read/0013822512e08965bbdca

• SAPPER, Carl
• 2006
• Música tradicional de las tribus indias de la Mesoamérica septentrional. En Etnomusicología en Guatemala (editado por Matthias Stöckli y Alfonso Arrivillaga cortés). Tradiciones de Guatemala 66. Páginas de 101-108
  
  

• SAVILLE, M. H.
• 1986
• A primitive Maya Musical Instrument. The American Anthropolgist (sic), Vol. X, August 1896, pp. 272-273.
  
  Describes a rudimentary stringed instrument named hool. 98% of all discussions of Classic Maya music say there were no stringed instruments before the arrival of the Spaniards.
  
  Free download:
  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1525/aa.1897.10.8.
  02a00010/asset/aa.1897.10.8.02a00010.pdf;jsessionid=883
  0ED17528E515E070C4F6CDDDFA533.f03t04?v=1&t=j7
  hg9mr0&s=c688b98a8dbe61feebe5dfb838c291d37dd0683
  4&systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+unavailable
  +on+Saturday+and+Sunday+i.e+16th+and+17th+September
  +at+3%3A00+EDT+%2F+8%3A00+BST+%2F+12%3A30
  +IST+%2F+15%3A00+SGT+for+5+hours+and+3hours+for
  +essential+maintenance.+Apologies+for+any+inconvenienc
  e+caused+.

• SAVILLE, M. H.
• 1898
• The Musical Bow in Ancient Mexico. American Anthropologist, Vol. 11, No. 9 (Sep., 1898), pp. 280-284.
  
  More debate on whether the Q’eqchi’ (Kekchi) and Yucatec had stringed instrument before the arrival of European musical instruments with the Spanish conquest. But subsequent research documents that the codex figure at the far right was eroded and repainted for an illustration (Stevenson 1968: 23ff).
  
  Free to view on the Internet:
  www.jstor.org/stable/658759?seq=5#page_scan_tab_contents

• STEVENSON, Robert
• 1968
• Music in Aztec & Inca Territory. University of California Press.
  
  

• STÖCKLI, Mattias
• 2006
• Etnomusicología en Guatemala. Guatemala: Centro de Estudios Folklóricos, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala.
  
  

• STÖCKLI, Matthias
• 2005
• ¿Una música maya prehispánica? Incursiones en la arqueomusicología. Centro de Estudios Folklóricos Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. Conferencias del Museo Popol Vuh. 6 páginas.
  
  

• STÖCKLI, Mattias
• Iconographies Musical. Has no date, no publishing info.
  
  www.famsi.org/reports/03101es/55stockli/55stockli.pdf

• TOZZER, Alfred M.
• 1941
• Landa’s Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán: A translation. Kraus, New York.
  
  Shortly after the conquest Bishop Diego de Landa observed and wrote about the Yucatec Maya people and their way of life.
  
  

• Velázquez Cabrera, Roberto
• 2004
• Virtual Analysis of Maya Trumpets: Hom-Tahs of Bonampak.
  
  Available Online:
  http://tlapitzalli.com/rvelaz.geo/bonampak/hom.html
  www.geocities.com/rvelaz.geo/bonampak/hom.htm

• YURCHENCO, Hennrietta
• Music of the Maya-Quichés of Guatemala: The Rabinal Achí and Baile de la Canastas.
  
  

www.chicospl.com/estrellas/instrumentos-musicales-mayas/
Has a nice list, intelligently organized into percussion instruments and wind instruments.

http://culturalvitality.org/mayan-chirimia-drum/
Mayan Chirimia and Drum music, with a short recording.

www.deguate.com/artman/publish/hist_losmayas/instrumentos-musicales-de-los-antiguos-mayas.shtml
Instrumentos musicales de los antiguos mayas. Summary; no photos.

www.kojom.org
This is the web site of the best museum of Maya music which we have found so far in Guatemala.

Centro Cultural La Azotea, final calle del cementerio, Jocotenango, Sacatepéquez, Guatemala,C.A. tel (502) 7831 1486- tel/ fax (502) 7831 1483, email: [email protected]

http://raicestabasco.blogspot.com/2010/03/instrumentos-musicales-de-los-chontales.html
No photographs, and list is not everything which the Maya had 2000 years ago, but is nonetheless a helpful resource.

http://solo-de-interes.blogspot.com/2011/02/la-chirimilla-y-el-tum-musica-maya.html
Has a nice soundtrack.

http://vosytuguatechula.jimdo.com/instrumentos-autoctonos/
Since this has actual photographs for each and every musical instrument, this web page, albeit basic, is one of the most helpful.

http://yaashtun.blogspot.com
Shows lots of CDs and photos of local groups recreating pre-Columbian music. To judge the authenticity, I would have to see and hear in person.

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=85d4fd41-5b32-4e36-b73f-2933664ca514%40sessionmgr102
Fragmento de revista Cultura de Guatemala, propiedad de la Universidad Rafael Landivar.

http://www.mayankids.com/mmkpeople/mkmusic.htm
Explicación música para niños

https://newmedia.ufm.edu/video/sonidos-del-pasado-investigaciones-sobre-la-musica-maya/
Video of a lecture on Maya music by Vanessa Rodens.

• OBREGON Clairin, Claudio
• 2012
• Ik' B'alam - Tambor de Cuerda Maya.
  
  Video Online:
  www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_q2OAz_x2w

http://literaturaymundomaya.blogspot.de/2012/08/el-tambor-de-cuerda-maya.html
Text which discusses the identical Maya case is as a document; not a video

https://christophergarciamusic.weebly.com/indigenous-instruments-images-to-delete.html
Has links to five or six videos with pre-Columbian music (mostly Aztec, but they had pretty much the same instruments as the Classic Maya).

www.kojom.org/archivosarchives.html
Has links to six mp3 sound tracks.

www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/music/conch-trumpet
A capable musician playing a conch shell instrument, however in a very modern manner (different than usually played, in part because this individual clearly knows modern music).

• ALVAREZ, Cristina
• Diccionario etnolingüístico del idioma maya yucateco colonial, Volume 3.
  
  

Luis Mendez;
https://vibrararte.wordpress.com/instruments/instrumentos/trompeta10-2/
Photo of Maya trumpet made of quiote of pulque maguey (Agave salmiana). But no information of by whom or how.

Posted mid-February 2018.