Wed 2 Dec 2009
To speak about Latin American music is to enter into a universe-sized space filled with complexity, combinations, historical flow, and tunes. It is vast. A quick tour of Mexican music is more manageable, since it is a single country, but its own history and complexity takes up a galaxy of space on its own.
Luís Islas, a native of the Mexico City area of Mexico and a long-time resident and business man in Whitewater, was our guide in this quick tour during an appearance at the UW-Whitewater University Center.
Mexican music offers its riches in part due to the influences that it absorbed. Probably the sound that first comes to mind to a U.S. resident when Mexican music is mentioned is the sound of banda, conjunto, norteña, ranchera, with brash horns or accordian. These types reflect the influence of German immigrants, both to run the breweries of northern Mexico or in the mixed quilt of cultures in what is now the state of Texas. But a traditional sound in the south of Mexico and among Maya peoples is the marimba, a xylophone-like instrument with made of tropical wood and containing a vibrating reed. This instrument is evolved from similar instruments brought from Africa as part of the legacy of slavery in the Americas.
December 6th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
From Sean McCrimmon:
Luis Islas did a very good job of presenting us with an insight into the history and major styles of Mexican music. He started the presentation with giving us more or less the pioneers of Mexican music such as Javier Solis and Vicente Fernandez (who interestingly enough were both movie stars and integrated their music into their movies.) He then moved on and we listened to examples of Ranchera music, possibly the most popular style of Mexican music which has German influences (such as the accordion). These songs are usually about pain and suffering despite their upbeat tempos. Next, Islas introduced us to Banda. This style of music features the tuba, flutes, and trumpets. It is very fast and has a higher pitch. Next, we learned about Duranguense, which in the examples he gave, sounded a lot like Banda but used a lot more vibrato (from what I could pick out). Baladas Romanticas was the next style we learned about which is from the 80’s and has a ballad feel. It is a lot slower than the other forms, is more romantic and includes a lot of slow violins. Interestingly enough, Alejandro Fernandez, the son of Vicente Fernandez, makes this style of music. The last style that we learned about is Rock en Español which was heavily influenced by 1980’s rock. The songs that he played from this genre were rock ballads and featured lots of electric guitar and heavy drums although they did incorporate the trumpet.
How do you really differentiate between Banda and Duranguense? How do you differentiate between Baladas Romanticas and Rock en Español? These two groups seem too close for me to tell the difference.
I took Survey of Latin American music and I was barely able to tell the difference. I guess that it would take a lot finer tuning of the ear to tell which genre is which. One would have to dedicate their time and effort to learning the genres like Islas does.
December 7th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Luís Islas presented Latin music to our class focusing primarily on music from Mexico! He went through five different genres and also some of the earlier stars of Mexican music. Each of the different genres he explained had different ways to link them to their era. The earlier stages of Mexican music of the northern genres had influences from Germany. This type of genre typically included brass instruments like the tuba. When our professor mentioned that some of these people had television music shows like Lawrence Welk, I laughed. I have grown up watching this show with my grandparents and find it fascinating how you can still tune in to the programs today. I was able to draw a connection since I had really enjoyed watching this music program. Genre one was the Ranchera and this also was German influenced as the accordion was the primary instrument. Many of the musicians like Los Tigres sang about oppression, pain and suffering, emotions and immigration. Genre two was called Banda. It is usually a group of 16 to 18 people involved in South Mexico. Banda Recodo reminded me of a Polka. Groups were typically created here but they are Mexicans who play it. Genre three is called Duranguense. He spoke about K Paz de la Sierra and Los Horóscopo de Durango which played a song called “I only want to dance” to the music of the song “Girls just want to have fun”. Personally this was one of my favorites. However, I wanted to know what the first band translated to so I looked up the translation and loosely translated it to Peace of the Mountain. This band was created by Mexican natives in Chicago Illinois on Christmas Eve of 2002. They were so popular that within the first two hours of their first CD being released it sold 35,000, copies. Here is their website if anyone is interested! http://www.kpaz.com.mx/ Genre four is called Baldas Románticas and started in the 1980’s. Finally Genre five is called Rock en Español and can be compared to an AC/DC or KISS rock from the 1980’s. Influences from the North, Germany and Africa are what make Mexican music rich and very enjoyable! These influences are very important to Latin America and I hope everyone enjoyed Luís’s presentation just as much as I did!
December 7th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Luis Islas provided a variety of Mexican music genres and different artists from those genres for our amusement last week Wednesday. He started off talking about some of the classic stars of the Mexican Music industry. People such as Vicente Fernandez who used his bands own romantic music in his films. Luis then started going down the line in terms of genres, starting with Ranchera, which were mainly songs about sensitive topics such as immigrant life, love, sadness, etc., and ending with Rock en Espanol, which was most likely influenced by 1980s Rock. Although many of the different genres sounded similar to my ears, there seemed to be a clear difference in the words of Luis Islas. Every time a new genre would come on, Luis would take the time to tell us what the music was, tell us what the music most closely resembled in terms of what our country has listened to, and told us the main instruments used. My favorite genre would have to be Rock en Espanol just because I grew up listening to AC/DC and Kiss and those types of bands. I really took an affection to the song Luis played by Elefante. Even though I couldn’t really understand what they were saying, the rhythm and tone of the lyrics were surprisingly good. (Most Mexican music doesn’t really appeal to me.)
I was wondering somewhat along the lines of the Sean was asking about, how you can differentiate between the different genres so easily? In my opinion, some of the genres are too closely related in tone and instruments used to tell them apart.
In the end, it all comes down to staying true to your culture. Music in Mexico is just as important to them as it is to us when it comes to our music, if not more. Music is one of the main ways Mexico’s culture is still preserved.
December 8th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Today we learned about Latin American music. This was a very interesting topic. I had no idea that there were so many different types of genres for Latin American music. At first Luis showed us the “Earlier Stars of Mexican Music”. He showed us a little bit of Javier Solis, who seemed to be more of a Baladas Romanticas singer. Then he showed us some of Antonio Aguilar and Vicente Fernandez. These two singers were also actors. They incorporated their singing in with their acting. A good American example of that would be Elvis Presley. It continued to tell us that an average Mexican band contained about 16-18 people in it. The music in Latin America was heavily influenced by German descent. The importance of Mexican dancing and singing in their culture was easily displayed.
Then he went on to show us five different types of genres. The first genre was Ranchera. In this genre, the accordion was the dominant instrument. The two bands that he showed us for this genre was Los Tigres del Norte and Intocable. Then he showed us Banda. This genre was around for a very long time. The two bands that he showed us for this genre were Banda Recodo and Banda Maguey. The third genre he showed us was Duranguense. This type is mainly in Chicago. It is very similar to Banda; however there seemed to be more drums in the background. The two example bands were K—Paz de la Sierra and Los Horoscopos de Durango. The fourth genre was Baladas Romanticas. Theses songs sounded somewhat like a soft, romantic song that would play in an older movie. It was a genre that was very easy to identify from the others. The two artists that were played were Luis Miguel and Alejandro Fernandez (the son of Vicente Fernandez listed above). The last genre was Rock en Espanol. This was inspired by rock in the 80’s by bands like AC/DC. A few artists were Mana, Elefante, El Gran Silencio, Plastilina Mosh and El Tri.
Overall, I thought Rock en Espanol and Baladas Romanticas were the easiest to “pick out” from the others. The other genres were very similar and a little harder for me to differentiate between. I didn’t really have any questions for the speaker this time. Trying to get the differences in the genres was using all of my attention. This relates to class a lot, because for a while now we have been talking about art and music is a form of art. So it fit very well into syllabus.
December 13th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
After having a Mexican roommate for a semester, I have become very familiar with all sorts of Mexican music, especially one genre that I am very surprised we did not talk about in class: mariachi.
Mariachi bands usually consist of artists that play violin, trumpets, and the guitar. They dress in charro costumes and have accompanied singers we learned about in class like Vicente Fernandez and Luis Miguel. Mariachi originated in Jalisco and Cocula and was influenced by the way of life in the colonial era. Mariachi can also be political, like much of the music in Latin America.