Bolivian Musician Piraí Vaca Shares Technique, Advice With Performance Studies Students
Bolivian musician Piraí Vaca shared stories about his music and his career and demonstrated his guitar technique with students in performance studies classes on July 10.
Vaca’s visit to Texas A&M University was held in conjunction with his sold-out Texas debut at Grand Stafford Theater in Downtown Bryan on July 8, co-presented by the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts.
The acclaimed classical guitarist, known for his performances of Bolivian music and his spin on classic rock songs, studied music in Argentina, Cuba, Germany and the United States. He earned a bachelor’s degree in music, specializing in guitar, at the University of Arts of Cuba, and a graduate degree in Renaissance music. Vaca shared his appreciation of the learning process during his visit.
“I love to work with students,” Vaca said. “I love to hear what they like, what they want in their own lives. And it’s not only about music. It’s about life. There is always a way to relate what I do with whatever we’re talking about.”
Students in three performance studies courses — Music and Human Experience, History of Rock and Performance in World Cultures — attended Vaca’s appearances at the Harrington Education Center Classroom building, getting an opportunity to connect with the musician and his work.
In both sessions, Vaca performed three songs and offered commentary that highlighted his technique and the significance of the music.
With the classical Bolivian song “Alta Paz,” Vaca explained its origins. La Paz is the capital of Bolivia, a city high in the Andes Mountains. “Paz” is Spanish for “peace,” and Vaca said the song “refers to your inner peace.”
Vaca performed Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” showing how he can translate complex rock songs into solo guitar covers.
For “Thunderstruck,” Vaca demonstrated how he broke it down into different parts, splitting the riffs and melodies with hands, along with tapping on the guitar between strums to create a percussion sound. He explained how he removed parts of the original song and added some of his own to make his guitar sound more like a full band.
“It was just an amazing experience seeing him describe the instruments and how he was able to play four instruments at the same time: two guitars at once, one drum and then sing all at the same time,” said freshman biology major Alek Gonzalez. “It just brought it all together.”
Vaca credited his classical studies for his ability to compose intricate covers of popular songs.
“Of course, all of that knowledge I can use to make these arrangements and to play them beautifully, but that’s the point,” Vaca said.
For students interested in pursuing careers in music, Vaca explained the importance of self-management. He was his own manager when he was starting out, and explained how he attracted attention by reaching out to newspapers and TV stations, hanging up posters to promote his shows and inviting his friends to attend. Hard work was the key to building a career, he said.
Students interested in other areas found applicable advice for their future careers. Xiomara Soto, a freshman public health major, said Vaca’s words resonated in thinking about her path ahead as a nursing student.
“The piece of advice that he gave us was just to not lose ourselves to our careers and to continue having a passion for things and hobbies,” Soto said. “I’m hoping to continue to have a hobby that can get me through the hard years that I’m going to go into.”
Vaca said he hoped students would walk away with new ideas about what is possible with a guitar, and that he hoped students connected with his art.
“I’m pretty sure they will get something from their hearts,” Vaca said. “They will get something from their mind, which is very important for me, and something also metaphysical. These are the three important things for me — your emotions, your logical thinking and also this metaphysical thing.”
Matthew Campbell, lecturer for the History of Rock course, said experiential activities are a large part of what he tries to achieve within his classroom, so having Vaca visit was “a gift.” Campbell appreciated Vaca’s message to the students about staying true to themselves.
“I really liked that Mr. Vaca talked specifically about that quiet inner voice whispering at you at all times, and to keep hold of that,” Campbell said. “It’s very easy to sort of sink into your major and focus on that exclusively, but hopefully classes like these and other classes in performance studies are ones that allow you to look outside of yourself and see other perspectives.”
