Welcome to the December Mariachi Newsletter

Dear Mariachi Educator,

This month’s newsletter provides a guide for starting a listening library in your mariachi class as well as the latest mariachi and MENC news.

Do you know of any upcoming mariachi events? Share them with us, along with any comments, suggestions, or mariachi news, by e-mailing annew@menc.org.

¡Viva el mariachi!

Anne Wagener
Mariachi Newsletter Editor

Experiencing Mariachi History Aurally: Building a Student Listening Library

William J. Gradante has spent the last twenty-seven years teaching mariachi classes at J. P. Elder Middle School and North Side High School in Fort Worth, TX, while spending weekends as a professional mariachi. He has published academic articles on the music of José Alfredo Jiménez, Colombian folk music, and low rider culture. He is also the editor of the upcoming MENC book Foundations of Mariachi Education, Volume I: Materials, Methods, and Resources.

The mariachi instructor ultimately bears the responsibility of guiding students through their mariachi music listening experience. Calling all mariachi teachers! Just in time for the holiday shopping season, here are some great gift ideas for both the aspiring mariachi instructor and those mariachi-history-impaired budding aficionados in your mariachi class. As MENC members are learning, mariachi music classes are becoming more prevalent in our schools with each passing year. Although these classes understandably tend to appear in schools with large Hispanic enrollments, not all of our students would count mariachi music as their top choice to listen to with their friends or to place on their iPod or MP3 player. In fact, most of my students regularly listen to rap, hip hop, rock, heavy metal, or Mexican popular music such as duranguense and banda, when free to choose.

My own experience is that those students who do include listening to mariachi music among their favorite activities tend to favor recordings made by current artists—predominantly vocalists—singing updated arrangements of mariachi pieces. Some are recent compositions while others may be considered part of the standard mariachi repertoire, often with updated arrangements. The problem, of course, is that most students are not aware of which is which.

All of this points to the conclusion that the mariachi instructor ultimately bears the responsibility of guiding students through their mariachi music listening experience. You can help teach students the historical background of the pieces they already enjoy while introducing them to a wider scope of the mariachi repertoire. In addition, you can expose them to the evolution of the characteristic mariachi performance style.

In his essay “Choosing Appropriate Repertoire” (see the MENC Mariachi Newsletter from October 2006), Mark Fogelquist explains how to select and prepare the repertoire of a high school mariachi ensemble. Once you have a handle on which compositions are considered integral to the standard mariachi performance repertoire, what better way to explore the subtleties of mariachi style than to assemble a collection of recordings of these pieces performed by the genre’s leading exponents? The purpose of this article is to assist you, the mariachi instructor, in building a listening library for student study and general enjoyment.

In the grand tradition of David Letterman’s “Top Ten Lists,” members of the MENC Mariachi Advisory Committee have provided lists of what they consider essential recordings to be included in such a library. Unlike Letterman’s lists, these selections are listed in no particular order, so no assessment of relative historical significance or stylistic status is implied. Contributors were simply asked to compile a list of (approximately) ten recordings that they felt ought to be among the first that an instructor should acquire in the process of equipping a listening library. Special attention was given to the inclusion of recordings that they felt were historical landmark recordings of the music that is collectively considered essential mariachi repertoire. I also suggested that the contributors attempt to include only those recordings that are readily available in compact disc format.

As might be expected, recordings of the renowned Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán dominate these lists. Of course, one might easily run to the music department of the local Wal-Mart or other discount department store to buy any Mariachi Vargas compact discs available—and that, after all, is not a bad idea. Such stores generally offer up a large number of compilation CDs, and these are usually priced quite reasonably. Although this may seem like what we might call “marketing ethnic profiling,” I suggest you’ll find a better selection in the Wal-Mart located closest to the “Hispanic part of town,” most likely the neighborhood in which most of your students live.

My personal library of Mariachi Vargas recordings, for example, includes the following collections. (Please note that in the course of time, record companies tend to buy out one another and thus change label names. Though the label names on this list might not necessarily match what is currently on the shelves, the catalog number will be consistent.)

You may also discover that many such compilation recordings belong to an entire series of such collections. For example, the first CD listed above is part of a series of compilation CDs entitled Los Grandes de la Música Ranchera. Another such series is entitled La Serie de los 20 Éxitos (“The 20 Hits Series”), which includes compilation discs of the following important performers and/or composers of mariachi repertoire with whom our students should become familiar:

Another such series is called 15 Éxitos (“15 Hits”), and includes compilation recordings by

Clearly, such compilation series abound, as the following list attests:

• Los Grandes de la Música Ranchera: 20 Éxitos
• Serie Plátino: 20 Éxitos
• Mexicanísimo
• Antología…
• 12 Éxitos Rancheros
• Siempre Estrellas
• Estrellas de Fonógrafo: 2 en Uno

Here is my own list of landmark recordings in mariachi history:

As it is so important that our students (and instructors) become familiar with the characteristic vocal styles of leading mariachi singers, I have included the following list of recordings by vocalists backed by Mexico's top-tier mariachi ensembles:

The following collection of historic recordings of mariachi music, entitled Mexico’s Pioneer Mariachis, is a veritable gold mine of information on mariachi history, allowing our students to hear not only how far the mariachi sound has come, but precisely what it might have sounded like at specific intervals in the early 20th century. In addition, these CDs are packaged with extensive notes regarding both the ensembles and the extant music:

I also like to observe my students’ reactions when I play the following recordings of what we might term contemporary “conjuntos de arpa grande,” or groups in which harp is the dominant instrument:

As I mentioned above, members of the MENC National Mariachi Advisory Committee have also provided lists of their top landmark CDs. Please click here to view their lists.

Readers are invited to compile their own lists of essential listening for mariachi students. It would be interesting to measure the extent to which these lists would overlap those presented here. It is immediately obvious that Mariachi Vargas’ El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo, Vol.1 is ubiquitous, as it ushered in a new wave of high-level mariachi performance. It set a standard for both repertoire and style for other ensembles to emulate. Most contributors point out that this is, in fact, their all-time favorite recording of mariachi music, which is quite remarkable, considering it is a half-century old. This recording also led a procession of releases by Mariachi Vargas in which they put on display their renditions of the essential elements of the mariachi repertoire, genre by genre. The aforementioned recording, released in 1958, was followed by collections of Pasodobles (1960), Valses (1961), Bailes Regionales (1962), Danzones (1964), and Sones de Jalisco (1965). If a mariachi instructor discovers a need to get his or her students to add, for example, a pasodoble to their repertoire, here is a great selection from which to choose—along with an aural model of what it, ideally, should sound like. Happy holidays and happy listening!