Mexican Folk Music - Midterm
High Note
A high note is a note which has a sharper and piercing quality to it. It is often said to be placed in what is called an upper register. These notes can be utilized in order to emphasize certain emotions or ideas, since it has a more piercing sound.
Key
A key is a specific scale or series of notes defining a particular tonality. Keys maybe defined as major or minor and are named after there tonic or keynote.
Bernard Sahagun
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Danzón
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Jarabes
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Las Neridas
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Manuel Ponce
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Mariachi Tapatio
A Son Jalisciense band which contributed to the Son Abajeño style through their famous performance of La Negra. The word Tapatio refers to Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco and the home of the group's founder Francisco Marmolejo. The group was founded after Marmolejo began his career performing vihuela with his uncle Cirilo Marmolejo, the founder of Mariachi Coculense. The enjoyed being hosted by Eusebio Acosta Velzco at fiestas for the city and in his home. Tapatío was the first mariachis to include trumpet, and we can hear Jesús Salazar playing it in "La Negar." Other instruments include two violins, two vihuelas, and one guitarrón. This early mariachi did not feature guitars.
Aerophone
A category for an instrument tat produces sound by the vibration of a reed or air by pressure. These instruments were constructed and played by the indigenous people of Mexico, and also by the conquistadors in the 16th century. The indigenous peoples used many different aerophones that were carefully and ornately designed in order to represent a certain animal through the tone and look of the instrument. Some indigenous aerophones include: the chichitli (whistle flutes), cocolocti (buzzing, reed flute), huilacapitztli (ocarinas and vessel flutes), tlapitzalli (clay duct flutes, may have multiple chambers or pipes), and tepuzquiquiztli (copper or gourd trumpets)
Chordophone
A category for an instrument that produces sound by the vibration of a string or cord. These instruments were typically nonexistent before the coming of the conquistadors in the 16th century. They brought over many different chordophones that became incorporated into many different regional styles of music.
Idiophone
A category for an instrument that produces sound by the vibration of the body of the entire instrument. These instruments were more commonly found in the indigenous peoples in Mexico before the arrival of the conquistadors. Some indigenous videophones are: ayacachtli (gourd rattles), ayotl (turtle shell), cacalachtli (rattle of clay vessel with seeds inside), chicahuaztli (a long pole representing a ray from the sun, filled with seeds and played like a rattle during rituals), chililitli (copper disks struck with mallets), coyolli (metal bells, or cocoon rattles - often strapped to the legs of dances), omichicauaztli (a rasp made from a deer bone), teponaztli (log drum, some with appended gourd resonators called tecomapiloa), and tetzilacatl (metal gongs).
Membranophone
A category for an instrument that produces sounds by the vibration of a tightly drawn skin or membrane. These instruments were commonly found in the indigenous peoples in Mexico before the arrival of the conquistadors. The Africans that arrived during the trans-Atlantic slave trade during the later second millennium brought these instruments to New Spain and became adopted by some regions and composers. Some indigenous Membranophones include: the huehuetl (single-headed drum with carved wooden base) and variants thereof, such as the panhuetl.
Composition
A composition is any work or musical production.
Macuilxochitzin
A princess poet-singer who lived in the middle of the 15th century. She is described by ancient historian, Ixtililsochitl of Texcoco, as wise and as competent as the king and with more knowledge of his rule, her poetry was most adventurous. She was born in 1435 of the fifth day of the flower month, hence her name meaning Five Flower, as the the daughter of a powerful advisor to Aztec Kings. She lived her life in the splendor of the court at Tenochtitlan. Her song, Macuilxochitzin icuic (Song of Macuilxóchitl) , continues by documenting the victory of her people, the Aztec leader over the fierce Otomi people, including a verse celebrating the women who aided in the victory.
Scale
A series of notes in ascending or descending order that presents the pitches of a key or mode, beginning and ending on the tonic of that key or mode. The degrees of a scale have specific names shown below and act of the unique 12 notes of the chromatic scale can be the tonic note of a scale.
Melody
A succession of tones comprised of mode, rhythm and pitches so arranged as to achieve musical shape.
Romance
According to Bernal Diaz de Castillo, the romance, the ballad song and ancestor to the modern corrido, was one of the most popular song type enjoyed by the Spanish conquistador Cortez and his men. The romance "Delgadina is one of the oldest and most widely circulated of these old poetic songs. It tales the subject of love, power and treachery in aristocratic quarters. These toes are sung in strict poetic and musical form of thirty-two syllable stanzas.
Vice Royalty of New Spain
After the defeat of Cuauhtemoc, Spain established Mexico City as a principal seat of the Vice-Royal Kingdom. Americans often refer to the period before independence as the colonial period but the distinction between a colony and a vice kingdom is important. This Vice-Royalty saw themselves as an extension of the Spanish court of Madrid, and Cortez and his men sought to recreate its splendors in New Spain. This imperial rule was link to religious order.
Indigenous
Although many areas of academia have focused on the history of mexico after Mexican independence and the revolution in 1910, the books attempts to link the indigenous culture with the present culture and society.
Waltz
An extremely popular ballroom dance of the 19th century in triple meter. The waltz is performed in a slow or fast triple meter known as a Viennese Waltz. This triple meter that is found in the waltz is also an aspect of the Sandunga.
Cancion Ranchera
Cancion Ranchera is a genre of Mariachi, that was popularized by film and radio of the 1930s. In film the rural-life was idealized by Urbanites through ranchera. It typically involves a triple meter or fast duple meter. It also involves the lyrical emphasis on the idealized rural life-style. It also features the Guitarron providing the downbeat and base note of the chord and the vihuela provides the rhythmic accompaniment.
Criollos
Ciollos or Creoles were native born descendants of Spaniard, who were next in social status to the Peninsulares, followed by various stations of mestizo descendants of Spanish-Iberian intermarriage.
La Plaza - Evaristo Aguilar
Compose in Huejutla, Hidalgo and Axtla de Terrazas, San Luis Potosi. These songs express his love for the Huastecan region of Mexico which he grew up. This song uses free meter as well as a six-eight meter. This song tests the definitions of what music is. It is a folk song due to its regionality, and less popular musical elements.
Crescendos
Crescendos are the steady or quick increasing of volume in piece. This also can be used in order to emphasize tension, drama, power, or dynamics.
Essentialization
Critics argue that to "essentialize" is to oversimplify and thereby reduce the complexity that complicates real life operations. Readers will be required to think reflexively about the processes of simplification, those necessary fro their own understanding, but also those that reflect social policies and creative expression.
Cuicatl
Cuicatl is the inseparable combination of song and poetry, or also known as flowery speech. Pictographs of musicians in ancient documents and stone etchings indicate song by depicting the spiral speech glyph decorated with flowers. Professional musicians, known as cuicapiztles, constituted an elite segment of society. Young boys and girls received training beginning at age 12 in special schools called cuicacallis (song houses)
Decrescendos
Decrescendos are the steady or quick decreasing of volume in a musical piece. This also can be used in order to emphasize tension, drama, power, or dynamics.
Aztecs
Despite the wide range of indigenous peoples, the Aztecs who identified themselves as "Mexica," stand out historically and in the modern imagination. They moved south from Aztlán in the twelfth century. The Aztecs spoke Nahuatl, which became the lingua franca for many Mexican groups. The Aztec dominated fellow native groups, conquering the powerful ancient city of Tula and all central Mexico. In the sixteenth century, they fell victim to the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortes and his invading forces.
Duple Meter
Duple meter is feature in African or indigenous musics. It typically features a more steady and consistent beat accentuation. The measure in duple meter is divided into groups of 2, 4 and sometimes 8.
Folk Music
Folk music may be understood as music that customarily circulates via oral tradition, by word of mouth rather than through notation. Conventionally viewed as music performed by rural or impoverished people, it may be viewed as the common property of a community, rather than the product of a single author. In many instances, folk musicians have adopted and adapted music form outside the community including formally composed or classical works.
Estribillos
Found in Villancicos, the Estribillos is a refrain that comes at the beginning and the end of a Villancico. It is accompanied by a lengthy narrative of coplas verses.
Gaspar Fernades
Gaspar Fernandes, 1566-1629, was a Portuguese-born composer who served as chapel master (Maestro de Capilla) in the Cathedrals of Guatemala (1599-1609) and in Puebla, Mexico (1609-1659). While in Guatemala, he compiled a collection of important music of the era, including his own compositions, known as El Cancionero de Gaspar Ferndandes. While in Puebla, he taught and conducted singers of African and Indian ancestry in his choir and he concentrated on creating music, primarily villancicos for the matins services, that integrated African and Indigenous languages and traditions with European modles. His position emphasizes European contributions to Mexican culture, sympathy of missionaries and composer for ciollos and indigenous, and exchange between Mexico and other Latin nations.
Huapango
Huapango dance is the dance that animates the music of the Son Huasteco. With the Huapango, the emphasis lies in on dance. Apart from the introduction, both the music and verse are improvised. The most common ensemble is the trio of musicians who sing and play the Huapanguera, the Jarana Huasteca, and violin. The word Huapango is a term related to Fandango meaning dance party. It also refers to the wooden platform used by dancers. It features three traits: a distinct rhythm, a focus on ornate violin playing as the lead melodic instrument, and the use of falsetto to adorn the melodies
Malinche (Malintzin)
IN the battle of Centla in Tabasco, Cortes received Malintzin, a Nahua woman and one of twenty slaves given to him by vanquished Tabascan natives. Malintzin became the mistress of Cortes and the mother of his son Marin, considered the first mestizo Mexican. She is known by various names including Doña Marian, La Malinche and Malinalli. She knew the workings of the Aztec state and could speak both Nahuatl and Maya; she became an invaluable aid to the Cortes. She is honored as the mother of a new race but as as a traitor to her people. Her legacy is found recently in the Concheros dances.
Cuauhtemoc
In 1524, Cortes executed Cuauhtemoc, the last of the Aztecan rulers, thus confirming Spanish dominion over Mexico. With the defeat of Cuauhtemoc, Spain established Mexico city as a principal seat of the Vice-Royal Kingdom in North America.
Maximilian
In 1861 when the French landed in Veracruz, two years after the french finally succeeded in taking the city of Puebla and then moving into Mexico City in 1863. Shortly thereafter Napoleon III installed the Austrian archduke, Maximilian of Hapsburg as the Emperor of Mexico, he retained the position until Benito Juárez's guerrilla troops forced him to surrender in 1866. This temporary rule by Maximilian shaped fashion and culture in the cities and extended to racial blending in villages. The wife to Maximilian was Empress Carlota of Belgium who inspired the song "Adiós Mama Carlota when she made her last trip to Europe in 1866.
Triple Meter
In Lila Downs as well as many other Mexican and Latin compositions, there features a regular pattern of beats that fall in measures of three beats, with the first strong and the next two. This meter is what you hear in a waltz and many other dances. This triple meter is distinguishable from the duple meter which is more associated with indigenous musics.
Free Meter
In Lila Downs performance of Sandunga, she begins with a prelude that proceeds in free meter. This free meter has no steady accented beat.
Cuicatlamatilztli
In the Nahua language, cuicatlamatilztli meaned art song. This art song that the Nahua spoke of was meant the to represent an extension of art through playing instruments. This implies a different meaning of music that what Europeans meant. This was essentially singing with instruments, rather than thinking of instruments as accompanying song.
Hernán Cortes
In the sixteenth century, the Aztecs fell victim to the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortes and his invading forces in 1519. The process of racial mixture resulted in the establishment of the new ethnicity of Mexican people is traced Hernán Cortes's arrival in the Yucatan in 1519. Hernán knew of Moctezuma's claim to him vein the Toltec deity and did nothing to dissuade him. He took advantage of existing tensions amon native populations subject to Aztecan rule.
Ambient Sound
In the song "La Plaza" by Evaristo Aguilar, he includes the ambient sounds of market places in Huejutla, Hidalgo, and Axtla. These sections of ambient sounds represent music. Although not classically considered music, Evaristo Aguilar invites the listener to understand musical qualities of the verbal interactions.
Structure
In this case, structure refers to the underlying pattern of musical phrases. One particular type of structure is called Strophic.
Sandunga
It is considered to have originated in the isthmus of Tehuantepec in the State of Oaxaca. According to Henrietta Yurchenco, the melody of "Sandunga" can be traced to a tune from a popular musical theater work of the type known as "Tonadilla," performed at the National Theatre in Mexico City in 1850 by the theatrical company of Maria Cañete. This capture the imagination of a Oaxacan military leader named Maximo Ramon Ortiz, who composed his own lyrics to the tune when he arrived home from battle to find his dear mother had died. It has become a reference for a graceful Tehuantepec woman, or for a celebration. It is also a category of son (dance song). Some suggest that the word is a Nehuatl variation of the Spanish word Fandango. "Sandunga" became the unofficial anthem of the isthmus of Tehuantepec, and a signature Mexican folk song performed at weddings, fiestas and funerals often by wind bands or on marimba. Some of the characteristic features of the Sandunga are minor key, and triple meter.
Legend of the Suns
Legend of the Suns, a Nahuatl document recorded in 1558, we read that Quetzalcoatl journeyed to the underworld to gather bones from the Lord of Death, known as Mictlantecuhtli, to create humans. Mictlantechuhtli gave Quetzalcoatl a conch shell and said, "sound this shell and take four turns round my circle and I'll assist you." But there were no finger holes to control the sound, so he summoned the worms to bore holes and the bees fly into the sacred shell and made it sound. Upon hearing it, Mictlantechuhtli, said, go ahead take the bones. Thus the birth of a new people, the ancestors of modern Mexicans, began from the sounding of the conch, the sacred Atetecolli (conch shell instrument), and sounds made possible by animals.
Lila Downs
Lila Downs is a popular Mexican-American jazz singer. In the song "Sandunga," she employs many different vocal techniques and tools such as volume, crescendos, decrescendos, minor chords, in order to express a certain emotion in the song.
Mariachi
Mariachi was formed from two forms of the Son: Son Jalisciense and Son Abajeño. These two sones produced the original Mariachis: Mariachi Coculense, Mariachi Tapatio, and Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán. Mariachi typically features the Guitarrón (acoustic bass guitar), the Vihuela (Mexican vihuela, as opposed to the Spanish Vihuela) which is a small guitar with five strings. The vihuela and guitarron both have vaulted backs. The Requinto guitar was later adopted in Modern Mariachis.
Maximo Ramon Ortiz
Maximo Ramon Ortiz was the leader of the Oaxacan military. He is known for creating the lyrics the popular Oaxacan folk-tune, Sandunga. He was known to have created the lyrics to the piece after he had returned from battle to find his mother dead.
Meter
Measure of time; arrangement of poetical feet; the grouping of beats into regular patters. The organization of rhythmic patterns in a composition in such a way that a regular, repeating pulse of beats may continue throughout the composition.
Mestizo
Mestizo Mexican culture is not homogenous. Institutional efforts of the middle and upperflass in Mexico as well as commercial and popular media have created a shared mainstream culture thatfrequenlty contrasts with indigenous cultures, beginning with sacred sites of musical cultivation. Instead of serving temples, cathedrals or concert halls, traditional indigenous music is associated with modest altars, local churches, homes, outdoor ramadas.
Migration
Migration is a process that has affected Mexican culure in much broader ways that most Americans recognize. U.S. residents tend to focus on migration of Mexicans into the United States and certainly the back and forth travel that characterizes Mexican-US migration has shaped culture on both sides of the Rio Grande. Less recognized is the scope of foreign immigration into Mexico. Cosmopolitan aspirations stimulated internal migration from the provinces to the cities, as well Mexican travel abroad. Poverty is a strong contributor to migrate and immigration, thus Mexicao has 30,000 migrants of Mixtec Ancestry
Miguel Bernal Jimenez
Miguel Bernal Jimenez (1910-1956) is a classically-trained Mexican art music composer who compose a classical piano rendition of the Oaxacan folk tune Sandunga composed by Oaxacan military leader Maximo Ramon Ortiz who on his return from battle received news of his dead mother.
Minor Chord
Minor chord is a musical chords which is denote by three notes in the minor scale. Typically, the chord features musical intervals of 3 and 4 half steps.
Performity
Music is an important tool for reflection, celebration, and often, for creating and sharing idealized visions of the world. Song, dance and musical occasions can be important settings for uniting people and ideas. Think about the ways music brings together people of different generations, for example. Important aspects of performance of social engagement are both "performance in daily life" and the so-called "extra-daily performance."
Nahuatl
Nahuatl was the language of the Aztecs. It later became the langua franca for many Mexican groups. It used two basic tones, one high, and one low, to distinguish meanings in words. This linguistic structure is emulated in the log drum or teponatzli.
Prelude
One example of a prelude is in Lila Downs jazz performance of Sandunga. This performance begins with a free meter section before reaching a steady beat and steady accompaniment. This is a composition that is intended to introduce a larger composition or set of compositions.
CECAM
One of the most famous schools for advance instruction in music and indigenous culture that sits high among the cloud-tipped mountains of Oaxaca. SOme of the finest conductors and wind players performing today in Mexico, acquired their foundational training in Oaxacan youth band programs.
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl was an Olmec who influenced surrounding and subsequent cultures, including Zapotec and Mixtec people who still live today in the state of Oaxaca, and the Maya from the south, who traded with Toltecs, another group that built great temples. The Legend of the Suns is a Nahuatl document recorded in 1558 which read that Quetzalcoatl journeyed to the underworld to gather bones from the Lord of Death, known as Michtlantecuhtli, to create humans.
Register
Register is a division of range within an instrument or a singing voice. Usually registers are defined by a changing in the quality of the sound between a lower range and a higher range.
Mariachi Coculense
Related to the Mariachi Tapatio through the founder Cirilo Marmolejo's nephew Francisco Marmolejo. They were the first Mariachi to perform in Mexico City and at the Chicago World's Fair.
SAVE
SAVE is the San Antonio Vocal Ensemble. They aim to promote cultural recognition of indigenous heritage, but also of the shared perspectives across contemporary borders along the US Mexican border. This aspect is unlike the Folkloristas, who do not seem to attempt to express relations between American and Mexican traditions and perspectives.
Son
Son is a regionally distinct dance-song. It is a joyful music that people play in order to mark different occasions. Thomas Stanford dates the common use of the term in Spain in 1671, but he traces the practice of son in Spanish theater back to the 1500s. The first documented use of the term surfaces in 1766 in a set of verses from Veracruz. In the late 18th century, the presence of popular theater and musical dramas: Zarzuela, and the Tonadilla Escenica, influenced the rural folk and became adopted and transformed into the son. Also the intermedios or entremeses influenced these later dance dramas which were performed in-between acts. The defining characteristics of Son are: Strophic form (repeating melody with each verse), compass of 6/8 or 3/4 characterized by sesquilatera patterns, poetic verse which features classic lines of text as well as improvised verse, women and love themes in the text, and double entendres. Choreography of sones features a foot-stomping dance called Zapateado. The dancers's movement simulate courtship and are performed on a raised wooden platform (tarima, Mariache, or Huapango)
Cuicacallis
Song houses for the Cuicapiztles. These were houses established for the elite segment of society where boys and girls at age 12 would attend these special schools to learn the Cuicatl tradition.
Peninsulares
Spaniards known as Peninsulares, born on the Iberian Peninsula, held most authority. This was one class and racial distinction during the vice-royal era. People of indigenous ancestry were rarely given positions of authority over peninsulares and residents of mixed race.
Strophic
Strophic songs, like "Sandunga" use one basic melody repeated for each verse, thus strophic form is often called verse-form.
Tamboreada
Tamboreada is a percussive technique that is used in Son Calenteño. It involves one musician rapping with his hands on the soundboard of the harp while the harpist plays the strings. This is also referred to as arpa cacheteada.
Tenochtitlán
Tenochtitlán is the capital city of the Aztec empire up until the sixteenth century, which is situated near to what now exists Mexico City. Despite the wide range of indigenous peoples, the Aztecs who identified themselves as "Mexica," stand out historically and in the modern imagination. They moved south from Aztlán in the twelfth century. The Aztecs spoke Nahuatl, which became the lingua franca for many Mexican groups.
Teponazcuicatl
Teponazcuicatl is the 44th song in set B from the codex Cantares Mesicanos, compiled between 1550-1580 in Mexico City. This music example is a musical reconstruction by Christover Moroney from the San Antonio Vocal Ensemble, known as SAVE.
Coplas
The Coplas are paired lines of verses that form the body of a Villancico. The refrains of the song are called Estribillos. Each line of verse customarily features eight or six syllables. These lengthy narrative of coplas are typical of Jácaras.
Carlos Chavez
The Mexican composer Carlos Chávez saw the arts as a critical tool for building a new nation. He served as director of Mexico's National Symphony and the National Conservatory of Music. He also saw the ancient Aztecs as the fountain of a unique Mexican identity. He is known for incorporating Indian instruments into his compositions. During the 1910s, Carlos was a part of the El Renaciemiento Azteca, or Aztec Renaissance, which was a the attraction to Aztec practices by political and intellectual leaders.
Cuicapiztles
The Cuicapizles were professional musicians theat were designated to perform cuicatl. The cuicaptiztles constituted an elite segment of society. Young boys and girls received training beginning at age 12 in special schools called cuicacallis (song houses). The songs and dances of the cuicapiztles were used to connect the Aztec people to the gods, serving the most important ritual functions of Aztec society. These people trained for hours in order to learn everything by heart. It a mistake was made, it could've costed a land, foot or life, since it would've enraged the gods. They were also expected to compose new songs to mark days of the calendar, and for theatrical performances and contests. Although the was much responsibility, these poet-singers were honored as great warriors and nobleman. You were also exempt from paying taxes
Danza Mexica
The Mexica or Aztec dancers are less bound by affiliation with a closed religious community and most participants are modern Mexicans. The newer urban and more radical Danza Mexica groups eschew this instrument as representing unwanted Hispanic influence.
Danza Azteca
The Mexica or Aztec dancers are less bound by affiliation with a closed religious community and most participants are modern Mexicans. the newer urban and more radical Danza Mexica groups eschew this instrument as representing unwanted Hispanic influence.
Villancico
The Villancico was one of the most important genres of music that developed in vice-regal Mexico. It was imported from Europe. It was the result of ongoing exchange of musical styles and customs across social strata. It emerged as a poetic secular song. They are art music with popular appeal. Villancicoas were sung in Spnish and other native languages which appealed to lower classes. It also incorporated popular melodies and dance rhythms. It literally means "rustic song." Differences between Mexican and European Villancico is the presences of the short plays known as Juegos. The most renowned poet of Mexican Villancicos was Sor Juana De La Cuz. Her poems were set by Mexican composers including Manuel Sumaya. It has come to represent Christmas
Zapateado
The Zapateado in the Son tradition is the foot-stomping dance. The zapateado simulates courtship rituals and are customarily performed on a raised wooden platform known as a tarima, mariache, or huapango depending on the region. The sound of the dancers feet in the Zapateado contributes tot he overarching quality of the music and the steps highlight the shifting rhythmic accents in the music.
Atetecolli
The atetecolli is an aerophone that played the song of Quetzalcoatl. It was said to be a conch shell with burrowed holes from worms that was use by Quetzalcoatl to sound the shell against the Lord of Death. The ancient Nahua believed that song embodied divine breath, a view evident in the conch myth as well as in their pictographs.
Harmony
The combination of notes sounded simultaneously to produce chords. Usually, this term is used to describe consonance, however, it can be used to describe dissonance.
Concha
The concha is a native adaptation of the Spanish guitar called the guitar conchera since it was originally made from an armadillo shell. The concha has five double course strings tuned as paired octaves. It was an essential instrument used by religious brotherhoods, known as cofradias, who supported an early merger of native and Catholic customs manifested by the concheros. While newer urban and more radical Danza Mexica groups eschew this instrument as representing unwanted Hispanic influence.
Culture
The culture of America is very strongly related to the Mexican culture. But Mexico is not simply a border country to the United States but a gateway to Latin America. Mexican music has a long history of interaction and exchange with music throughout Latin America where we find shared legacies, formats, and contemporary concerns, despite important cultural distinctions. The study of Mexican music offers a productive and positive avenue to deepen understanding of a culture while also developing an appreciation for the role of music in society and the generalizable power of human creative genius.
Despedida
The despedida is the ending of featured in the Son Jarocho. One example is found in the Son Jarocho tune Siquisiri.
Folkloristas
The folklorists is an ensemble dedicated to performing a full range of Mexican and Latin American music and exploring links between ancient and contemporary practices. The founder, José Ávila, was inspired by recent archaeological and ethnographic findings, as well as by an early opportunity to play archaic instruments. The folklorists became famous during the 1970s during a decade when popular musicians turned to folk music to advocate for social and civil rights and political reform. Their efforts aligned in many ways with the folk rock movement. In latin america, folk-rock musicians launched their own new song movement known as Nueva Canción, or Nueva Trova.
Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán
The group of Mariachi Vargas formed in 1898 and represented standard Mariachi format in the region. Gaspar Vargas played Guitarra de Golpe, Manuel Mendoza on harp, Refugio Hernandez and Lino Quintero on violin and lead vocals. The group later added another violin. Mariachi Vargas originally wore simple clothing. But in 1931 they were a uniform inspired by typical Indian dress of loose fitting pants and shirt made of white cotton and a red sash at the waist in the United States. After Mariachi Vargas won a competition in Guadalajara they were invited to perform at the inauguration of President Lázlo Cárdenas. They were given the position of official musicians for the Mexico city police.
Huehuetl
The huehuetal or footed drum, is one of the most important instruments heard at Tenochtitlán and elsewhere in Meso-America. It was used by the native peoples in many contexts including the war and religious ceremonies. This instrument is a indigenous membranophone. The huehuetal is a large drum carved from a hallowed tree trunk with a stretched animal skin on top. It is identified as a deity unable to become human so he came to the earth as an instrument to help people communicate. it can produce two tones, one by playing in the center of the drum head, and the other by striking near the rim.
Huilacapitztli
The huilacapitztli is an aerophone. These clay flutes, whistles and ocarinas were crafted in the shape of animals and spirit beings. They were designed to produce sounds resembling the cries and calls of those animals. These sounds provided a bridge for communicating between humans and animals. Many native people believed that songs were taught to humans by animals who also represented powerful divine spirits as well as the voices of deceased human ancestors. Such instruments could be played by trained celebrants during religious and civic rituals, as well as by commoners in practical circumstances such as hunting. This instrument shows that native people valued timbre more than pitch. Its sound was meant to be evocative rather than beautiful.
Immigration
The nation did not always welcome immigration without discrimination, and Mexican laws to limit foreign immigration initiated after 1920 are but one example of concurrent resistance to a multicultural society. Nonetheless, integration proceeded, even it it constituents were submerged in official narratives of Mexicanidad (Mexicannes).
Tonality
The principal of organization of composition around a tonic based upon a major or minor scale.
Integration
The process of margin people, perspective and resources is one that Mexico shares with many nations and cultures. Individuals and groups divided by ethnicity, social class, occupation, economic status, gender or age are often united through music, even when that same music once served as a marker of exclusion or difference.
Timbre
The quality of sound; that component of a tone that causes different instruments to sound different from each other while they are both playing the same note.
Beat
The regular pulse of music which may be dictated by the rise or fall of the hand or baton of the conductor, by a metronome, or by the accents in music.
Moctezuma
The reigning Aztec monarch of the time perceived Cortes as the embodiment of the Toltec diety Quetzalcoatl, the feather-serpent god destined to usher in a new era. Impressed by Cortes, he greeted him with gifts and house Cortes in Axayacatl. He was later lured by Cortes and held hostage which secured the conversion of many Aztecs to Christianity.
Pitch
The specific quality of a sound that makes it a recognizable tone.
Rhythm
The subdivision of space of time into a defined, repeated pattern. Rhythm is the controlled movement of music in time. It may be define as the division of music into regular metric portions; the regular pulsation of music.
Sesquilatera
The syncopated rhythm or mixed meter mostly associated with dances and the Son. This rhythm was adopted from the Spanish Flamenco. This syncopation shifts emphasis from a two to three beat pattern within a 6 or 12 beat measure. Sesquilátera means six that alters.
Teponatzli
The tepontzli, or log drum, is a sculpted slit-drum from a hallowed log, beaten with rubber tipped wooden mallets called olmaitl. During temple ritual ceremonies the teponatzli was placed on a stand resembling a throne, and for dances it was set upon a x-shaped stand to boost its resonance. This instrument produces two pitches. This instrument also parallels the structure of the Nahua language which also uses tow basic tones, to distinguish meaning in words.
Mestizaje
The value of mixture: racial, social and above all musical has long been celebrated in Mexico. The concept of Mestizaje, the Spanish term for mixture used in reference to racial blending, sat ands as the satient example of selective integration and the core of Mexican identity.
Concheros
These are performers of the Danza Azteca and Danza Mexica. They typically wear replicas of the feather head-dresses and body ornaments treasured by the ancient Aztecs and play indigenous instruments. There are three types of conchero groups, the Danzas de Promesa (religious vowed), political dancers, and theatrical dancers. The conch era tradition began with the mergence of Christian and native dance traditions. It is said to have been built on the foundations of the dramas known as Moros y Cristianos. These dances reenacted tales of good versus evil. They were also considered to be a type of warrior. The name comes from a little guitar-like instrument, the guitar conchera or concha.
Raiz Viva
This instrumental piece was compose in 1977 by José Ávila, the founder and director of Los Folkloristas. It represents his reconstruction of ancient Aztecan music. It is meant to remind you of Pre-Cortesian rituals and uses more than 40 different instruments including the hueheutl, huilacapitzli, and tlapitzalli.
Mexicas
This was what the Aztec people considered themselves out of all the indigenous peoples.
Vincent T. Mendoza
Vincent T. Mendoza (1894-1964),the founder of the Folklore Society of Mexico, was one of the first to systematically investigate Mexican folk culture. Also a prolific author of dozens of books and articles. He worked with wife Virginia Rodriquez Rivera, trained folklorist, to document the full scope of Mexican folk and popular music. He identified popular music as "fashionable" music and noted the historical and ongoing practice in Mexico of local communities taking fashionable music and creating local variants, resulting in musical expression that we might label folk.
Volume
Volume is the loudness of a sound, which can be altered by a performer in order to emphasize or added tension and drama to a performance.
Xochipilli
Xochipilli was written by Carlos Chávez in 1940 for four wind players and six percussionists. This is Chávez's most systematic effort to evoke pre-cortesian music. The word Xochipilli means "Flower Prince" in Nahuatl and was the name of the Aztec god of art, games, beauty, dance, flowers and song. Carlos Chávez was deeply inspired by the musical traditions of the Aztecs. He divides the piece into three sections. The first and last expressing the sacred festivals and the teocalli (temple) through the use of percussion and rhythmic patterns and the middle section representing the poetic and melodic traditions of the cuicapiztle.
