This tune's origins can be traced to the peoples living along the Andes mountains in South America. In the twentieth century it was first popularized by Daniel Alomias Robles, a Peruvian composer who fashioned a work from it ca. 1916. Its treatment of the melody has since served as a model for the many others that have followed. The tune received wide exposure in the 1970 Simon & Garfunkel song "El Condor Pasa." There have been many other recordings of it, both in instrumental and song form, and there was even an arrangement made for the famous children's television program Sesame Street. The melody has an exotic character in its lyrical flow and soaring lonely character. It has an arch-like contour, rising upward and then repeating a descending phrase before concluding with a further downward shift. In the Simon & Garfunkel treatment—and in numerous others—it is enlivened with a beat and colorful instrumentation. The exoticism of the melody invites use of many unusual piped instruments, but its directness and originality also make simple solo versions, like those on guitar, sound perfectly appropriate as well.

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