Existe evidencia que respalda la implementación de intervenciones basadas en música en la modulación cognitiva, atribuyendo su efecto al estado emocional que las piezas musicales pueden inducir: activación o relajación psicofisiológica. En la literatura, suelen utilizarse piezas de repertorio europeo; sin embargo, se desconoce si es posible alcanzar efectos semejantes utilizando piezas de un repertorio culturalmente más próximo a la población argentina. Para abordar este interrogante, se seleccionaron sistemáticamente 32 piezas latinoamericanas consideradas activantes y relajantes. Luego de un análisis de aspectos musicales, sociales y emocionales, se eligieron 24 piezas representativas de ambas categorías. Posteriormente, 252 jóvenes de nacionalidad argentina de una media de edad de 28.96 (DE = 0.2) las evaluaron mediante una escala de nueve puntos, indicando cuán excitante o relajante (arousal) y cuán feliz o triste (valencia) resultaba cada pieza. Sin encontrar diferencias por origen (Europeo vs Latinoamericano), se halló que las piezas activantes resultaron más excitantes [F(3,28) = 57.13, p < .001, ?²p = .860] y felices [F(3,28) = 15.27, p < .001, ?²p = .621] que las relajantes. Estos hallazgos indican que las piezas latinoamericanas seleccionadas inducen estados emocionales comparables a las piezas europeas utilizadas habitualmente, permitiendo contar con herramientas de investigación más cercanas a la población. Palabras clave Intervención musical - Respuesta emocional - Música latinoa- mericana - Percepción musical ABSTRACT EMOTIONAL EFFECT OF LATIN AMERICAN MUSICAL PIECES. BUILDING REGIONAL TOOLS Existing evidence supports the use of music-based interventions in cognitive modulation, attributing its effect to the emotional state induced by musical pieces: psychophysiological arousal or relaxation. In the literature on this topic, commonly European repertoire’s pieces are used; however, it remains unknown if it is possible to achieve similar effects employing pieces of a culturally closer repertoire to the Argentinian population. To address this question, there were systematically selected 32 Latin American pieces which were accounted as arousing or relaxing. After a musical, social and emotional analysis, there were chosen 24 pieces which were representative of each category. Then, 252 Argentinian young adults with a median age of 28.96 (SD = 0.2) evaluated the pieces through a nine-point scale, indicating how exciting or relaxing (arousal) and how happy or sad (valence) were each piece. No differences were found by origin (European vs Latin American), but it was found that arousing pieces were more exciting [F(3,28) = 57.13, p < .001, ?²p = .860] and happier [F(3,28) = 15.27, p < .001, ?²p = .621] than relaxing ones. These findings show that selected Latin American pieces induce similar emotional states than commonly used European pieces, providing investigation tools closer to population. Keywords Music-based intervention - Emotional response - Latin American