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Music of Mexico
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The music of Mexico is diverse and features a wide range of different musical styles influenced by a variety of cultures, most notably Amerindian and European. Many traditional Mexican songs are well-known worldwide, although their origin in Mexico is not clear to the non-Mexican listener; "Bésame Mucho", "Granada", "Cielito Lindo", "El Rey", La Bamba, "Maria Bonita" and many more are part of the Mexican culture and famous all over the world.
The Son Jarocho and Son Huasteco were influenced by the Son Cubano.
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The music of Mexico is diverse and features a wide range of different musical styles influenced by a variety of cultures, most notably Amerindian and European. Many traditional Mexican songs are well-known worldwide, although their origin in Mexico is not clear to the non-Mexican listener; "Bésame Mucho", "Granada", "Cielito Lindo", "El Rey", La Bamba, "Maria Bonita" and many more are part of the Mexican culture and famous all over the world.
The Son Jarocho and Son Huasteco were influenced by the Son Cubano. Cha cha cha, danzon, mambo and bolero grew importantly in Mexico, especially in Veracruz and Mexico City. Important song writers that influenced this were Perez Prado, Benny More and Agustin Lara.
Rancheras are interpreted by mariachi bands. Examples include the work of Cuco Sanchez, Chavela Vargas, and Vicente Fernández. Mariachi music is an emblem of Mexico's cultural traditions .
Another important music style is musica Norteña, or northern style tunes, which has been the basis for such sub-genres as musica de banda. Musica Norteña like musica Tejana, arose in the 1830's and 40's in the Rio Grande region, in the southern Texas. Influenced by both Bohemian music and immigrant miners, its rhythm was derived from European polkas, which were popular during the 1800's. Musica de Banda, which is stylistically similar to musica norteña, originated in the state of Sinaloa, during the 1960s.
There are other new styles such as Cumbia, Mexican pop, and Mexican rock.
The Mexican rock movement began in the late 1960's, rapidly becoming popular, and peaking in the 80's and 90's with real authentic sounds and styles. Mexican Rock combined the traditional instruments and stories of Mexico in its songs. Mexican along with Latin American Rock remain very popular in Mexico, surpassing other cultural interpretations of Rock and Roll. There are other popular music genres, which have made their way into Mexico: cumbia, Mexican pop, Hip-Hop, and Rock just to name a few. These music genres made there way from the U.S. Latin America and Europe, and are increasingly becoming popular among Mexican youths.
Mexico's stronghold on the music market in Latin America has long been established. The Mexican music market serves as a launching pad to stardom for artists who are interested extending the market-range of their music. Such was the case with Julio Iglesias, Thalia, Paulina Rubio, Ricky Martin and Shakira, the last of whom arrived in Mexico in 1994, released a second album there and started a successful career in the United States after that. According to the America Top 100, Mexico had over 90 hits in Latin America during 2006, almost a third more than its closest competitor, the United States.
In particular everyone wants to take credit for everything Mexican. From their music and their culture normally using words like were influenced by.
Contemporary genres
Today, there are many modern Mexican musical genres. Widely popular country music includes norteño, banda, and duranguense bands, which play rancheras, corridos, as well as cumbia. Rock en Español, hip-hop, and electronic music are other modern genres popular among Mexicans with a wide variety of Mexican artists.
Norteño
Norteño (similar to Tex-Mex or Tejano music in the United States) almost always has the accordion and bajo sexto as the lead instruments, with guitars serving as its roots. Before the introduction of accordion, violin was the main instrument. During the late nineteenth century, Bohemian and Czech migrants to Northern Mexico and the U.S. Southwest brought different styles among them: la redova, la varsoviana and the polka. These styles blended with the local Mexican son music and gave way to modern Northern music. In the late 1910s and 1920s, the corridos entered a golden age when Mexicans on both sides of the border recorded in San Antonio-area hotels, revolutionizing the genre alongside Mexico's political revolution. Later in the century, Ramón Ayala, Cornelio Reyna, Los Invasores de Nuevo León and Carlos y José commercialized Northern music. Other bands such as Los Tigres del Norte and Los Cadetes de Linares added influences from cumbia, rock music, and other new styles, thus creating a unique new blend in some of their new songs. One lesser known genre of Northern music is the a cappella Canto Cardenche, surviving only in southwestern Coahuila
TexMex
In the early 1900's many people of German descent settled in Texas and influenced a new breed of Mexican music now called Tejano or TexMex. Bands began incorporating the German polka rhythm and the German diatonic accordion in what was labeled as conjunto, a 4 piece band made up of bass, drums, accordion, and guitar.
Later artists began incorporating different rhythms like R&B, pop, blues, and synthesizers into the music. It was now being called Tejano or TexMex. Nowadays TexMex can refer to either Tejano or conjunto, and to your average Tejano fan no distinction is drawn between the two styles. While being influenced by different rhythms, the diatonic accordion still remains the main staple of Tejano music, which gives it its unique sound, distinct from the regular piano key accordion used to play Norteño music. To listen to Tejano music visit TexMex FM.com
TexMex music has evolved into Tech-Mex,genera of music blending traditional Mexican Cumbia,norteño, ranchera and Mariachi blended with Techno rhythms and Synthesizers.This brand of music was made popular by DJs in dance clubs and bands like "los Big Sexy" and "Nortec Collective".
Banda
Banda music was created with the imitation of military bands that were imported during the reign of emperor Maximillian in the 1800s. Banda sounds very similar to polka music. Polish immigrants established themselves in the state of Sinaloa. It was further popularized during the Mexican Revolution when local authorities and states formed their own bands to play in the town squares. Revolutionary leaders such as Pancho Villa, also took wind bands with them wherever they went. Banda has to this day remained popular throughout the central and northern states. It has, however, diversified into different styles due to regions, instruments and modernization. Today people associate banda with Sinaloense. This originated in the 1940s when the media distributed Banda el Recodo repertoire as exclusively from Sinaloa when it was actually regional music from all over Mexico.
Although banda music is played by many bands from different parts of Mexico, its original roots are in Sinaloa and Zacatecas, which are hugely famous for bands such as Banda el Recodo from Sinaloa and Banda Jerez from Zacatecas.
Banda Sinaloense experienced international popularity in the 1990s. The most prominent band was Banda el Recodo which is renowned as "the mother of all bands". Unlike tamborazo Zacatecano, Sinaloense's essential instrument is the tuba. Sometimes an accordion is also included. () Well known artists include:
Tamborazo Zacatecano originated in the state of Zacatecas and translates to drum-beat from Zacatecas. This banda style is traditionally composed of 2 trumpets, 2 clarinets, a saxophone, a trombone and the essential bass drum. La Marcha de Zacatecas is a perfect example of this type of music.
Rumba
Rumba came from the black Mexican slaves in Veracruz, Mexico city, and Yucatán. The style began in Cuba and later became famous in the black community of Mexico. These songs are popular in the south of Mexico.
Electeña
Electeña came from the the growing popularity of Norteña and Electronic music in the United States Southwest during the early 2000's. It incoporates elements of Mexican musical styles such as Norteña, Cumbia, and Latin Rock with usually a electronic, dance beat. Made popular by local celebrities, James Gribbin and Matthew Burke of Tucson, Arizona.
Gruperas
Gruperas are the mixed sound of rumba and ranchera music mostly heard in the mid south of Mexico. This music contains both rumba rhythms and ranchera rhythms which these are mostly heard at parties, clubs and Mexican radio. Muzzaac.
Reggae
Mexican Reggae first started in the Caribbean sea of Mexico by Jamaican immigrants. After hearing this type of music they started to invent their own Reggae in Spanish.
Danzon
The European influence on Cuba's later musical development is most influentially represented by danzón, which is an elegant dance that became established in Cuba before being exported to popular acclaim throughout Latin America, especially Mexico. Its roots lay in European social dances like the English country dance, French contredanse and Spanish contradanza. Danzon developed in the 1870s in the region of Matanzas, where African culture remained strong. It had developed in full by 1879 and later was brought to Mexico.
Duranguense
Duranguense is not really a music genre, since it has failed to come up with any original creations. It's success is due mainly to an ambitious marketing strategy aimed at attracting the provincial and Mexican immigrant working class of the United States.
Cumbia
The 1980s saw Colombian cumbia become even more popular in Mexico than in its native land, and it was by far the dominant genre throughout the decade, before banda overtook it in the 1990s. In the early 1970s and 1980s Mexican bands like Rigo Tovar y su Costa Azul topped the charts, and helped, by the end of the decade, El Gran Silencio and Los Kumbia Kings. Top artists include:
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Rock and metal
In the 60s and 70s, during the PRI government, most rock bands were obligated to appear underground, that was the time after Avándaro (a Woodstock-style Mexican festival) in which groups like El Tri, Enigma, The Dugs Dugs, Javier Batiz and many others arose. During that time Carlos Santana became famous after performing at Woodstock. During the 80s and 90s many Mexican bands went to the surface and popular rock bands like Molotov, Control Machete, Café Tacuba, Los Caifanes, Maná and Maldita Vecindad got many followers. The latter are "grandfathers" to the Latin ska movement. Mexico City has also a considerable movement of bands playing surf rock inspired in their outfits by local show-sport lucha libre, with Lost Acapulco initiating and leading the movement. Mexico recently has had a "rebirth" of rock music with bands like Jumbo, Zoé, Porter, etc., which have made this genre popular again.
Latin alternative
An electric range of influences is at the heart of Latin alternative, a music created by young players who have been raised not only on their parents' music but also on rock, hip-hop and electronica. It represents a sonic shift away from regionalism and points to a new global Latin identity.
The name "Latin alternative" was coined in the late 1990s by record company executives as a way to sell music that was --literally-- all over the map. It was marketed as an alternative to the slick, highly produced Latin pop that dominated commercial Spanish-language radio, such as Ricky Martin or Paulina Rubio.
Artists within the genre, such as Kinky and Café Tacuba, have set out to defy traditional expectations of Latin music. Now, in an age of Internet connections, downloading and sampling, Latin alternative has become not just a reaction to outside influences but its own genre.
Classical music
Mexico has a long tradition of classical music, as far back as the 16th century, when it was a Spanish colony. Music of New Spain, especially that of Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla and Hernando Franco, is increasingly recognized as a significant contribution to New World culture.
Puebla was a significant center of music composition in the 17th century, as the city had considerable wealth and for a time was presided over by Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, who was an enthusiastic patron of music. Composers during this period included Bernardo de Peralta Escudero (mostly active around 1640), and also Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, who was the most famous composer of the 17th century in Mexico. The construction of the cathedral in Puebla made the composition and performance of polychoral music possible, especially compositions in the Venetian polychoral style. Late in the century, Miguel Matheo de Dallo y Lana set the verse of poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
In the 18th century, Manuel de Sumaya, maestro de capilla at the cathedral in Mexico City, wrote many cantadas and villancicos, and he was the first Mexican to compose an opera, La Partenope (1711). After him, Ignacio Jerusalem, an Italian-born composer, brought some of the latest operatic styles as well as early classical (galant) styles to Mexico. His best-known composition is probably the Matins for the Virgin of Guadalupe (1764). Jerusalem was maestro de capilla at the cathedral in Mexico City after Sumaya, from 1749 until his death in 1769.
In the 19th century the waltzes of Juventino Rosas achieved world recognition. In the 20th century, Carlos Chavez, is a notable composer who wrote symphonies, ballets, and a wide catalogue of chamber music, within variated esthetical orientations. Another recognized composer is Silvestre Revueltas who wrote such pieces as "The night of the mayas", "Homenaje a García Lorca", "Sensemayá" based on a poem by Nicolas Guillen, "Janitzio" and "Redes". Manuel M. Ponce is recognized as an important composer for the Spanish classical guitar, responsible for widening the repertorium for this instrument. Jose Pablo Moncayo with compositions such as "Huapango", and Blas Galindo with "Sones de Mariachi", are also recognized as adapters of Mexican sons into symphonic music.
In 1922 Julian Carrillo (violinist, composer, conductor, theoretician and inventor), created the first microtonal system in the history of classical music. During subsequent years, he also developed and constructed harps and pianos able to play music in fragments of tone, like fourths, sixths, eighths and sixteenths. His pianos are still manufactured in Germany and are used to play Carrillo's music, mainly in Europe and Mexico.
Another contemporary Mexican composer was Conlon Nancarrow (of American birth), who created a system to play pianola music, using and developing theories of politempo and polimetrics.
Some avant-garde composers leading Mexican music during the second half of the 20th century were Alicia Urreta, Manuel Enríquez, Mario Lavista and Julio Estrada. Some of them also contributed to the academic development of music teaching in American universities. Among them, Daniel Catan, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Carlos Sandoval, Ignacio Baca-Lobera, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Samuel Zyman. In the other side of the Athlantic the composers of a new generation, Hilda Paredes, Vicente Uvalle Castillo, Javier Torres Maldonado, Gabriel Pareyon and Georgina Derbez also have contributed to the academic and artistic life.
See also
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