Los Mariachi Sagas S4 Episode 2 - CarlosManuel Aceves (Guest #2)

CarlosManuel Aceves was born in San Antonio Texa. He recently graduated with his Master degree in Musicology from Florida State University after previously receiving his bachelor's in music trumpet performance. Carlos is one of the founding members of what is now known as Mariachi de Oro Student Studio at Florida State University and Mariachi Tallahassee. Carlos coined the term (DCMR) Digitally Circulated Mariachi Repertiore in his thesis titled MARIACHI MEMORY THROUGH CAJÒN. Listen in to the story of the birth of contemporary mariachi music in Tallahassee Florida and what Cajon really means. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What are you doing here? What are you what are you who are you?

SPEAKER_05 0:03

My name is Carlos Juan Seves. I'm currently um going to be a first year PhD student at FSU. I just finished my master's and I did my undergrad at Florida State University. Um I am also in Maria Chitalasi. I'm the founder founding member.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Yeah?

SPEAKER_05 0:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Did you say you're from San Antonio?

SPEAKER_05 0:24

Yeah, I'm from San Antonio, Texas. Yeah, tucked straight into that mic. I'm from San Antonio, Texas. Went to high school in Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Yeah, why did you go to high school in Michigan?

SPEAKER_05 0:35

So originally I went to construction careers academy slash Warren for like two years. I really, really did not want to do it. Like, but my mom really wanted me to do construction careers because apparently like they have like the highest career out of high school or highest like income out of high school or something like that. It was a really fun school. But I the only thing that I cared about was music. And um I was at the International Trumpet Guild in uh 2018, and I saw a table for Interlogan Arts Academy, and that's where I met Ken Larson. And I auditioned there the same same time. Like he saw me, I talked to him and then told him that I was interested. And then he took me into like a this back room bus behind the uh what's it called exhibitor area and just had an audition. So he was very clear that I I might be the one of the top players in my high school where I am, but I definitely won't be that I'll be from the mid to the lower um levels there at the interlock, and which is exactly what happened. But I was looking forward to becoming like a better player. Um so I was really excited about it. I got a really, really good scholarship that would help me pay for the school, so it only made sense for me to go to lock-in. That's actually like my first second week at interlock in is like when I actually dug into mariachi, believe it or not. Like I got there, met people from Mexico, and some of the musicians from like Latin America. We decided just to start doing mariachi for fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

So it was like a music school?

SPEAKER_05 2:02

So it's an art school. Um they have like theater, they have um what's it called? Motion picture arts. I changed they changed their name. They have um visual arts, what else? Creative writing, but the biggest and the thing they're known for is the music. Oh, they also have dance.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

And you graduated from there?

SPEAKER_05 2:23

Yeah, I graduated from there. So I did um three years there in my junior, my senior year, and COVID happened, and they have like a 13th grade called like a postgrad. I ended up doing that because they actually have they were gonna have ensembles, but the uh the academy was closed off. So we had ensembles, we had per promisers and all that. Um it was one probably one of the only country schools in the country still doing ensembles. That's why I decided to do that rather than coming to FSU for my first year.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Did did it give you any kind of like credits that transferred?

SPEAKER_05 2:53

No. Um I did uh dual enrollment at Miana University, but at the same time, I I was still did like a couple classes here because uh here at FSU they want you to do summer classes. So I did like summer classes, then I took like really, really light light um course load. So I was able to go to interlogin for that postgrad year during COVID and uh my first year at I but I had a lot of credits transferred over. So I just came to FSU as a sophomore.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Cause uh you still finished 2024, right? So in three years?

SPEAKER_05 3:25

Yeah, I came at the sophomore level. I tend to have like a piano course too, some of some of the other classes that help too.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

So what uh what grade did you go to Michigan?

SPEAKER_05 3:40

I went my junior year.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Junior year of high school 2018. Um and you you said I remember you one time talking about the fact that you you played and you did some gigs in Michigan.

SPEAKER_05 3:57

Yeah, yeah. I can't even remember the Mariachi's name, but it was for the other uh uh del Virgin December 12th, and uh we were still there. It was my first year. It's uh in Michigan in the snow, yeah, in the snow, yeah. I don't know how they heard. I think I because like this Mexican restaurant, it was called T C Latino. Used to, it was really actually really good Mexican food. They used to come to the academy all the time. They would like make like fresh like tortillas, lamales, like good Mexican food. And then uh I went up to the told them that we had the mariachi there at interlock. And so yeah, we had it that first year, like was just like friends. We like we just play around. Like my my friend would buy machine music, so he bought like the Luis Miguel music. We arranged matalas, we arranged like simple songs, we had the plugin mingus, all we had the plug-in mingas website, so we had all of those songs. So we're playing like songs that were not not so common, but they were common to us, I guess, at the time. So Pelota Mojalo, we did that, La Fiesta del Mariachi, El Rey, but like the what's it called?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

So were all the people though, it was just a mix of like different ethnicities.

SPEAKER_05 5:00

Yeah, the first year it was mostly Latin Americans, then the year after that, this girl from she's actually from Austin, she played Viola, oh Armonia. Uh her name was Daniela. Uh yeah, she told me it happened. I thought it was gonna be dumb for because like Latin American people and mostly like they my friends had graduated, so I didn't think it was gonna be able to happen again. But this Armonina player, she came over there. Um, she came for Viola, surprisingly. And then during her time I interlogged, and she uh she switched to a guitar major and now she she and then she went on to go do um guitar at USC and started uh helped start one of the programs over there that that club over there. So yeah, um we actually started really formally. So we were in orchestra and she was recruiting hard, hard, like all the violins knew mariachi, and we had like a violin section, like seven, eight people. We had guitars, we had we didn't have guitar on, but we had the bass. So people were playing guitar, and we had a viuela, and then we had three trumpets.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

So did you ever do like a school performance?

SPEAKER_05 6:00

Yeah, we did we did plenty of school performance. We actually had so much support from interlocking themselves. They bought Ashi music from like the Southern publishing company, so like a lot of some of John Bella's arrangements. Um, I don't even remember the other arrangements. They bought us a lot of arrangements, they got us all the binders. The school paid for um the music for the Pleckin' Mingus, the website. They just downloaded the whole website and they printed it all for us. So we had binders. Um, it was it was quite organized. More it was I was pretty surprising that now that I remember back on that about it.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

But do you know the state of that program now or the club or whatever?

SPEAKER_05 6:31

No, nothing, nothing happened after.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

So all this stuff just sits there.

SPEAKER_05 6:35

It's in they have the music in the library. Oh, yeah, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Did they uh buy you trajes or like what you don't wear?

SPEAKER_05 6:44

We just wore uh white shirts, black pants. We we I even know about trajes that much. Like that yellow, what she was used to is like the school game number, like the expensive trajes. Um but we actually did gigs in town too. There was a Mexican restaurant down. Like Antigua can't was super, super small like town. Population is like 300, but there was like one Mexican restaurant and we would play there. Yeah, that's where I got most of my like experience. Like, I would listen to Mariachi all the time.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

But the group that you gigged with, so that that wasn't the school.

SPEAKER_05 7:10

Yeah, it was school and like and then no no, it was the school group, but it was also them. They came from Detroit and I played with them. Um, yeah, they also yeah, the school provided transportation and everything. Like we had a full bus, so like we would play gigs in town. It was believe it or not, they were very, very supportive. But like private gigs? Private gigs. No, no, no, no. I just church gigs mostly, like church and like restaurants and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Yeah, um, yeah, they wouldn't bust you to someone's house or something.

SPEAKER_05 7:36

No, never.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Did did you ever play house gigs?

SPEAKER_05 7:42

No, we we never did. No, they always asked us to, but we always asked. Well, the thing is that we were high schoolers, we had a curfew at their either lock. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we also need would need like a uh what's it called? Someone to go with us, and you never know how it's gonna be. So we always got calls, believe it or not. We like we had business cards and everything. So we would do this give us a call, like if we could do a couple hours, we'd we'd like, oh, we just do this for fun, and we're never able to do those gigs.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

So who was did you have a director, or how did you all run yourself?

SPEAKER_05 8:16

Um, we we did uh something similar to the way we did it here. We they're actually pretty serious. We went into sectionals, so like serious sectionals for an hour a day. I think we met like three times a week, so it was it was we met quite a bit, um, and we prepared all our materials. Um and then we just would meet together at the end, like first half would be sectionals, and the second half would be um um all together. It was actually crazy. We had like seven singers. Really? Yeah, never no one ever playing at the same time. It was mostly like singers and then instrumentalists.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Do you do you keep up with um well? I know you did, but I don't know if you still do, but um Northwestern Mariachi.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

No, not not too much anymore.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

It's so interesting there, right? Because um I don't I don't know the state of Northwestern's music program. Do they even have a music department?

SPEAKER_05 9:12

Yeah, it's it's it's a very famous music program. One of the best in the country.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Well, I had no idea. I mean, because I know Northwestern more for their STEM and their liberal arts and stuff. Um but it it was just it's funny. Uh I I've gone back to some of their archives or photos or videos, and they had uh there's some videos of there's some recitals where they had like a conductor conducting them during the show, like if it were an orchestra and they were kind of arranged in that way.

SPEAKER_05 9:46

If I'm not mistaken, I I heard that I think like around 2000 2020, 2021, they had a Banda, a Banda program, if I'm not if I'm not mistaken. I think I remember being in a master class and saying that I did Mariachi, and they were like, oh, I hear Northwestern has a Banda. I remember who was doing a banda.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Uh yeah, that would be weird. Uh but Northwestern, yeah, from what I saw now, their their last recital, they had actually this a few weeks ago. Um they they do it where it's like um they have singers that only sing. Yeah. And then the instrumentalists only play. Unless the instrumentalist happens to like also sing. Um somehow Northwestern gets like people that some like very sporadically will have like experience in Mariachi. Like one or two out of every like ten or something. And but it was funny when I saw that that it was literally like a the I guess it was like the director at the time, and it was this woman um that was like conducting them, directing them during the recital. And I have never seen that in my life. I was like, I don't like that. I mean, but I mean, so you've seen that um because I know you did a lot of research for a while about like all the different um universities across the country. Did did you ever come up with like a finite number that of like how many universities?

SPEAKER_05 11:15

I have I have the list, but I I can't remember it, but it's something like I can't remember, like maybe 30-40, 30-40. And like this is considering like groups have had mariachi's in the past, and some some schools don't have any more. But there's a lot of since 2020, like for some reason it's exploded, especially over here in the east with like Indiana, Harvard, Florida State, NYU.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Yeah, well, NYU, and then well, I mean, Harvard has one. Yeah, well, I mean Harvard has had one for a while, though. They they've competed at Extravaganza.

SPEAKER_05 11:45

Yeah, but that's relative like that's within the past five years. Um I think they've reformed in 2019, 2020. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Oh, yeah, no, I'm thinking of Berkeley. Berkeley performed back in the day, like 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_05 11:57

Wait, wait, one second or third place?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

I think so, but I think only like three schools competed that year. Oh I mean that happens sometimes. Extravaganza.

SPEAKER_05 12:08

Yeah, I remember that crazy guitar solo that they had.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Um who else was it? Yale. I think Yale has a mariachi.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Um and then so there's a school, Walburn or Walbash. Yeah. What is it? Walburn.

SPEAKER_04 12:28

Walburn, I think.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Uh in Indiana. Uh they have a mariachi.

SPEAKER_05 12:32

Oh, I don't I don't know about that one.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

So, well, I know because um the person who started it played harp at the high school I went to. Um he we didn't go to high school at the same time. I had already graduated for years, but um, I would go back and like assist um the director with Automania and stuff. And this is like in 2023 or something, um where he said he was he was going to Walburn. For some reason he wanted to go over there and start a Mariachi, and he did. He ended up starting it. I don't know if it's still going on today, but for a while they were a full program. Uh but so then uh after after that time in Michigan, you came straight to uh FSU?

SPEAKER_05 13:19

Yeah, straight to FSU, yeah. And I was expecting there to be Mariachis, at least in Florida, it just sounds like a place that wouldn't have mariachis, like even considered that it was the capital.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Yeah, well, I mean, there's uh plenty in Orlando and Tampa. And I knew that because I my sister used to live in Orlando, and when when I did that cobre with Steve Carrillo interview, um that's when I was visiting my sister at the time, and we went to Disney. Uh, but here in Tallahassee, I don't know. I mean, I but I at that time I had no idea of going to FSU. Um ironically, back in 2023, I went to New Orleans for an engineering conference, and at the con at these conferences, they have a lot of schools that come and try to recruit. And I I knew I wanted to do a PhD at the time already, because it was during my master's, but I was just literally just hanging out at the AM table, um, Clemson, uh, NC State, mostly AM, because that's where I was like, I want to go to AM. And I remember Florida AM. Texas AM. Oh, shoot. Yeah, Texas AM table. Um yeah, being from Texas, you just say AM, right? There's no other AM, even though there's like five other AMs in Texas. Um I walked, I saw that table that said like FAMU-FSU and um industrial engineering or whatever. And then I was I just stopped because I was like, that was the only school that I haven't talked to, and I was like, let's just see what this is. And then they're telling me that it was like a joint program with two different universities. And I had no concept of where these schools were. Um I I knew Florida State was like Panhandle area, yeah. But I for some reason thought Florida AM was like at the tip, like towards Miami. Oh wow, and then so I'm thinking, I'm like, how does that even work? Like these schools are across the state. Uh and I remember specifically thinking, I was like, wow, I'm never gonna go to the school. Um and it's and I just did not apply or think about this school at all. Um and this was spring of 2023, and then come uh March of 2024, I'm in Tallahassee visiting the university to do a PhD program here when I was like, eh, I'm never going to that school. Uh and so during that visit is when the first time I met well you and a lot of the people that were in the FSU Mariachi at that time. Yeah. That that was very interesting because I I just I it happened to be a grad preview thing that the College of Engineering does. And I was just on my phone, I was going like Mariachi's in Tallahassee. Like nothing coming up. And somehow, um, well, and then I looked up like FSU Mariachi. Just uh because I didn't know if Fsu had a mariachi or not. And somehow your recital popped up. Your senior recital. Yeah. Right. And then it said like Carlos Manuel, right? And then um senior recital. And then the other the second half was like uh mariachi. What was it at the time? Or was it was it just FSU Mariachi? Or I forgot what the program said.

SPEAKER_05 16:56

I remember. I I'm sorry. I think it may be I think it was just FSU Mariachi.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah, Mariachi Fsu. There you go. Yeah, Mariachi FSU. I remember reading because it took me there because the program had something like that, like Mariachi FSU. And then so I I tried looking at Instagram. There's nothing on Instagram, uh, and YouTube there was like barely anything. So I was like, well, let's see what this what this is. So I I went to the recital. Um and then yeah, y'all did like La Negra. Um I don't remember Sitancio, I think. No, no, you don't do that.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

We did La Fuente.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Oh yeah, La Fuente.

SPEAKER_05 17:37

And uh Azul's yellow.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Yeah, the bull car, right?

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Yeah, but yeah. Yeah, it was just a story. Oh, e Mia Morris Matropete.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Oh, you did that?

SPEAKER_05 17:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Oh really? I have videos. Um but yeah, so it was what it was, you, um, Gabriel, right? Um, Mariana, Michael, Lucas. And I forget the other violent players named the other. Anna.

SPEAKER_04 18:08

ODB.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The PhD student.

unknown 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Yeah. Um it was just it was just that, right? Yeah. Um and then I I um then I waited around after a while, and then I went to talk to I don't know who I talked to first. It might have been you.

SPEAKER_05 18:26

Oh, you talked to Lucas first. Before the recital even started.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Oh, really? It was before the recital started?

SPEAKER_05 18:32

Oh because he called me. He's like, there's some guy here saying he doesn't want me. Like, does this guy want to play or what? What's up?

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yeah, you know what? Because yeah, I I was just walking around and I ended up somehow at the bottom, yeah, and then outside, and then I was like, Oh, this person let's get that round, and then big old German guy. Yeah, um, so then yeah, yeah, okay. I did talk to you.

SPEAKER_05 18:54

I think Michael got there then after that, and then I got there last because I'm yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Well, were you changing or something?

SPEAKER_05 19:00

No, I was putting my clothes in my trajector in the practice room so I can change in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Oh, okay. Um, I I do remember the violins were sitting in the audience the whole time. And then they went to the city.

SPEAKER_05 19:15

I remember, yeah, yeah. Did you even see the classical part of the of the recital? I think you were talking outside with Lucas.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

I think, yeah, I think the whole classical side, I was just outside talking.

SPEAKER_05 19:24

There's no evidence of that. That first half, it seems like. Like they forgot they forgot to click record except for the second half. So only the mariachi was recorded. Only the mariachi part was recorded. Well it's symbolic.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

It never happened.

SPEAKER_05 19:38

Classical.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Before that, what when did the the FSU Mariachi start? Like officially, or when was like the first time it's 2021. In the spring?

SPEAKER_05 19:51

Yeah. The spring of 2021. Oh, you know, I'm tripping. Uh spring of 22.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

How did it happen?

SPEAKER_05 20:03

Well, this was like two separate like sex for the beginning when it started. I would I was always practicing mariachi like since because I would I I did I was in the salsa group, but the page where I got the salsa music also had mariachi music. So like that whole like fall semester, I was playing like mariachi more and more. I got people different people from like the studio to play with me. And then uh I was like, but this this one guy named Israel, and uh we had the idea like just to just make a mariachi because like there was no mariachi in town. Um, and then obviously I was like Asha Gabriel, like I looks Mexican, like the most Mexican guy to he looks like it, yeah. Yeah, so I I I don't even want to tell the story. I don't know if he's gonna be okay if I tell the story. I went up to him, I was like, hey, I I heard I saw that you're from Texas. I don't even know how I knew he was from Texas. Like, do you have mariachi experience? He's like, Oh, do you know who I am? Yeah, and he was saying like that he was asking people around the College of Music about doing Mexican music um performance, and at the time he was like, Yeah, I'm I'd be down. I've experienced playing Norteño music, Tauno music, um, and a little bit of Mariachi. And I've been playing in the Swalsa group too, so I didn't know exactly what he wanted to play. When I met with him, he wanted to do Northeño music. I was like, Oh, okay, cool. So you play Bajo Sexo? No. Oh, you play bass then? No, so you play accordion? No, it's saxophone, no, like I play violin. Like, oh so he sent me like a couple songs, like I forgot what they were they were, but I arranged them for like the group. I was like, it I think it'd be way easier. I was like, you like mariachi? He's like, yeah. Then he's like, I've I played mariachi in middle school and high school, like it'll probably just be easier if we just if we just do mariachi. And I I had those uh what's it called? Those music that I had on my drive from high school, and that I had. But there was a lot of other music, like so. We just did that performance too. We did like the came on. The old. He said they had just died, keep that in mind. Oh no, he hadn't.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

2022?

SPEAKER_05 22:06

No, this was before him. This was before he passed on. I mixed up the Cal time. We did all these other songs. We did El Rey, we did They came right out the Olvido. Um El Ultimo Besum. Amor Amor de los Los. I think that's it. So that was the performance, and he did that for his freshman recital, which is like something extra he wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

He had a freshman recyle. Yes. Well, so when um from the the first rehearsal, official rehearsal year performance.

SPEAKER_05 22:41

I'll keep it going. So then I realized I wanted to do mariachi too, just for a little bit more, and that was like right after spring break. So I was like, I'm going to San Antonio. There's like a lot of Mariachi's there. There has to be some I washing music. Um and every year I went to the Hanno Fan Fair. And um I met with I like this guy who one of my former teachers, Donald Di Vedos. Uh, he plays with like 45. Um, he introduced me to this guy named Philip. He's uh he's a mariachi there in Colorado. He said, I'll give you all this mariachi music, it's just a drop box if you give me like something in return. And I had like all this classical music and all this chamber music and all this these trumpet things. So he gave me that dropbox, which I he just gave me access to the dropbox. So like I immediately I wrote this my thesis. I immediately I never knew because like with Dropbox in the past, people give me drop boxes and I lose access. Yeah, so I use a software to uh transfer all the music in the Dropbox and then re-download into a Google Drive. So I made a new account for that and I named it because I remember we thought we Gabriel wanted to do nothing of music, so it's called Grupo Classico One, that's what the Gmail was. I don't know if it's just on the podcast, but I thought it was gonna be a grupo because I made it with him thinking that he played like Bajo Sextor or something like that. Group of Classico. So I put all the music in there, yeah. And then I just kept adding music. Like I joined all these WhatsApp groups, Telegram groups, um, the website's on Mariachi, yeah. And I just update as much as possible. Those lots of songs, which I don't even know why, like that like getting the music was just like hard, like because it was spelled weird on the in the in the drive. So I would write it out. So that's where you see like caballs and platas blancas. Like, we have our own arrangements, our own transcriptions of those. Uh what else? Remember, we used to do uh L Monte and F sharp or in E. We used to do uh what else do we? Yeah, we we did all that, so we we started rehearsing, but we so I really really want to do Mario after that because so I did I became went into a login because of the International Trumpet Guild in 2018, and then we had the International Trumpet Guild in San Antonio again in um what year was it? Uh 2022.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Yeah, 2022.

SPEAKER_05 24:52

That's the year that Novateka Lilan came as the opening for the uh the opener for the International Trumpet Guild conference, and uh I was working some of that those rehearsals and I was working some of those um sound checks and security security and the camera. So I did the camera work for some of those videos you see. Have you ever seen those videos? Like it says Nova Tekalilan, then International Trumpet Guild. Yes, that's the one that I was surprised with the camera work, and I had no experience at all. So after seeing Nova Tekalilan, I I knew that like I like I really want to dig into doing mariachi. So then I got all that music ready, and then I started like looking for people ahead of time, and then when we got back, we started working immediately, like one or two weeks before school. We were rehearsing like I don't even know, like three to five times a week. But we were getting through all like the top songs, but the top songs I I would ask for as a client. So there's like weird songs in there, but we were still doing it.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

But you so you you all performed at the recital. Yeah. So what was the instrumentation or who was who was there?

SPEAKER_05 26:01

So we had um let's see if I can even remember. We had Michael, Pope, and um Maddie. I think they were on violin, Gabriel on violin too. And then um we had Lucas on bass, David, uh this good guy on guitar, and then me and Israel on uh trumpet.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

So you d you had a full uh uh but there's no guitar on double bass. He played double bass. That's uh that's interesting. How do how did that uh happen?

SPEAKER_05 26:38

Well that's exactly what we did when I was in high school because we have a guitaron player, so we just played double bass. He knew him from orchestra. We were on orchestra together.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Me, Michael, Gabriel talked to the double basses, and you're like, can do when you want to play?

SPEAKER_05 26:54

Well, Gabriel had known Lucas before that, because I don't know, they they were in orchestra together, so they had like sessions and classes and all that together.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 27:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Uh and then so come fall 22. Was there like a big like revamp or did you try to like now formalize it was a revamp, but we just kept getting like we just had high turnover, just trying to figure out what like who would stay.

SPEAKER_05 27:22

The guys who who actually gig like now or like the ones who were there from the start. We had Michael, me, Gabriel, Lucas. But we also had other people who just like come in, join the violin section, then leave, and then um one person who was who was actually really into it was uh Francesco Capitano. He was a van-swelling guy there, and he really, really like mariachi music. Yeah, and then we we just filled up the violin section by like the second week. It was it was a pretty stable group. We had like six five four to six violins, and then Vito. He was actually like um, he was a Spanish major, and he had a Spanish undergraduate. Um, and I had talked to him about Mariachi before, and I heard him practicing, and then I just got him out of the practice room, got him into the rehearsal. He he loves Mariachi. He's even gigging, he's giggles Mariachi still in Czech Republic or Chechi, I guess I changed their name.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Uh, what did he play?

SPEAKER_05 28:13

He plays trumpet. He plays trumpet, yeah. Like he really studied like the articulation, the vibrato, like he really dug in, like had like a lot of rep memorized. Really?

SPEAKER_01 28:22

And what was the name of the group at this point?

SPEAKER_05 28:27

I think we still just kept the Grupo Classico. The fall at that point, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Grupo Classical. Yeah. Um so when did it become a thing of where like, oh, we can gig and make money? When did that be?

SPEAKER_05 28:41

Well, Gabriel, it was November 1st. He Gabriel had gone in the first year, um, which we actually didn't do because we all got the flu. It was he got $400 for three hours. All those all those instruments you saw.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah. Where?

SPEAKER_05 28:58

Or was it uh um that Brazilian Mexican restaurant there in Monroe. Really?

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Yeah, that's fine.

SPEAKER_05 29:06

It was yeah, it was for the day of the dead. It's also the time of my junior recital, too. So it was just like we all got the flu, and I actually did my junior recital with the flu. It was like Michael Jordan.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

So um you didn't have Mariachi your junior recital? No, you only had it your senior recital.

SPEAKER_05 29:24

Um then we uh yeah, we just locked it. We actually learned uh, I mean, quite a bit of rep for us at the time. I think we had 30 songs. I have the original songs over there. Um, and then starting January, right when we got back, we we had a blonde four hours Friday and Saturday, two different restaurants. We did that the whole spring semester, four hours each. Uh each day.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

How much was that paying?

SPEAKER_05 29:49

It was $400 for four hours.

unknown 29:51

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 29:52

And there was five of us in our heads, because this was a Gabriel was like, I'm gonna go work at Walmart. He always said that. I'm like, this is paying double what Walmart's paying. But he got he was obviously even getting that game. I would have never done that. My uncle, um, I don't think I mentioned it. I actually have family a lot in Tampa and Sarasota. They have your money at cheese all the time. He he was getting mad at me. He's like, or the guys over here charge like 600 bucks the hour, you need to be charging that. I'm like, it's be we're not at Walmart. Like we could we call that basic training because that's where we learn a lot of rep because people would ask for songs, they were like, no, you hear our set. It would like when we first started, we we would have a set where we do like 10 songs, and then we would just do 10 songs every hour on the hour, the same exact set when we first started.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Uh with music stands and everything, right?

SPEAKER_05 30:36

Yeah, at that time, yeah. And let's keep let's keep in mind at this time, like Lucas didn't have a guitaron, he didn't know what guitarrone was. He was playing acoustic bass, which actually matches the song quite similarly, but just not authentic.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

It did, but did did he have an amplifier or what? Or just he was just smacking it?

SPEAKER_05 30:54

He was just smacking it, it was acoustic. Michael was playing guitar, like Michael, Michael had never even like played it, like just because like other guy dropped out, so Michael just stepped up and learned it. And then February of that February of 20 of what is it, 22? No, no, of 23. They've both got a viuela and then a guitarrone, and they actually ended up learning the instruments.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

At what point did y'all get trajes?

SPEAKER_05 31:20

I got my traje. I had my Gabriel had his traje from uh high school, and I had my traje too that I got in November of 22. Still fit him, barely.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Is that is that why his uh trajec was so high? That's a different one. That's a different one. That was a different trajectory, yeah. Uh yeah, because his that trajected so short.

SPEAKER_05 31:42

I don't remember. I don't think even remember, I can't remember the last time I saw his his original traje.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Uh it was a good traje, if I'm not mistaken, but it was just like uh but so the first performance out there, the first restaurant. Did you all have trajes or you're mixed up?

SPEAKER_05 31:59

I mean Gabriel had trajes.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

What did everybody else wear?

SPEAKER_05 32:01

Everyone else wore suits, full on suits, actually. It was not too bad, not not too bad, but four full-on suits, and then with the monos.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah, I mean, uh the moño would have been I wouldn't have done the monos if you're gonna do a suit.

SPEAKER_05 32:17

That's what working on what we had.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Was it the handmade monos? Yeah, the ones that um Gabriel's uh grandma or made or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 32:27

I don't even think you know we we went through like three generations, like the first generation. I mean, if I would have known how cheap they were actually at Monito Connection, I would have just got those. But I thought they were I I would assume they were like 30-40 bucks, but I mean the super nice ones, yeah, cotton and design and even then you get uh I shouldn't even be saying that's all the thing, but you could get one from Adias for like 20 bucks or 10 bucks per Mono. Yeah, if you order the if you order the the set. I just didn't know what Monial would cost or who to even contact. Same thing, it's just like a lack of knowledge. Like, this is what the problem is with starting a group. You have no knowledge of where to find music, like where to get tarajes, who to contact, like who knows if they'll talk to you or try to scam you, like getting stuff from Mexico. Like it was just completely a new thing.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

It is, but then you so at some point you start gigging. Um you're still though rehearsing uh school and and just doing school performances.

SPEAKER_05 33:24

Yeah, we're doing yeah, at that time it's really like it's just one, it's just one group.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah, I mean, so it it just kind of I I was uh what I've been most curious about is how that per that progressed from you you started this as like a well first a grupo, right? Notre type of thing, but then to the senior recital, and then to a little bit more formal, and then to where you're sorry, to you're actually gigging um the people though in the group. So the the core ended up being basically you, uh Gabriel, Lucas, and Michael.

SPEAKER_05 34:00

Yeah, and Francesco at the time.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Yeah, and Francesco. Um were there other revolving people?

SPEAKER_05 34:07

Yeah, there's people in the group too as well. Like Vito, like we just couldn't have two trumpet. You just like what when you do like Wanda's U, we can only do five people for special events. We I would I would uh have Gabriel charge them more. This is what Gabriel was in charge of of the group. Awful. I shouldn't have to know. Um but and he couldn't speak Spanish either. They would take him on the back and speak Spanish to him, and like they were like, okay, 400 the hour, 400 for four hours is fine.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yeah, it's finished. It's not good.

SPEAKER_05 34:36

Um, but we had the like I said, 46 violins the whole time. And we also had Sofia, who was very, very involved with she was like she taught some of the first of like our own like singing techniques. She was a voice performance major, and then she later switched to a BA. But she taught uh she was the main singer in the group too. It's Gabriel and Sofia.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

So then you did female keys?

SPEAKER_05 34:59

Yeah. We just did female songs, but like we did uh like from that.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Yeah, but so yeah, with the singing in terms of the singing and stuff, how did you know what keys you should be doing them? And did you just reference recording?

SPEAKER_05 35:17

No, we just we just we just referenced the drawbox. See, this is what I call do I just keep referencing my thesis? This is why I call my thesis a DCMR, a digitally circulating Mariachia repertoire. These are the music that you see like on the Dropbox, you see in these WhatsApp groups. Like, if you look at Sinos Decken, there's like a green mark. Have you noticed that? Like, I don't know if you have. No, there's like a green mark, like someone was like using like Microsoft painting, and they accidentally marked it. Oh every time you see Sinal Decken, like in like you have the music from Sinos Dehan, you're gonna see that mark. You're gonna see the bad copy, it's gonna be the exact same thing, same thing um Loto Mariachi, Mariachi uh Parti Dora. These people who sell these free mariachi packs, have you seen them? Like what they're like 4,000 mariachi PDFs, all DCMRs, all the same repertoire. So that's what we just did. Like we would type in La Le del Monte, and then like what came up for like La Le del Monte is just that she music, like it's like just like screenshot like a napkin, and it's it written in E.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Right. Um, and you just guys just went with it. But I mean, you referenced the recording, though. Yeah, you would listen, yeah, and you would notice. I mean, it's obviously a different key.

SPEAKER_05 36:23

Yeah, I mean, we mostly did the stuff the same, like it was mostly we went to the sheet music before we went to the recording, which maybe wasn't the best idea. But I knew Gabriel the because Gabriel's the only guy who sang at the time. Like I forced myself to start singing in like 2023. I really didn't start singing until when you got here, actually. I started taking lessons. Oh, really? Um, but uh yeah, we just did what the sheet music said because like if you did Lali Monte and Sol, like Gabriel would will have died. Like we knew he was a baritone and like where his range was.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yeah. Um, I mean, yeah, yeah, I did this with no.

SPEAKER_05 36:57

Like Visa the Fernandez, like actually that's the problem why we get the keys that we got, because like we look at the Vicenta Fernandez one, the um the recoin in La, and it doesn't change. Yeah, unlike the cajon one.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Yeah, and I mean he also had weird, he had a super crazy or weird range because oh yeah. We had his divinas is like photos but everybody doesn't sold him. Um like most money, I just didn't solve.

SPEAKER_05 37:20

Well, like we did um his like because it was like the person we went to, like, for all the music, like we did his multivals too. Yeah, yeah. Um like if we would have learned him, I would have learned his hammock, like something like that.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

Uh but during all this, did you ever think of how far did you really think this was gonna go? So like fall or spring twenty two, did you envision that the group would actually become something stable? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:52

I I I had this, I had this imagination. Gabriel did it was me who had the idea for making it a gigging group actually working to get money out. I don't even know. We were just doing this for fun. We were we were all delusional. We thought we were the best mariachi in Florida, besides Globe. Because we thought we we were we were, I I admit, we were naive. We could put the right rhythms in the at the right time, the right notes at the right with the right rhythm, and that's not exactly all the mariachi is.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

But yeah, but I mean, yeah, I mean that's just basic music knowledge to anything.

SPEAKER_05 38:26

We thought with stream music we we were the best, we were the modergas. No, not really, but we thought we were close.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Uh yeah, no. But so then you you always thought from the very beginning, you're like, okay, there's gonna be a gigging group, and we're gonna make money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:42

Um, I didn't think there was gonna be a demand because like I played in the salsa group, and I would play like gigs, and I I would rarely see Mexicans. I didn't even think Mexicans existed in Tallahassee. This was before Pedro's too. Like, there was like no, like all the only restaurants I knew like we're holy school, and then like banchos, and like I just I was like the owners lived like far away. Like, I didn't even think there was Mexican. I not to the extent that I I that the that I know today. Like, I didn't even think there was a potential for us to be getting gigs. Maybe one gig here and there, but I knew we would get money, but just you know, the true extent.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Well when did you start realizing the school or the department is really starting to take notice or you get like requests for school performances?

SPEAKER_05 39:34

I don't know, that that really didn't happen until like spring of 2024 where we got um invited by the um sorry Center for Music of the Americas, which is part of the musicology department there to perform at Blue Tavern. And uh gave lectures and then uh I had taken honest class and um gave lectures about Mariachi there and became really closely tightened in with the musicology department. Um we started doing gigs with MASA. That was what always we've always done a lot with Maza. Uh gigs with uh Really for Life. We started doing all those RSOs. Once we we became an RSO, uh we started getting contacted a lot more.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Yeah, so I guess kind of that that was the what when did you become an RSO?

SPEAKER_05 40:17

We became an RSO of um in spring of 24.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

So so that's right before I got here.

SPEAKER_05 40:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

And they let you register as FSU Mariachi FSU?

SPEAKER_05 40:32

Yeah, they did at the time.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

That's crazy. Now anything FSU even adjacent to FSU related, there's like nah.

SPEAKER_05 40:40

Yeah.

unknown 40:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:42

Well we wanted to do FSU Mariachi, that's why we weren't FSU Mariachi. They just said that you had to put the FSU on the backside.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

That's funny. Uh so it was spring, but but y'all did um Prism. Yeah, we did Prism. Spring, I mean fall 23.

SPEAKER_05 40:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Um, so within the department, you were already as a known in a way. Or within the college.

SPEAKER_05 41:06

No, oh also, this is something that boosted us a lot. In uh fall of 2023, there was a competition in the College of Music to go on a trip to Costa Rica. Uh so we really wanted to get that done. We did we just we just classical stuff like Las Bodas, Espanagani, and uh we did El Rey and then Sonal Negra. And we actually got second place, or we were up there uh for the competition to go to Costa Rica, but the brass quintel won. So that was our main goal. That's why we rehearsed so much is for that competition.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Yeah, if me or Danny were there at the time.

SPEAKER_05 41:41

If me and Danny, we'd be in Costa Rica.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:45

Uh and so that's what boosted us, and then we had all that stuff prepared, so we were able to do it for Prism. There they uh should we explain what Prism is?

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Yeah, I guess the end spur.

SPEAKER_05 41:57

Yeah, so Prism is an event with like they have like 30, like two-minute, like it has to be under three minutes actually. Three-minute performances. There's usually about 30. People go from the marching band jazz, they have like pop singers, they have it's mostly the marching band sections, and then the studios too. Um, and anybody can do it. Uh, all you have to do is apply. And if you get in, you get in. And we got in 2023. And when we um when we first performed, we got a big pop. A lot of people talk to us about how we went out after, and people feel a good reception to having Mariachi.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Um, yeah, if it feels like a like a non-stop telethon type of thing, like where it's just like this the stage, the lights go down and here, and as people are clapping, and then you move hand over to the next side.

unknown 42:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Uh so yeah, we we did it. Um while y'all did it fall twenty-three.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

Spring, spring twenty-four. Yeah, and then and then a fall twenty-four.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

We didn't do a fall twenty-four.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

Are we sure?

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Yeah, because that's when we went to Vargas and stuff. Or we're gonna go now, but I did, but oh, we must have done spring.

SPEAKER_05 43:06

We skipped that on. Oh, I'm we're we're all fire year. We did spring. Oh, we're not. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

I think we did fall twenty five and spring twenty-six with Josh and we did that, but twenty-four, twenty-five, we didn't do prison.

SPEAKER_05 43:22

Wow. Oh that's right, that's right. I got it.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, we just come to skip door because also I was like, I'm not gonna be there. Um because it was during the time of Vargas.

SPEAKER_05 43:34

Yeah, that's why I went to I went to go get that in Wallahara.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Yeah. Yeah, and I yeah, so that was that was fall twenty four. Okay, and so that's kinda so that's when I got here, fall twenty four. And I came in and I I was uh shocked.

SPEAKER_05 43:54

We we should pause. We should pause. Yeah. It was a very developmental time. It was summer of two thousand twenty four.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 44:01

Yeah. So at that time we we discovered the power of stylonian.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

And just the four of you, right?

SPEAKER_05 44:08

Yeah, just the four of us. And we were actually we were making it. Yeah. Yeah. We would go to all the restaurants in Panama City. We would go to Destin. We'd go all the time. And the thing about Destin, I feel like I shouldn't even be saying this again. So like when it's summertime, you can go every single day. Because there's always gonna be tourists. So we're making money like throughout the week. We come back like whenever we wanted, and we had nothing else to do, so we were always telling them. So we were learning repertoire, like super that's when we learned the majority of our repertoire, too. Like I that's when I made them learn Ralampago. I was about that point, I was deciding what we were learning, what we're not learning. We were learning Sibuanteco, like we were we just learned whatever we could. Molettos, we learning Torillos, learn our Mira Relo arrangement, yeah. We had this. We actually started downing actually way before that. I remember the first time we downed, Francesco was still here. So that must have been in spring of 23. We started downloading, so we just downloaded and learned our repertoire, going to Destin, going to Panama City. Um, we actually go out Plantas, they were not in Destin two and a half hours away, which was a little bit unwise, but we did it. We were glad to have them.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

You graduated spring 24. Yeah, with your undergrad, yeah, and then that whole summer you're you're like contemplating what what you're gonna do with your life.

SPEAKER_05 45:27

Yeah, and I I got into musicology into musicology, but I I didn't know if I want to want to do that. If I wanted to just focus on Mariachi. At the point I was already 100% into Mariachi, like I knew that I wanted to do that, and that's why I wanted to do that. I just didn't know the method that I should do that, like regardless of anything, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

So, I mean, yeah, I mean I got here, and I remember yeah, seeing you guys play um at your recital, and then I was like, well, I mean, you sounded fine, especially for like I mean, not and and also you have to understand uh that I come from the valley which is like the mecca of competitive school mariachi. Yeah, like I competed against Roma, Rio, Edinburgh, Edcast, like all that, all of high school, and then Texas State competed against Aslan, went to Albuquerque, like that was just my life at the highest level. So people that were not good enough, you would you would not make it, you can get up, like go do something else. So that's just you know where where I came from. And I related a lot to like it was very much like sports, like there was varsity mariachi and JV, and some schools were even so big that had a freshman Mariachi and JV and varsity. And if you're a freshman making it to varsity mariachi in one of these top schools, it's like you were really good. Um so then I I come right and I see Michael playing a V Wella with a thumb pick, and I was just like okay, that hurts right here. And then I see Lucas with his fingerings that I've never seen in my life, and I'm just like no and then uh the Boeings that Gabriel would do, and it was just everything that was just like um while that this is very not what I'm used to, especially thinking of okay, this is a college-level group. Um and and I tried to kind of I don't know, fix a lot of those things. And Michael did get a lot better, he has gotten way better in Vuela over the last two years.

SPEAKER_05 47:45

I will blame myself for the thumb pick, like because like if you ask if you ask like some average client, even in Texas, like what does the viola wear? I knew the viuelas used something. I just can't remember what they used because my cousin played viuella, he played there in in San Antonio. Um, but I knew they used something, and like we went to the store. Obviously, they weren't gonna have fingerpicks, but they had the thumb pick. I was like, I'll just I think that's what they use. Maybe they use three of them, maybe they use two of them. I've seen like people who use two to use two of them.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

Yeah, I would use two at some point, but yeah, finger.

SPEAKER_05 48:12

I just didn't know what they used. Like if you ask the average person, they could not tell you how many strings a guitarrone has. Like, I know if guitarrone had four strings or six strings.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

I remember I bought um Lucas the Guitarrone book via uh the the Santiago Nati Santiago one.

SPEAKER_05 48:27

I don't think so, actually. I think it's a how Leonardo.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

Oh that one. Yeah. Uh I I looked at some of that. Um that was and you know, that was the other thing too. I did use some method books. Uh the guitarr. I use a Nati Santiago one.

SPEAKER_05 48:43

He had that book too. A big problem, like the difference in development between Lucas and like was that Michael speaks Spanish. Yeah. And that Lucas doesn't speak Spanish. Like when we first started Lucas, like they would say, like, we would say a song, and he would just stay there. He was like, I don't know what you're saying. Michael could actually like know what was happening. And then he could watch he could watch a zombie, like he actually watched a zombie like and understood what was happening. Uh-huh. And uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

Yeah, I mean, the so the the the language is important one because I mean the titles of the songs are in Spanish, and you're gonna sing coros, it's Spanish. You have to know it or under at least understand it. There's plenty of people in Texas and in the high school money, and she said they don't know Spanish, but they understood the songs or they they could they spent time trying figuring out what the lyrics meant and stuff, especially if they were singing. Huh? No, there was one girl, uh, she was like a vocal finalist multiple times, uh extravaganza. Um, and I knew her personally, and she does not know Spanish. Yeah. And but she sang it amazing, and she was she was great. Uh she even played at Texas State for a bit. And then she transferred her UTRGV. Um actually it was multiple. Uh but yeah, so then um bowings are weird, phrasings weird, the arrangements. It it was just like stepping into what felt like an alternate reality or universe or something, because I was like I can't conform to however y'all were doing your your arrangements and then your keys.

SPEAKER_05 50:28

Um I defended, I defended you what I defend it to this day.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

What everything that y'all did?

SPEAKER_05 50:34

No, everything we did. It was just a thought, we just didn't know. Like we didn't, no, like if you go to like the rural study of Jalisco, like the but Mariachi Tarizo now, they're not doing cajon. Like if you go back in the 60s, they're not doing cajon, 1950, they're not doing cajon. You actually introduced me to the idea, so became the topic for my yeah, yeah. I I didn't even know what that meant. Like, I knew we knew the Indians. I don't know if you remember, yeah. We did know the Indians, we knew the standard Indians to know the keys. Um we just didn't know what they were, like we just knew that that's how they end.

SPEAKER_01 51:03

Yeah, I mean you guys could play fine. It was just more of one style, but it was also just knowledge of things are done this way. There they just are in there there's not like one right way, right, to play a song, obviously, because I I I think of the top five groups in Mariachi to be Vargas, Note, Karilan, Cobre, Camperos, and Sol.

SPEAKER_04 51:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

That's just my top five for one. They're just really good, but also just so many groups reference their arrangements. Um they're like known internationally, concerts, albums. Yeah. No, you can argue like Galleros and Um Serenata Mexicana or like all these other groups that are good, or America, but none of those groups really reach the status of these five. Yeah. And these five, and I mean, you and you've heard videos of like when they all play together, like play like La Negra or something, it sounds horrible. Yeah. Because they're all playing like five different styles of how they do it. Um the thing is what I noticed when I came here is like you guys didn't do any of those styles. Yeah, we're doing none of that. So uh it was just like, okay, well, you you gotta know the basic style first, or at least one of them, and then do your own thing. I don't play like how these five do, where I sometimes I combine some of the different styles, but I learn like basically the the foundations, the basics of it, and then develop my own stuff.

SPEAKER_05 52:43

I understand that, but my musicology brain, I've been brainwashed. So it's just it's just a whole different like was I think what's happening there is like a whole different like thought world, like a whole different like the way you hear European mariachi or even Colombian Mariachi is not the way you hear Mexican Mariachi. I understand that like we we see these top five, they're obviously amazing, but we think about them over time. Like, is that Mariachi more important than Justovilla's Mariachi or Mariachi Varagas first generation or second generation? You know what I'm saying? Like it's all completely different, but we had like we were just doing it completely different from everything.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Yeah, but that then that's back to the point y'all weren't doing any of that, yeah. Any of that, exactly. Okay, pick 60s Vadagas or pick pick whatever, but it was just Gabriel bouncing every single note, like it it was no Mariachi style uh at all. I mean, you have a guy playing with a finger pick and a guy doing wrong fingerings, um and I mean it worked, like you because one, there's nobody else here, yeah. Um, yeah, we're young, so that also kind of like interested clients and like okay, uh I'll give these kids a break too. And still um so the my in my senior year in high school, there was eight of us that were seniors in the Mariachi, the var city mariachi that graduated. How many went on to gig from the eight, do you think? One me. Technically two, the violent player, but he only did it for like a year and then he stopped. Um and that and that's the same across all like you know, Roma and uh Mackay and all that. Um because gigging is such a it's such a different skill.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

Right? In in the schools, you don't learn how to transpose on the spot. You don't learn how to um you don't learn cajon uh sun tersera. You don't learn any of that stuff. And it's just because we in the schools we're not tested on that. We're not great on that. That's not what gives a district money. It's UIL ratings and how many people you get to all state and how well you do in state competitions. And to prepare a 10-minute set takes so much effort, especially with a bunch of 16-year-olds.

SPEAKER_03 55:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

So to do all that, and then also on top of that, give them a lesson, okay, like okay, this is your subida, this is your circuito, and then give them a test on that while you're trying to make them perform some 30-second notes of a bunch of crap. Um, it it just doesn't work. So you just kind of have to pick one way or the other. And and I found regions of Texas do things differently. The Valley folks are so heavy on the the competition. Um El Paso does a little bit more of the cajon type of teaching, at least some schools that I know of. Um but then that that also shows up in in the rankings and in the competitions. They're gonna be much lower. But if you take one of these to gig, on average, I'd say on average, a person that went through San Antonio Mariachi education system would be slightly better at gigging than somebody from the valley. Uh, but putting them at a high-level university competition, mariachi, the the the valley kid would be better. I I would say that that's just a very high-level average. There are like exceptions. I was not ready to gig when I when I came out of high school. I knew a handful of songs. I could play my instrument very, very well. I freaking put any sheet music from me, I could read it. Uh, but then go out to their gig and uh I remember one of their first gigs, and they're like, okay, uh, we're gonna do Hema. And then I'm like, the Competos version? And they're like, no, uh, cajon. And I'm like, I don't know it. What do you mean you don't know? Uh no, no, I don't know. Uh I just that's what what we did in school was only the Competos version. Uh same with Bikina. We only did the Luis Miguel version, not the instrumental.

SPEAKER_04 57:08

And why do you think you did the um Competos version?

SPEAKER_01 57:14

Because it it's just um it looks better on stage.

SPEAKER_05 57:21

I was gonna say that it's because of the accessibility of that DSCMR I was talking about. When you go to any website, you type in Hema, you go into a Dropbox, you go into a the cajon doesn't come up. That wasn't until 2020.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

Yeah, okay, I could see that argument too.

SPEAKER_05 57:36

Like that's the same thing. I we asked the kid, I gave with those some of the kids there in San Antonio when you ask them Qama the same thing. I asked you when you asked to do the Hema, we got the competitors version. And it's just because of the accessibility to the the repertoire, to the music.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Yeah, it is more accessible. So we do a lot of Solomonico arrangements for songs because he just publishes that and it's out there. Um yeah, Cajon arrangements, that's just that's that's not a thing in the schools. And unless you have a director that gigs or grew up through that, you just won't. So from like the I was counting the other day, I think seven Mariachi directors I've had in my life. If you include high school to college, including my like all region and all state and the the multiple attack state from all the eight I I think only let's see one, two, three I'd say about three actually gigged. Um and and also another weird factor from the statistic is the fact that from those like seven only two had um music degrees. The uh the others didn't. Um it's just weird and that's just I mean the state of Mariachi, because it's I say relatively young, right, compared to some other genres of music.

SPEAKER_05 59:20

It's all it's just all about academic institutionalization. Like jazz is the same age, but it has way more institutionalization. There's more books about jazz, there's more books about composition, arranging. We just we just haven't got there yet.

SPEAKER_01 59:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:37

Um and there's a reason of like why would even like anybody do that if you could go to your chama, like why why be a m musicologist or an author about these topics when you're making your money like the money's elsewhere? You can make the rajas and make more money then.

SPEAKER_01 59:51

Yeah. Uh and I I think that's also like something that I brought up, remember a while ago, months ago, that you you make more money as a as a mid-level mariachi musician than being at the one of the top groups.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

And that that's not the same in in other genres. I don't think that'll be the same in jazz. Maybe it is, but probably not, or especially not classical.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:16

I doubt it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Classical, if you're a classical violinist, like a top, you're gonna be making millions, right? Probably. Um if you're in the top mariachi, you're not gonna be making one, you never make millions unless you do business like Jose, that um, but as a player, you will make more money gigging at a high frequency, much smaller group. Um and and and I think my my theory was the the the clients. The clients themselves are a lot I mean, it's majority Mexican, right? So they're not gonna have as much money. They're they want more of an intimate type of feeling. They they look at it more as a more tradition and and more like in the bar, or more of like how that that's just how mariachi is kind of presented. If mariachi's not seen even even over there, even in Texas, um as a very high like prestigious art form. And I just I don't it's just from going through it and being in it, um I don't see that changing. It don't won't get to like be a prestigious thing compared to these other genres. I don't know what do you think that it will or not?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:48

No, I think it will. We just need to become or it's just money is just so bad at organization as as like musicians, like there's no like governing body, y'all doing there's no like jazz, like all these other like the international trumpet guild, there's no conferences, like there's conferences, but that's loaded for performance. That's what the primary bread and butter is. Um we're seeing this new this new conference there happening in San Antonio in July. But we just need more people in academia writing about Mariachi, like why yeah, like I was saying, writing about Cajon, like I could like I couldn't search, you can't search anything about Cajon and know what it is for Mariachi. You could you could barely get anything about that. So um learning about that is something I had to write about. Like, that's why I felt like it was important to write about because it had never been written about before. Um, I think it would why does something need to be prestigious? Like, here's another thing the average mariachi musician is likely making more than the average classical musician so that we don't consider the average jazz musician, the average mariachi musicians. There's probably more mariachi musicians gigging today than there are jazz musicians on this Friday night.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:52

Yeah, but the that um but I I think the lack of prestigious mariachi is what helps contribute to that, to being to making more, like an average mariachi making more, because it it's more accessible to clients and and people and getting into mariachi. Because the the music the especially the popular songs, her most, they're not hard to play, like technically, right? The technical of the trumpet or the violin or anything, it's not hard. And even if you don't do it at say the the proper way or with the style that I've grown up with or learned all of the time, the client doesn't care or doesn't notice.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:47

See, that's what we're lucky about. I think that um I argue that this is the mariachi is gonna be bigger than ever within the next 30, 40 years, because the client's gonna change, the average client. Um, so me people go out of mariachi, like um my my aunts and my mom and like my cousins, they did mariachi in school. So now when they when mariachi comes up to them, they're low-key cooks. Because they know repertoire, they know Sonas, they know what angles, they know, they know the more. So, with all these, I I have all the numbers, you especially Las Vegas is something you can look at right now. The explosion of clients, potential clients, has exploded in in in Vegas and will continue exploding because of the amount of students going through. The students is and also this connection prestigious, like these the students are just what we got worried about because the biggest connection is the problem is that connection between college and high school and gigging, and like it's way easier to be a mighty guess musician, believe it or not, today than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago. With every year that passes, it becomes way easier. Like, you see all the sheet music that we have that we have access to, like we have access to cajon sheet music, people like uh his name for writing out these cajon arrangements, yeah. And once we understand, like what because I even know what to practice, but now we have that list, like Carlos Mandolo made like of the frequency that has helped more than anything I've ever seen as a resource. There's just people know what how to use these resources, how to use the internet, how to use TikTok. Like TikTok has helps so many young musicians know what to practice and know what like should how they should sound. Like back in the day, you wouldn't like let's say like far, but like I write about this in my fourth chapter of my thesis. Like, technology is what the people pushing cajon and what that is, is one the recordings and also the expectations of the clients. You could also also change the expectations of clients because when you came here, they're like, Yeah, we want to hear scene th and they were expecting to hear our version, or we want to hear quizas. Like it's all about what the mariachi's expose to the clients and who the clients are. And within the next couple of years, these these clients are gonna be people who've had mariachi experience them themselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:54

Yes, and well, but okay, but one of the the main Things that when I came here and kind of there's a big disruptive force to what y'all were doing. It wasn't just the fact of me wanting you to conform or or the fact that you know this trying to tell you this is a way that a lot of people do it or it's done you go anywhere and and they're gonna do it this way. Yeah, it was the fact that so I look at Mariachi as something in in some ways a form of well money, but also like survival, where you can go anywhere in the country and play.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:36

What you all were doing made it to where you can't do that. There was no way any of you three years ago, two years ago, could have gone to LA, Atlanta, Tampa, um, and being like, oh, I can play, and then they're like, okay, motivos, and you only know the Vicenta version. Yeah. It was more that it was more, um, and and then the part of it was well, and it's based what Michael has told me, they never thought, one, that other people with money experience would come here, or that they would ever continue this beyond FSU or college or outside of Tallahassee. And and if you're just operating within that vacuum, within that mindset, you can do whatever you want. Yeah, but as soon as you leave this bubble, you you're gonna not be suited to be able to continue. You're gonna have to now, in a way, start at the bottom again. And that and that's why uh again, it's like learning the the basics, the foundations of okay, this is the way a lot of people do these songs. Learn that. Okay, you learn that, and okay, now do whatever you want. It's having that knowledge in in like just accessible.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:52

Something I've wanted to talk about that we haven't had a chance to talk about too. As a trumpet player, one of the most important things is style. Like just like the way that the form face, the the formation of like the face of the muscles used, this is like completely different from mariachi. Like, you've heard my sound change, you've heard it change drastically over the years, just because I focus doing mariachi. So it's the same thing with jazz or anything, like the style change, like the way the vibrato, like the muscles used for a classical vibrato, are completely different than I feel like for a mariachi vibrato, and like that width, the speed and controlling that. Like, even now, like something I struggle with like is the fine details, is understanding like where to consider how hard to accent, like what makes the style the style, the style that everybody knows is familiar with. It's like I you I wouldn't be expected to play closer to Miguel Martinez, even if I could. It's the the the the style that we look for is Cipriano, we look for Fedor Rey, like Jose Hernandez, that's the mariachi style of today.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:49

Yeah. Um style is is one thing. Um and and this is where also we're very much separate gigging from education. There, I believe they should bridge and overlap and come together.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:10

I wrote a paper, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:11

But it it doesn't the way that the education of Mariachi, at least in Texas, that that's not possible. Um just and it goes back to again because that's not what the teachers or the directors are gonna be evaluated on. It's not gonna be okay, how well are your students prepared to gig? That's how well did you prepare them for UIL competition. And like okay, so you think the clients are gonna change over the next 30, 40 years, and and you'll be more um I also want to say real quick, yeah, that we could change those UIL standards.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:47

Like, imagine if you go to a competition, just like band competition, Cyberman's a part of it. Yeah, um, or you have you have to learn a song from McGahon. Or you you give a you're giving a song prepared, like one song, it's it's just all about the bureaucracy of the UIL and Texas education requirements. Like here, uh something ideal would be like you have one song that every band, every group has to learn, and then you have to play it in one of three keys, is something that would be beneficial. Less than 10. I think this is also the competition, the competition aspect of money it's like if extravaganza had a like a repertoire list. This is what we do in the classical music world and jazz world, like the singers have to compete with the same 10 songs, but it's random, or the some same 20 songs that would make an interesting aspect of the competition, maybe make it more realistic, too.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:35

Yeah, I mean it could, and and I mean, I think it would balance it out too. That you would have now schools that traditionally would probably never win a competition because they don't have the same history or resources as like somebody like Roma. Um, but they're able to focus on the other aspects that maybe these other bigger schools would struggle with.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:58

Yeah, it's it's like marching man. Like, I don't know if you know about marching man, like the way you see FMU, that's completely different from the way that they use in DCI, like the marching technique I'm saying. Yeah, maybe having like a show tech show mariachi option or a cajon mariachi or even traditional mariachi, like there's no reason that traditional mariachi should not be or Horocho or like any of these other genres should not be schools. You see that Norteño's starting to be part of the program. Like as of now, show Norteño doesn't even exist, it's only the standards, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:29

Yeah. Um I mean that that's that's gonna take a lot of people, a lot of it's all it's all about institutionalism and bureaucracy.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:44

I mean, I I I just got my institutions class last fall, read all these theoretical books, and it's really changed my mind. Like uh it's all about bureaucracy, that's what really changes things in thought worlds, like seeing what making what people see was important, like to a kid, the who however good their cascabelo solo is more important than them to how many cajon songs they know. That's more important, their cascabel solo, how fast they can play uh.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

Yeah, uh I mean it it's perspective too, like it's so so let's uh so I think a very obvious contrast is like me and Danny. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:22

That's perfect. I hope you have them on the podcast or Joseph or whatever guys who are all from here.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:26

I do plan to, but I can't have all of you at once because y'all will not shut up. Uh but yeah, like Danny had no idea about school Mariachi. He his dad plays a family, right? Grew up on the streets of Mariachi, Kaya, Kay Hero, Mariachi, whatever, right? Whatever terms you want to use. I was introduced to Mariachi through the school forum institution. Okay, here's this sheet music. Um, this is what this X means, and then we have rehearsal at this time, and we're gonna be on stage. Here's the microphone, and here it's just like okay, here it's like one, two, three, and the chord here and there. Okay, cool. And then we just kind of went up at the same time. Eventually I started gigging. Um then I had to kind of learn a lot of the things that he kind of was just grew up with, but then there's things that um he never really thought about or did that that's just obviously done in in the school groups. And now we're right, we play together and we play it. So I'm playing Itarron, he plays viuela. And so a lot of the arrangements and stuff that we'll do when we started doing more cajon stuff, we just know it, like without even really conferring. There's gonna be certain things, some passing chords or some minor sevenths, or or you place the beats, or you place a beat.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:49

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:51

Yeah, but um we but the thing is I can do that, or we can do that because I went out and gigged. If I would have just came straight from the school system and then just started gigging uh with him, I I it would it wouldn't it wouldn't match, no matter how good I can play the guitaron or viuela or guitar or whatever it is. Just gonna I those skills I still had to develop them and learn them later. Uh but the thought process, the the idea of what mariachi is and how it should be are different. Like fundamentally, I think Danny and I think differently of how certain songs or how certain um like styles or singing is is just different.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:43

And there I don't know, there could be some I I would hope I would like for there to be because you know I've thought about that. If I were ever to become a mariachi director, like in a school, like a middle school or high school, I have thought about doing a curriculum where it would revolve around building musicians of like mariachi theory, knowing your boleros, your cacon endings, intros, what does cacon mean, all that stuff. And I I did some of that actually with um the FSU group this past year, especially in the fall. Like I literally introduced, okay, we have a son, but then there's the jaliciense, there's there's um what's the other type? Avajeno. Avajenio, um Harocho. What are the differences from these three? And so I I did some of that. And and then I then but then I quickly realized why that's so difficult. One, one, we were only meeting once a week. Yeah, and then we had to put on a recital, and you know, learn the 10 songs, learn staging, learn uh what who's gonna sing what part, and there's no damn time to like be like, okay, well, this is pretty medicine with the center. Yeah. Uh that's just not um how it is. I mean, if you have time, I think there's a lot more time in middle school and high school because you meet every single day.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:11

Actually, the final project for my institutions class is um I developed an imaginary Manichi conservatory. And like something that I did about that, like, is that's what has to happen. There's literally no way you could become a giggy manage without thousands of hours or hundreds of hours at least of experience. Like, you would need those classes of cajon, but you also need technique, like you cannot do any of this without like instrumental technique. That's also important, but like also those building blocks, like, especially for melody players, you're understanding to hear like a major third, minor third.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:40

Yes. Um, that's another thing I've noticed with people that grow up playing not in a school. Um, some of them it it it felt like a toss-up to me. Maybe it's a little narrow or narrow, but there's a lot of players that will know whatever song you tell them, but god, their technique is bad on their instrument.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:02

Nothing matters if you have bad tone or if you sing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:05

Yeah. Um but then they still get hired and people will still call them because what they know the song and it's passable and the clients are satisfied. But i it it's not at a anywhere near a high level that you should you should be at, especially somebody that's like older, you know, in their late 30s, 40s, or 50s. I played with guys at Mariachi, they're still like in their 70s and playing. And I'm just like, you gotta you gotta retire. Uh and you so do you think that Mariachi will change in Texas?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:51

Oh, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:53

Without you interfering?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:55

Without me interfering? I think it's on its way. Like, well, something that I think is so good um is like the representation of younger players in social media. Like we see Mariachi, uh, San Antonio, like just seeing that you could go out of high school. I'm sure none of those people had gigging experience, but they also learned there's just so many student groups, like um, what's his name? I worked with one of them in the summer, and I guess I really see how they're working. Hijos de San Antonio. It's really, really they're like 15, 16 year olds, but they're learning the gigging experience because they know what's possible that that's out there, that they have to take the extra step. So I think it's I think it's going to change, especially just with the availability of technology and of arrangements. If someone just writes up here, we if we know someone who has all the arrangements for Gahan arrangements, so if they just release that, make that available. Yeah, uh, the biggest problem I think is just accessibility, also technique. I don't know what about singing, like what how singing technique is in like in schools, but after taking lessons here at FSU, like just knowing what your body is doing and like what that feels like. I even know what singing felt like. I even I thought I had low voice. Can you believe that?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:00

You did you always belting out C's. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_05 1:19:03

Yeah, but I didn't know that until I took singing classes. Like, I didn't know that it takes a breath. I know that the vocal cord closure, like that's necessarily the difference the space makes. Like just education. Like, I think I really think that people like Danny, or like people who are Mexican-American who are going through the school system should go back to give serve their communities, like teach, like Danny should be teaching mariachi voice. I think that that would be ideal for I don't know if that would be ideal for him, but somebody with that experience. Like, people just don't know, even the mariachi directors do not know the the true extent of these mechanisms that happen vocally, and on each instrument, like like they expect all these mariachi directors to play all the Audonia instruments, all the melody instruments, but doing at a high level. Like what happens at some of the top programs, like in San Antonio, is that everybody has private lessons for every single instrument. Now, this is not something that you see too commonly. Like, did you have a private lesson teacher for Audwonia?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:57

Uh yeah. Oh, you did? You see what? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:59

That's good, that's good. That's exactly how it should be. But I don't know. I I think it takes intention. Like people want to do stuff for Mariachi. People want to be in an academia in Mariachi, but they don't know what to do.

unknown 1:20:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:13

They can email me. I I know I have a lot of work.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:16

I have a lot of love work people can do. Was it CM24 at FS? Uh I I mean, I I feel like I think that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:26

I think it's gonna go come from top down, not top bottom up. It starts to start in academia and come its way down, come down.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:34

It it does. Um, I mean, so Texas State, I feel you know, a little biased just because what I went there. But the the curriculum has definitely developed over time, and they do something that no other university, to my knowledge, does, and that's where they do um if you major in music education, you can do it with a concentration in mariachi. Um so there's specific courses that they take on like history and and all this stuff, but a big one is um instrument techniques, yeah. Where you learn the basics of guitarron, uh cajon of guitarrons, learning the scales, um endings and opening, and then viola, violin, trumpet, and voice. And you have to go through all five of those. Each one is a semester long, and they're only offered um once a semester. Yeah. So, and then they have people that are specialists in those instruments.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:32

That's exactly how it should be. I'm excited to see what's gonna happen over there at MAC Denver. Uh I saw some of the.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:38

Yeah, I heard about that, yeah. Um, I don't know. I mean, it's definitely growing, but every person that I've talked to that gigs, that it's you know, in Texas, that's young, the one that starts in school, then goes through the gigging experience, um, that end up continuing gigging because there are so many that try and they just get washed out. Because, you know, they're used to six-minute performances or like an hour setup of something you've rehearsed for four months, and then you get to it's like, oh, we can't do a one-hour gig. And then they're like, Okay, well, play, we're gonna play, I don't know, so pilot moja. And they're like, okay, play third. And I was like, I don't know, third. I've only ever done second my whole life. Um, and then after an hour, they're just like, you know what? Um, I quit. And they just leave, they'll they'll leave the gig.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:32

Yeah, like I mean, like I'm saying, what is like how do you even know what to practice? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, how do you even know? Like, right now, I mean, I made these playlists, and I mean, like what Carlos Mandonados thing has really helped a lot too. Like, even like the technique wise, I went to a junior's camp there in uh 2024. Some of like the most basic things that you know, like have you played Clark? Have you played Arbin? I don't even know what that is. I'm like, that's the most big that's the Bible of trumpet. That Clark Studies? Yeah, Clark Studies. Yeah, you you gotta just you just know it. Like, you just have to know that. Yeah, he's like, I'm like, so what do you play? Uh I just play songs.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:05

I'm like that that is a fault of um uh Mariachi and and these bigger programs that I mean everybody knows this and calling nothing now. If you play in the orchestra at Roma, doesn't matter how good you are, you will not be in the varsity of Mariachi. You're not allowed. Yeah, you can only you can't be in marching band, you can't be in choir, you can't at least 10 years ago. Maybe they've changed their rules now, but based off of what happened at the Stravaganza a few years ago, I doubt, I doubt it, they're still pretty strict with their rules. Um, ca and I know this from personal experience because uh there is a person who got first chair violin all region in the valley, and I think he made it to state, and he got first chair all region mariachi on violin from Roma Oreo, one of those. But he was in the JV Mariachi because he was an orchestra, and so it in some of these schools you're punished for expanding your your knowledge. Um, but I mean again, this is like the the the peak, the highest level of competitive mariachi, where like you have to be here 100% committed, or also find somebody else that can maybe not play as well, but they're gonna conform to the system. And to break that no, it's just breaking that system, breaking Roma, Rio, and Ed Couch, that for 20, 30 years, and they have alumni that donate and come back and keep progressing. Yeah, that's gonna be hard.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:40

That's also hard musical-wise, is the age that everybody starts at.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:46

I started piano at five, and just like that really just changed my development. There's something that we studied here in musicology and like music therapy called the critical period. Um, that's like when your musician can like musicians can really really develop and maximize. Like, there's not really, I mean, we Gino has I mean, over there in San Antonio they have those mariachi academies, they have those conservatories, but like really understanding the importance of elementary mariachi is something that I feel like is not really studied or really emphasized. I don't know how it is in the valley. I was gonna ask, do y'all do that? What do you have? I I I had elementary strings, I played violin in elementary, but that was part of the school system. But y'all have that option.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:27

There are music um academies in the valley that I know of. There are like youth programs, um, but I don't see not very common. You're only gonna find them in bigger cities like McCallan, Edinburgh, or Harlingen, where there's more money to fund something like that. Um other than that, no. You I remember in elementary, we had you know just a regular music class that everybody had to take. There was they started like a guitar class. Um but it it's like very unique. It's it's just if somebody happens to have the experience and willing to take on that task as a teacher, yeah. Um, you do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:15

Okay, our mariachi, like all our mariachi, Mariana, Joseph, Danny, me, Michael, we all did Mariachi before no, not Mariachi, sorry, music before 10 years old.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:27

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:29

I'm saying the importance of that, and like a lot of times I it's possible, it's possible to get away with treat parents treating that those programs as daycare. Now, like and they're just a kid, like they don't understand the true extent of which students can understand, kids that can understand music theory and music aspects, like the way they do it in Europe, kids start singing at like five years old, then they but that that's what they all the old all the old heads of Mariachi talk about, their Euros will fail. When when our kids doing that here in the US or in the Mariachi programs, like they actually had theory, some of them like Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:05

Uh you have to get if you come into gigging Mariachi, if you're born in the US, you have to be hazed by a 60-year-old man um in Mariachi. Uh that's just part of it. That that's just a sentiment that I think I've talked to m most people have said that they've that has gone through. Um if you come in, especially from the school, and then you go do a gig and then do a song, and then there's a song they call out that's a little obscure but still relatively, you know, known and you don't know it, and then you just get yelled at by some very um old uh Mexican mariachi players. And that just happens. Now do you think that that's necessary? I definitely do not think that it does say that calls a little more harm than it's necessary on the current structure of how it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:05

Definitely not the current structure, but it does weed out. It does have a function. Yeah. I will say it has function, but it's not most effective. It has function because it weeds out the people who aren't serious. Yeah. Yeah. Because some people who get yelled at, they'll just never play mariachi ever again. And we just lost mariachi right there.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:21

Yeah. Uh I mean, yeah, it does serve a purpose.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:25

Like just being real. I mean, they just need somebody. I don't know how that has to happen. Like, like, oh, it's okay that I did another song. It's not okay. Like, it's really not okay. Like, it's all about thought worlds. Like, they should feel like that they need to go home and practice. Some people do, some people don't. I don't know if 60 year olds, they get it done. Yellow if 60-year-old yells at you, it gets it done. But there has to be a more effective way. And it's just no base to access to accessibility to information and what to practice.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:57

I don't know. I mean it's becoming more accessible.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:59

Yeah, it's becoming more accessible. I've thought like of a utopia, like where somebody like makes an app. Imagine if you got like something like that's visual.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:06

Like if you got a both on other app for every song you know, then you guys think you can actually know how good somebody you have, maybe if you give somebody some people a rank, like um this is uh an actual serious thought that somebody had in Austin that was working with somebody that was an app developer, like computer software. Um, the guy that was doing it was an engineer at Apple at the time, and he played he played Italan. Um and uh some kid had this idea to make uh an app for like Mariachis in the area. So like instead of going to like Facebook or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:44

That's what I was telling my sister about like Facebook is so like inefficient and just word of mouth. I didn't even know, like, I just I'm starting to learn about like people who are just their word of mouth, they don't know about the Facebooks.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:54

Yeah, that's that still happens over there, even though those pages. Um the problem with doing that, I mean you're you you can give somebody a bad rating just because you don't like them. And I mean that's gonna hurt your chances of I I guess getting hired. There's gotta be a way to like I agree with you not but you just got gamified.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:19

Like there's all this game theory stuff that you can understand.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:21

But then then you can game it to get to your advantage.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:24

No, if you have like daily challenges or a requirement that give you points, only only positive points.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:28

Yeah, take a picture of the instrument.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:30

Well, no, if you play a song and you have to transpose it like the same, like an aptitude test too, like transposition, like I think I think it can truly be done. Just nobody's everyone's too lazy to do it. Or we haven't found someone who's willing to. Yeah, I mean because also it would help, but like you see, it helps if you if you if you like associate what money actually like I'm let's just think hypothetically we're off topic, I don't know. To like associate what like put what group you're part of, yeah, and then all the groups to put the calendars in there so they know availability, but I doubt they would do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:02

That'd be what it never happened. Um I mean, maybe some of the the the groups that are run by people are born.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:10

This is why it's uh this is why I think it's gonna happen, actually. Is that the these old heads are gonna change and like the whole mariachi scene is gonna flip on its head? That's what that's why I think it's gonna happen. But then at the same time, my my question is like who's listening to Mariachi after all the people who were around in Vicilla's time? He was the last big artist. Like, who's who are the clients gonna be? Is my question. Like in 2050, 20, 2060, these types.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:36

I mean, people have have brought that up. Uh I never we never really talked about it on the podcast years ago, but it it was like um I I I think Sammy talked about it when when somebody asked, like, who was the next big star or whatever, right? And and and he the way he kind of described it was last month? Huh? Last month. No, it was years ago. Oh, he talked about it like last month too. Oh, well, maybe he's brought it up again. But it it was like it evolves. Yeah. So like Kristian style is like the new era, so like of like mariachi. That's like what people think, or maybe like the newer generation of people of mariachi think of mariachi, they'll think that. And I think that's just kind of where it's gonna take off from. Because stuff like I mean, Luis Miguel is around Pedro Fernandez, Alejandro Fernandez, but they they went so f they did mariachi, but then they also did their other stuff. They'd pop, they did other stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:37

Well, this is from your idea, too. Like, I don't think Visa Fernandes, like I think they were gonna shift to back to where Mariachi is the popular music, Mariachi itself, not Rancharas, like Visa Fernandes was accompanied by Mariachi. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, like back to Polcas, back to Sones. Kids are addicted to Sonis.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:58

You know what I was gonna ask you? Um, where where do you stand on the idea of what is truly mariachi music?

SPEAKER_05 1:33:11

That's a very good question. That's literally what the question was like inspired to the thesis is what is a mariachi?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:19

Because I mean, it's if we were to just play okay, we're traditional mariachis, we only play mariachi music, we'll be playing Sonas and nothing else. I'm talking about like the origin, the very beginning.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:32

You nobody knows about the very beginning. Well, nobody knows, but the recordings and stuff. But you even then uh yeah, understand what a mariachi is. Like these people who we see who are like indigenous in Mexico, they are called mariachis in their own villages, but we would never see them. They're not using regular taraces, they're not using um the rebel instruments that we see today. Like somebody who uses accordion, they they would call them a mariachi, but but they're not really something that you expect today. Like what we understand is a branch of Vargas, like that is what the mariachi that we know today is a branch of Vargas.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:05

Um from like the 30s?

SPEAKER_05 1:34:09

30s to the fifth. I say I always classify it as the golden age from 1936 to 1957 is the golden age, which I did to find the world of what mariachi is. They went to like world affairs and really invite I can't tell you what mariachi is. I really don't have a definition.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:25

Well, it it's because okay, so at least research that I've done, because I in high school I remember writing papers, Mariachi. Um one thing that I and you probably read about it more than me, but Mariachi Vargas was gonna just you know go away like any other Mariachi. They weren't like special. Yeah. Two big things that they did that I think or that I've read, um, one they got on a payroll. Yep, that's right. Right. Um, and the second thing is they started adapting other genres. So Wapangos, Harotros, to fit the Mariachi instrumentation to made them more so more people knew them because they started playing songs that weren't traditionally played by Mariachi's at that time.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:14

Yeah, but definitely the big thing between both of those are the radio, that's what made them popular. So also, you uh also have no idea. You could read the um what's it called? His Haragi, his book about uh Mariachi and Mariachi, the red one that I have in my room. Yeah, that one really like the government made Mariachi what it is today. The government is who made Mariachi, and they did that for a reason. The representation because they wanted a unified, homogeneous culture of Mexican back in the day. So I'm from Oaxaca, like I'm from Chiapa, like it was never so mexicano, like that was not really an idea based on my research before this time. But the government really pushed mariachi, like we see the World Cup today. Who who repres who meets them? Mariachis.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:58

But what understand what a mariachi is? It's really that 1936 and 1957 really helped to find it. Because if you don't wear traje, people don't really associate you with mariachi. Even though mariachi's back in those days were so guys from Blanco or just wore whatever the clothes they had on their back. And I see other groups like when I did my research that like that they're rapping here, they're they're doing all this other thing. Are they not mariachi is doing Bruno Mars? Because Mariachi's are just you're playing the popular music of the time. That's what they do is to satisfy the needs of the clients or the requests of the clients.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:32

Yeah, well, I mean, that's what you're saying about Vargas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:35

Well, even though you go you go to San Antonio, you hear them playing Tejano music, Tejano songs.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:41

You go Sinaloa, you hear him play more banda. You go to what's it called? Sacatecas, you hear them playing more Antonio Aguilar.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:50

Well, so I can and then that's where I have a uh this is more of a personal gripe with mariachis, especially the older guys, um, even the younger ones, but when a client will ask for you know um like Beso Pluma or something. Yeah, or or even a banda song, even though mariachis play banda all the time. Um and mariachis love using the stupid excuse of like, oh, it's because this is banda and wear mariachi. But mariachi is a cover band. Yeah, mariachis are a cover band, like we just take other genres and make it a mariachi arrangement and we play it. Like, I think that's just a stupid excuse.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:34

It's a stupid excuse because can you can they play El Cuadro?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:37

Can they play Siba altaco? Those groups. What are we playing La Bamba for? Like, yeah, then then we would only be playing what La Negra and like we wouldn't be playing La Malagena like that's Wapanga Wasteco. Like, but you say, okay, but that's Mariachi. Like somebody asks you to play Malagena. Well, of course we're Mariachis, we've known Malagena. But now you're gonna say, Oh, we can't play Manda because that's Manda. Even though we play Manda music all the time. Yeah, even though then we're like, oh yeah, we can do um Devil Went Down to Georgia. Or we can do Can't Take My Eyes Off of You. Yeah, but that's not Mariachi. So somebody asks for some like obscure Norteño song, which is I would say a lot closer to some mariachi styles, and be like, ah, it's because that's that's Norteño and or Mariachi's.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:30

Yeah, some of those old Varkas songs, What the campus.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:37

Uh yeah, but so and then the other thing I was also gonna kind of get into is um um the influences of like all these other cultures, right? Genres, so polkas. Have you seen that video that they made of like they they'll play a song, a traditional like German song, and then a Mariachi Polka, and then it's like you try to guess. So many other videos are AI. Yeah, there's so many.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:04

I don't know if you see my comments, they're like it's like that's AI.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:07

Yeah, some of them are, but uh there's I mean, there's a lot of similarities, right? There's a lot of influence.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:14

Where do you think vodkas came from in Mexico? Was it in Mexico?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:19

I mean, there's a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:20

Is Duranse from uh Durango?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:24

There's a lot of German German influence.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:26

People don't I don't want to get into the history, but people don't know the importance of like new Bromfels. That new Brunfels and Marcos area. Of the area, then they were brought into brought into the north of Mexico.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:39

Is that is that why like so many like Tejano songs are kind of like that?

SPEAKER_05 1:39:43

Or there's like a lot of the that came first, conjunto. It's came before Norteño and and uh Tejano. They weren't even called Tejano back in before Tejano, it was just they were called orquestras, which had the horns in them, yeah, or conjunto, which is like you heard Los Legos Teheran, Los Relapagos del Norte, they started becoming that's the conjunto style.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:06

Like that that's the the that area of the San Antonio, New Bronfa, New Bronx specifically, is where the area they came from, where German, like Czech, Czech immigrants brought the diatonic accordion, and it got to North Mexico and then really well there was actually a lot of uh European immigrants too in Mexico City at the time. Mexico City was nowhere near the size that we know it today. It was like only like a hundred thousand people, maybe three hundred thousand.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:32

Yeah, now it's a polluted mess.

unknown 1:40:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:36

Uh but the yeah, so then I mean there's there's that influence, and then um you know, when I was trying to look up the origins of boleros in Mariachi, I find so many different uh areas, it kept taking me to different areas, but there's um the Cuban boleto, yeah, I think is kind of the main or like the main source. Right. Um but there's just also so much jazz influence.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:02

Oh in the boleto, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:03

In the boleto itself.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:06

Um so the cumia has a definitive introduction. That one's definitive.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:13

What from Colombia?

SPEAKER_05 1:41:14

Yeah, from Colombia, like but no, there was one in Mexico, I forgot, like it came to Mexico, like one specific group came to Mexico, and that's one of how he became part of the Mexican.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:24

Is it is the difference from Colombian cumbias and Mexican cumbias literally just major and minor?

SPEAKER_05 1:41:30

No, it's pretty much uh it's it's pretty similar. I was gonna say classical music's off-filiar influence.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:40

Have you heard Fenango? About Fenango?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:43

You know the rhythm of Fenango?

unknown 1:41:45

No.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:46

I learned about it in musicology class. Oh yeah. Yeah, and in the first time they they mentioned Mariachi, uh they also mentioned Fanango. The rhythm is like a that like a that you hear those songs like Michoacan. And Michogan songs, Sonas Abagenos, like you hear that rhythm. I haven't discovered that I haven't researched that in detail, but maybe that perhaps that's one of the words.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:13

Isn't there a song called Fandango or something? Mariochi to think of. I'm sure there is, but it's probably not the same rhythm.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:21

Yeah. Or say what wapangos is like you you talk to like some like I love wapangos, like, and then you play. Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:31

That that's always the funniest thing to me when a client asks for uh play wapango, and then you you uh you don't really know what what it is that they want you to play. Um so you assume probably uh what what is uh what is that style called? I keep forgetting. Uh Wapango Nortenio. It's Wapango Nortenio? Yeah I've never heard that.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:54

Uh no, no, not Pavilion Nabido. Yeah, I'm talking about that 6'8, but I'm saying Pablo Nabido, I thought that was a German style. I'm thinking about like Le Bola El Witaco, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:06

I just know it's a Wapango Norteño.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:09

Right. I don't know. I remember hearing it as some other name. But I mean, yeah, there's that. There's Wapango. There's Wapango and Wapango. Well, and then all the different styles of rancheras. Why are they all called rancheras?

SPEAKER_05 1:43:36

The only answer?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:37

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:38

I forgot why.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:39

I don't know, because well you have a lenta and then corrida, and then polka and then ranchera bolero ranchera or something like that. Oh yeah, balciada. I don't know why they're all called ranchera though. I don't know the origin of the word ranchera.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:00

Ranch. Yeah, maybe it was because of I don't know, these sounds came from the rural parts of my own.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:05

Yeah, that's what I was assuming. There's because like you're playing on the fields or at your ranch and it's just like a story and like a change like folk stories. Um also you don't learn in school. The the um the difference of styles. Uh you just like play, okay, we're gonna play La Bikina and we're gonna do Continua Prendi, and then we're gonna do you know, um we're gonna do like Las Bolas or whatever. Um never did I do I really remember, at least myself, but I mean this is like 15 years ago, of really going through what each style was. Um so when you when I'm now gigging, especially in the more on the Armonia side, there's a lot of times the songs I don't know, even right to this day, you know, we play. But you tell me the key, tell me the style, I'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:07

Even now Daniel still calls it boom chuck or boom chuck.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:11

That that I think that's just a hint. I've never heard anybody say boom chucha. Uh yeah, I mean I just said ranchara, lenta and um and sol. Go. Like just correct.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:33

Does he know I don't think he knows? It's my whole lot of experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:37

This is probably what his dad told him. This is a boom chuck, and there's a boom chasing. Uh yeah, I don't know if you know if he knows. Um, another thing too that always aggravates me. I don't know if I've told you to, but it's about like so Ranchero Lentas.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:03

I've heard somebody call those slow gorillo.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:06

Slow gorillos. I haven't heard that. But what key signature are Ranchero Lentas in?

SPEAKER_05 1:46:12

Time signature you mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:46:13

Yeah, time signature.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:14

I always say four four.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:15

Four-four, right? One, two, three, four. God, the amount of people that and it's usually older Mexican Mariachi players. Yeah. That's in that it's in two four, like Contranos. Or if that's I don't know, uh Contranos, Los Cuartos. To me, Los Cuartos is one and two and one and two and but I'm like, what the fuck? No, it's four fours. One, two, yeah, three, four. But I there's been plenty of times where these guys have called it two, four. And to me that's just I mean something completely different.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:55

Yeah, I always say four, four. And you could actually tell this from the Western music theory perspective, it's because of the um the way the phrases are. Usually 60 bar phrases, you're not gonna have 32 bar phrases. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:08

Yeah. Um, but so what was your I keep forgetting. What is your master's in? Like your thesis musicology. Well, yeah, musicology.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:19

No, but we want to be very clear. Musicology is um not ethnomusical. No, not ethnomusicology, because we actually do not separate the differences here. We we also do historical, like we do the historical and cultural context, which is what I studied for my thesis called Mariachi Memory through Cajon by Carlos Monol. How many I don't even think we said my name, did we?

SPEAKER_01 1:47:44

In the very beginning, you introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:45

Oh, did I say my? I don't know if I said my name.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:48

I mean your name is gonna be in the thing, but um how many AI generations did it come to you when it came to that title?

SPEAKER_05 1:47:55

No, my teacher, my advisor came up with the title.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:58

Well, how many AI generations did he just one go?

SPEAKER_05 1:48:02

Just one go. So what was it? Uh my de actually memory through cajon. It was actually memory mute memory through cajon in San Antonio, uh, but that's before I went to Mexico City and then um.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:14

So did what what did you kind of conclude from that? Is cajon universal?

SPEAKER_05 1:48:20

Nope. So I talked about first the traditional uses of the word cajon, and I just divided that up to three. And actually, every interview I did, I talked about if they agreed or if they disagreed, and 100% of the of my people agreed, which I didn't want them to, that's just what it came out too. I said traditional cajon includes the body of repertoire for the regional area, the um standard musical arrangements, and then the musical vocabulary, when like siphonia, and then the um the endings. That's the standard cajon that everybody knows. You agree with that? Do you disagree?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:58

Um yeah, okay. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:01

Do you agree? I'm saying do you disagree? Everyone seemed to agree because that's pretty so much simple. Like, that's the only way you can't just say what's cajon because people before that, people would never give a straight answer of what it was. Like, well, can uh indimi cajon? Yeah, can I song me cajon? Like that makes no sense before. So I put those three, those with the traditional cajon. But I also personally expanded cajon to include body language, vocabulary, like si bemol, hand signals, um, like performance, like the way people perform, the way people smile, the way that people hold the instruments, and then also professional conduct as part of expanded cajon. So that's what I wrote my paper on. And I wrote the origins of a lot of these, like, why is a cau is a cajon song different or arrangement different from the recording? I dug into that. So, like, instrumentation is a reason, ranges of reason, like we hung out with the like nobody's giving us the He's singles notes.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:04

Client expectations. Like sometimes client when clients ask for La Bikina, they're not expecting you to play the instrumental song. Expecting Luis Miguel, like Gamarada. That's switching over to the Luis Miguel version rather than.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:19

Yeah. Um but were you uh did you kind of separate this? So did you look at it through um regionally?

SPEAKER_05 1:50:30

Yeah, I did look at through it regionally. I had three field sites that I studied was San Antonio, Tampa, and Mexico City. And I I did extensive research definitely in San Antonio, and then I had that weekend in Tampa. Then um I really studied the one at Mexico City, and then I also interviewed people from across the uh Republic of Mexico. I shouldn't have said it like that. Across Mexico. Oh yeah, Republican.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:54

They're about to have a war.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:56

So what what did you find that like agreed with each other from the three different usually usually the arrangements, and I actually learned the origins of some of the of Cajon uh was especially Mexico, people were going on tour, um, they would spread these standardized arrangements and like these ways of communicating. Something that that differs um is the um is over time, over time and like over region, like style is what really like where the Armagne places the beat. The width of the vibrato, the speed, and then the uh uh speed of the vibrato as well. For the mariachi trumpet is something that changes. Sorry, that's also something that was really important on my expanded definition of cajon was the mariachi style. I also talked about this idea of collective uh equilibrium. Uh I know that's like a big word for my uh just like when you go to a group, like let's say all you people that you play with 500 people, you come to a consensus of the mariachi style, of the style that you're gonna play. Something that I talked about, collective equilibrium. If you go to Mexico, you're gonna fall into the collective equilibrium. You're gonna fall basically, you're just gonna play how they play.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:06

Yeah. Um, but how does that relate to Kahonda?

SPEAKER_05 1:52:12

Huh? Because that's what the expectation is of professional conduct. That's what's what's expected. It's expected that you have a black suit, it's expected that you wear monial, it's expected that you wear botanies and step tennis shoes.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:24

Yeah, no crux.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:26

Yeah, it's expected that you shave or it that you have you have a well rimmed mustache, that you take a shower, that you what's it called? Like there's these expectations. There's expectation that you speak English or Spanish, not like French, or like just all these small expectations. There's a smile, like expectation that you smile when you talk to a client, like the way that you talk to a client that you charge per hour, like these business product practices, too. Like you don't you don't charge per song. That's not what you do. Like that, there's all these cajon like expectations. Like that's part of the cajon, basically, that I was talking about. Expectations that like some groups, that's expectation that you ride in the van.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:04

Yeah. Um expectations that you get the early expectations.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:09

Yeah. So you and you you really expanded the definition of what cajon.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:15

Yeah, that's one chapter. Um, and then I also talk, there's a lot of theory in it, um that I would do not want to get into just the way the brain memorizes, the way uh collective memory, collective, um the peripheral um exp peripheral learning is something that I talked about a lot too. That's here is something you're like Mexic in Mexico, mariachi is a tradition of nepotism. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah. Mariachi, like I talked about, like these days, mariachis do not there's not first generation mariachis these days in Mexico, pretty much not often. The majority of uh first generation mariachis occurred within the golden page of 1936 to 1957. And then from there, people are now the grandkids of Mariachi's, the kids of Mariachi, the sons of Mariachis.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:10

Yeah, I mean, definitely the Danny Rey was Pedro Rey.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:16

Yeah, well that's that's one of the exceptions of the far generation. Sixth or seventh generation.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:23

Um yeah, I mean did you did you get into um the the fact that at least so yeah, to my knowledge, there's never been a non-Mexican descent player in Marichi Vargas?

SPEAKER_05 1:54:39

Uh I did not talk about that. Yeah, there's a lot that I want to talk about, but I was warned that this is a thesis, not a dissertation. So maybe I'll maybe I'll continue for my dissertation. Something I talked about is also uh I also Is Cajon uh distribution, so through recordings, through word of mouth, and then through through through people like El Zombie, um Raoul Castillo. These are people who are are directly responsible for yeah transferring style like uh Christopher Wovlavak, the the trumpet player uh who plays with the they're in California. Yeah. He's online, it's only gonna grow more and more. TikTok is really transferring the style. Like I hear like all these trumpet players here's something like the micro trends, like coming into one of those. Those where do those come from? Like where do those interest like the expanded entrances? Like they're micro trends.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:32

Yeah. Uh so then what did so when you when you're researching on this and asking these people, was there a lot of like that's just the way it is?

SPEAKER_05 1:55:50

Like yeah, that was actually a big problem that I I antif anticipated when doing interviews. But like then I really like had these questions that really helped me talk about like the brain processes. Like, what is can you explain in detail what is the brain process of transpose transposing the song and tell me exactly like in most dis in deepest description on how that happens. Oh, the like because it's so easy to do. I just do it, like that's not what happens. Yeah, this guy, this guy in Mexico in Las Garadas, he he talked about this one concept of um developed intuition. It's like my body just moves, and like somehow the sound, the music comes out. It's like I just know the notes I'm playing, but I don't know what the keys I'm playing. Like, these guys are just like prodigies, but they really just don't know how it happens. They just do the experience because those guys play Mariachi all day every single day. Yeah, if they move up a key or down a key, they don't think about the key signature, they don't think about anything. Like for somehow he said that his body just moves and just happens.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:49

I mean it is part of muscle memory, yeah. Yeah, wh whenever I play a song that I don't know, it it I experience it more in boleros than sonas. Um I experienced some of that where it just happens, and I I just instinctly play a rhythm, especially in a song, or a chord progression in a boleto, where I'm like, I've never heard the song in my life, I don't know where the voice is going. Yeah, but based off of hundreds or thousands of songs I've played in the last 20 years, it's probably gonna go there. Or isn't that so interesting?

SPEAKER_05 1:57:26

Because I hear like these like micro, like I don't know, phrases I play, and I hear Joshua, who has one year of experience anticipating that like what I hear, like I hear things in my head, and like he does it while I hear, like there's no way he's reading my mind. It's just so interesting. Like, there's something that's happening there, yeah. And the way the word right right now the world cup's happening, the way we're able to watch the world cup and not even think when we're playing at Hlanda.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:51

Oh, yeah. You know, I experienced it a lot uh when I was like at the peak of gigging, when I was like doing it so much to where um I disassociated completely while I was playing. Uh it was through because of school and and whatever else was going on in my life too, but it was just like it got to a point where I played so much. I played these songs, I knew so many songs, I would sing all these songs that um before I would use gigging or playing as kind of a escape or like to focus on something else.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:29

And it got to a point where that that was no longer possible because I was not even thinking of what I was singing or doing, like it was just straight up muscle memory. I was completely in my mind, I was living something else while singing, especially when preparing to write my thesis.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:46

Like I was watching y'all in like in such detail, like not even thinking about what's happening when I'm playing, like I'm just like watching everything else that's happening, like everyone's faces, and that's something that's like important too. Seeing that people are like liking us, like we're but we're still playing, we're like worrying about what other people are thinking, like what's happening, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:04

Um, but I mean that that's just a trend you'll see in any profession, right? And in somebody that's been at their job for so long that they just go through it through the motions of it. So, I mean, wouldn't then technically kind of any profession have its own version of cajon?

SPEAKER_05 1:59:20

Were you my committee?

SPEAKER_01 1:59:24

I I didn't get a chance to go to your defense, so I'm um everybody asked that question.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:29

Everybody asked that exact same question in your committee, yeah. Every no, even I did a presentation for the department too. Oh, okay, they asked a question. The problem is the difference is which let's talk of just about not every profession, but at least every genre. No group has talked about it specifically to the extent create this idea of Cajon, um, the way that Mariachi has, like the extent of standard arrangements of standard repertoire, like Mia Martinez, like like us like represent like replicating what these rates have done. Like, no my no genre has done it too because jazz has standards, jazz transposes, but does jazz have vibrato? The exact same vibrato, like when you play something, it's the expectation that you have the same amount of tongue pressure, the same shortness for every side, like it's just the detail of expected from Mariachi and his association with being a symbol that represents Mexico and the respect that people have for it that makes Gajon different from other genres and other professions. If you really want to bring it into that, because like the micro that's is exactly why I'm arguing my thesis and through the theory. The micro is the same. Like when you see the people in Vargas, they smile the same way every single time. They have the same smile width, they have the same arc arc of the arch of the of their bow, like the way that they put the fingers down, the way that they breathe in the selection. Like sometimes it some like every if you see a mariachi, all the people will bring the corners back, like or but they will all do it the same. The trumpet players usually play the same.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:01

But they just become in sync. That's not yeah. Um the micro is what makes Gahuan Kahuan.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:10

You know, I I saw that a lot in um in the high schools that when the competitions started growing a lot more. Because really, competitions really took off, I'd say like 2012.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:26

I say that's when in like high school and stuff. Because Vargas has been around since or Chevergans have been since like the 90s, and but there wasn't 1890s? So yeah, but the or the early 2000s stuff, but it there wasn't it was like right, that they weren't at the Lila Cockroach Theater in 2000 or whatever. It's grown so much, and then there's just so much like movement, like exaggerated movement that they'll teach like the students to do, but it it's done in a way that it's so obviously choreographed.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:58

There's a style, mariachi style, that's unique to the per to the competitions. Yeah, it's completely you'll never hear Vargas sing like the way that they're hearing. Like it's a whole different thing. That the thing if you want to talk about style, the competition style is something that's completely different that you'll never hear a gig. Also, the Mexican, the old Anka uh mariachis, the the way that they sing is so similar, like they sing the same way.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:25

Uh we're talking about the players, like old Mexican players? Yeah, old Mexican.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:29

I'm saying the vibrato and like the space, they have the exact same space. Uh-huh. It's just, it's just, I don't know. Like the San Antonio trumpet style. I feel like San Antonio trumpet sounds so similar to each other. Uh like it's not bad. It's just like it's a style. That's how trumpet players in San Antonio sound.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:49

Yeah. You you you develop this regional thing because you know in Austin playing for so long, a lot of things I do, you go play in Austin and it'll be like, oh, I see that. Or you notice somebody else does something similar. Uh, like uh a popular group in Austin called Manorichi Rolampago, which means thunder. Um in both mujeres como tú, uh, we had this thing called um that was coined the the Relampago, the Rolampago G. Because they would add a G major in that intro.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:27

That's not in the music, nobody does, but they would do it. It fits, right? Um musically, but it's just they would do it. And if you go play with Relampago, you gotta do it, and or else like the guitaron's gonna do it, the violet, somebody they're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:41

And you a lot of the stuff that I talk about, it comes from boredom, just mundane. Like if you change one percent every every chamba or once a week, by the end of the year, it's a whole different that way of playing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:52

Yeah, um, yeah, I mean, yeah, they do develop your own.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:56

Like us, like we played Chi Baba. I thought I was the only guy who who double tongues at the end. I've been seeing it on TikTok. I'm like, I thought, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Also, I just want to call I'm not gonna call them out. I don't know who it was. I saw some group in Tampa, and they were playing. You know the Adorno I played for Celia? The one that I do every once in a while. Gabriel, I think Gabriel took it, and now people are playing it in Tampa.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:24

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_05 2:04:24

So I think it's interesting just to see the way like uh Adorno transfers over. Yeah, like um the adorno in Sierra con el balador, that violin adorno, like where's that coming from? I don't think that's in the recording. The like scale Yeah, that scale thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:40

Um it's done a lot in Austin.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:42

Yeah, I mean it's done in San Antonio too.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:44

Yeah, in Mexico, even yeah, um, yeah, it's not in any recording. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:51

And a lot of these like print el rey.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:57

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:57

It's like, yeah. And then like you expect like that grace note in Hermos, like it's just the way it's done.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:06

Umre can say it like to this extent, like even when you listen to a like Beethoven symphony, the way that you can hear Chicago versus Berlin without a doubt, a hundred percent of the time.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:22

Um, but is that is that like even uh so I've sat right in orchestra rehearsals and stuff. I I never really made it fully through to go to a concert or perform in a concert.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:37

Ain't no way.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:39

What?

SPEAKER_05 2:05:39

You've never been to an orchestra concert? No, I'm saying perform concern. Oh, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:43

No, I've been to orchestra concert. I'm saying I've never performed in one. Like I would I would uh be part of some rehearsals. Um this is when I was at Texas State. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I never made it to play in an actual concert. But I it is like when you play in an orchestra and you have a certain set of songs you practice for, I don't know, months, two, three months, and then perform. How often is it that you go back and play that those songs?

SPEAKER_05 2:06:16

No, wait, that you play personally or the ensemble plays. That the ensemble will it's usually gonna once every five years, you'll maybe get a repeat.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:26

And and when it does repeat, is it done the same way? No, absolutely not. Even if it's a same directory, it's depending on the conductor.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:31

Maybe the same, same conductor, usually not even that, not even then. But something the the something that's noticeable is is the sounds that you get. Like the trumpet has a the same sound because it's the same teacher. Like there's FSU sounds a certain way, LSU sounds a certain way, Jolyard sounds almost a certain way, the trumpet's obscene, and that's what gives a characteristic sound of the orchestra too. All the each each teacher of the studio, even that unique sound, and therefore the orchestra itself. So like when you hear a violin or sorry, a trumpet or singing, you know that's Mariachi trumpet, violin, or singing. Yeah. Even if it's good technique, like you just can tell.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:10

Yeah. Uh but so then what um is is that something that you you would say that people, especially coming from I guess mostly classical or orchestra, where you bring them into Mariachi, and then okay, like, okay, we gotta learn these 10 songs. And then you never touch them again, but it it but they're you're expected to just always know them. Yeah. And that that's not something you're ever gonna have to do in jazz you do.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:44

In jazz you would yeah, you have to do that maybe 300 songs memorized, yeah. And change keys.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:52

And the melody players know the airwonia parts. Not the armonia, but you know the rhythm section.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:58

Yeah, because a lot of that thing what they do with the polyrhythm stuff. Uh but yeah, so then orchestra musicians is is that one thing or one of the biggest things they struggle with? The fact that you have to learn the song and then just like always know it for the side. Not at all.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:17

Not at all. Because this is actually they may not know the whole song because you're not gonna be able to know a 45-minute piece. You can know excerpts. Excerpt is what we know, orchestral musicians. They know like all these excerpts that they will always have to have ready. All like the way they have the micro detail is what's expected from from Adiati musicians to have in regular songs.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:38

So, what is the issue with memorizing songs that I found with like classical musicians coming?

SPEAKER_05 2:08:44

It's just time. They don't want it, they don't want it. We memorize songs in high school. So in high school, we memorize songs.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:51

So it's literally it's just effort, it's just the musician themselves that they're just not putting it.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:56

It's just it's just a lot. They're not they're in college, they're going through music, it's rough.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:02

Yeah. Um but also, so like if you're told to play a certain way in a song um in Mariachi, say her Monso Carino, you know the like the end shows, uh, start it uh short, short, or long, short, and voy, whichever way, right? And then you're just told, okay, that this way. And then, you know, let's say three months pass and be like, you know what, let's do it this way. Short, short. Like, is that something that just like breaks a non-Mariachi musician coming in? Mariachi? Yeah, pretty sure.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:35

That just we look, we we we broke Michael going back to Cajon for El Rey. Yeah, even daddy, even he he's I don't know what's happening there, but yeah. For context, we we we we played El Rey for the Vince of Fernandez El Rey for the longest time. Yeah, we just recently switched back to Cajon just for fun, and uh, we've been struggling.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:58

You just have to know your basics.

SPEAKER_05 2:10:00

Well, yeah, you gotta be rehearsing a lot too. Like, I I heard um who do you hear? Pepo Martin Martinez Jr. I heard one of his records, like they rehearsed like five times a week. I forgot what ensemble he was which ensemble he was talking about. But the ensemble, like the reason that we get paid 80, 90, 100 the hour is with the expectation that we're rehearsing too that it balances out. That's what his his his philosophy was. I think that makes sense. But you know, when we're all students, nobody wants to do that. We're only gonna get better from rehearsal, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 2:10:34

Yeah. Um just over time lover for the game.

SPEAKER_05 2:10:41

That's the that's the real question. Like, how much better is someone who's been in the game 40 years gonna get?

SPEAKER_01 2:10:48

Yeah, I mean, at a certain point, like uh is the 40-year-old Manichi musician that knows thousands of songs um really feel like his uh livelihood or job is in in jeopardy for not learning um aya baila sola. Yeah. It's like meh, uh maybe I'll learn it, maybe not, I don't care.

SPEAKER_05 2:11:13

It's also like the question, like love of the game, and that's really what controls the whole thing. How much people are practicing too. Sometimes people get worse, not because they're getting older, but because they just don't practice.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:27

Yeah, going back to that app thing, man, if that was the real thing, my rating would have plummeted uh post uh leaving Central Texas just because of how little I played. And when I played in Atlanta, um after I played in Atlanta after like almost a year of not playing at all. And I was I couldn't remember how to play La Vikina thing, and I was just like so many songs that I forgot how to sing. Um I was doing so much other stuff and I wasn't playing. But yeah, there's like actual ratings, and and I had to like continuously uh keep my score up by doing certain things. My rating, I would have been figuring one out of five stars or something.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:15

So it's a good thing that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:18

Also, part of that app, let me just say this idea. I we were talking about the car that last week. Imagine if you recorded all the violin parts and all the trumpet parts. You just plug it in with like what you don't have, you know what I'm saying? The time you left us.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:32

Let's talk about that. So uh it was when was it in May or May? April.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:38

Oh April. April, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:39

I think April. Um had a 6 a.m. or 5 a.m. 6 a.m. the 6 a.m. serenade. I remember and you texted the night before. I mean, you know, you do cut off, especially when you have early games, like make sure to set your alarm, all this crap. And I was like, I got it. I sent it. What I forgot to not set was that my phone was on silent. I forgot to take it off silent, and then um yeah, we had a serenade the next morning. I did not wake up, and I I told you, I think you should have come knock on my window on the door or something. I would have woken up. Yeah, I don't know. Y'all just took a and then uh so y'all did something that now to this day I cannot sing along to a karaoke track now because that it it makes me laugh. Um, so you you know you to you were there, you told what happened.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:35

So Alexa was supposed to go on uh violella, and it was just a four-piece. So uh we went, it was two violins went. Um I went on trumpet, I played trumpet, and then uh Lucas was going on guitar on and we just kept waiting. And we already canceled on this client before, so I felt really like we could not cancel. I I asked Lucas if he had a guitar because he usually has all his instruments in his van, but he did not have a guitar in this van. So she was like, I don't care what y'all have to do, but make sure y'all just need to start. So my idea was just to put all the karaoke tracks, and it was actually quite nice because it had violin two, violin three, first trumpet. It was like we had three trumpets, it's not like we had three trumpets and a full violin section, and two guitar rounds. Every once in a while, every time I hear that now, I was just like, I can't sing the song.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:27

Uh so you had you had a big one.

SPEAKER_05 2:14:30

It was an hour, not Sarata. It was an hour? Yeah, it was an hour.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:36

Of with the speaker.

SPEAKER_05 2:14:38

And then I remember like like if we play songs like one that we'll click it, it will be it'll be installed. Yeah, then we have to stop the song and just find the right game, it's like a honkey that they had it. Sometimes the point of it we have to transpose, so I think we have to do like el re like so I I really put y'all to the test. Yeah, but I knew it was possible. They really enjoyed the gig. They really enjoyed it, like we found a great.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:02

Have we played for them since then?

SPEAKER_05 2:15:03

No, we haven't. I mean, it's only been a month.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:06

Okay. Uh yeah, so I I didn't wake up. That's not the first time that's ever happened in my life. It it's only ever happened two other times. So that's been the third time ever that I've um slept through a early gig. One was a Virgen gig, though. That yeah, that was bad. Luckily, there's a guitar player, uh, although she struggled and followed me most of the time, but I think I don't know. She was able to get it done. There's another time where yeah, I think I was also a V Wella player, and I don't know how they did it, but they the guy didn't even call me or anything. I I didn't hear it, so I woke up and it's like 9 a.m. or something, and then I didn't receive no text, no call, nothing. I called the guy, I was like, hey, what happened? Did y'all do this? He's like, Yeah, we did it. It's like okay. And that was it, just hung up the weekend or something. Um and then I I made a bunch of stuff. I I forgot my instrument one time. I forgot my trajector one time. That was with um what what what the hell's her name? San Antonio. The group that played America's Got Talent. Oh yeah. And Novo Stilo. Yeah. When I hopped out Novo Estilo, I didn't have my trajectory. I had my guitar run. And I played a whole quinceaneta and just luckily I had jeans and shoes. So it's it's happened. But you know what? You forgot your trumpet.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:40

Which time?

SPEAKER_01 2:16:42

Oh where you stole a kid's trumpet off.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:44

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:46

That was fine. So what was we were doing the um Christmas?

SPEAKER_05 2:16:50

Yeah, we're doing a set of Christmas parades.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:52

Yeah, in all these small rural towns of like Georgia and Florida. And where where where was it?

SPEAKER_03 2:16:59

We were in Nashville, Georgia.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:00

Yeah, in Nashville. We drove, so it's like two hours. Two and a half. Yeah, we drove all the way there, and we got there, and Carlos is like, I thought I don't have my trumpet. And then there's no trumpet, and then you're the only trumpet player, and it was just was it Joseph that met us there, I think. Yeah, and then Michael, me, and um Danny. Yeah, and so what by coincidence the owners had a well they're binding up players, the cooks.

SPEAKER_05 2:17:29

So they have like they had a trumpet there. It was a red a red trumpet, red trumpet with this big ass mouthpiece. You feel like a trombone mouthpiece, the custom versus trumpet. I asked him to borrow it. It was like the worst trumpet ever. They had it had no valve oil, terrible.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:44

And we're we're on this on the float, go running down or going down the street, and there's like these high school kids right from the band marching dance. They were trying to. Yeah, and then you started screaming at them saying, I'll give you uh 20 bucks, 50 bucks for your trumpet or something. And then how did you even like get the contact or anything?

SPEAKER_05 2:18:05

I gave him my business card, and I said meet us at the at the restaurant after we're gonna play at the restaurant for a couple hours.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:10

Oh, really? And then you got him food, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:18:13

And then I got him a free food too.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:15

Yeah, that was so funny. Like, you just took a rent and it was like wrapped in Christmas lights.

SPEAKER_05 2:18:21

Yeah, it was better than the yeah, it was it was a Yamaha advantage, like the standard beginner trumpet, so pretty solid.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:30

So, how how was it playing in San Antonio?

SPEAKER_05 2:18:32

For me, it's good. That was good. I like playing in San Antonio, it's fun. It's different. Like, now I'm playing like in Tambo, playing the way we play, like it's just different. Like, I played scene th, it's like down a step, they like whenever we played. I played uh well, I learned with us, like when we do um 10 años, they go back to the B section rather than the A section. Like that's cajon, like there's no way you would know that without like knowing it. Yeah, and then like um Somos Novios. I feel they were to trio for some reason. I just expect they expected me to play the trumpets, although again. Oh, yeah, it's just small things like that. Like Volver Volver. I played the bah. They're like oh yeah, because everybody just does.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:18

Well, the they'll do the um no, the the the other intro. Um what what's the the other the second the second intro? The one and then they'll do it do a voleto on it.

SPEAKER_05 2:19:39

Um there's all these weird things. Like I get the job done. I just I just don't know what like they what they know. They do like weird gummies. Sometimes they do tahano music, which I actually I cook on because I I don't know if you know this about me. Like I grew up playing tahano music. I I gigged playing tahano music. I still helped out with little groups out there here and there.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:57

You haven't gone taking your accordion.

SPEAKER_05 2:19:59

I haven't. This guy to use a bathroom and he wanted me to play bass. He was like, here, play bass. I was like, no. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:08

Uh like plucking it.

SPEAKER_05 2:20:11

Uh I enjoy playing the only thing I hate so much. You said we're just spoiled here, here in Florida, or especially in Tallahassee. All the gigs are just so far apart. They're so far. We're over there sometimes. Yeah, and I live over there in the east in the west side, the far west side. There by SeaWorld.

SPEAKER_00 2:20:28

Oh, you're over there.

SPEAKER_05 2:20:29

Even farther, farther, farther like by Medina Lake.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:32

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:20:33

So if you go to Chambala, it's like an hour.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:35

Like, I'm not like if you go into Southwest. Yeah. Yeah, that'll suck. Uh, if you go to like 1604 or Six Flags, that's like literally all the way. Um, who's who's the most interesting person you played with over there though? Call them out.

SPEAKER_05 2:20:52

The most interesting, how do you mean interesting?

SPEAKER_01 2:20:54

Who's the worst? No, I got you. Uh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:00

My favorite person I played with like has been it's like so like Hol Soto. Like, he just knows so much about Mariachi. Like I've talked about my about him before. Like, he just exposed me to like so much like obscure names. Like that was never known. And like he did like all these cumbias, like he just never said no, like to clients too. Like, we just play like whatever they asked for. But they all got the job done too, yeah. Yeah, this other tree player named Renee, Chowder Renee. He's he's Venezuelan, he like he like learned trumpet. He's mariachi, he's real solid, like he has a salad down and everything. That's something that you don't see too much in like he's he's Venezuelan, but that's something you see over here on this side more where everyone's Venezuelan, Cuban, Colombian. You don't see that much in San Antonio, but you're starting to see it.

SPEAKER_01 2:21:45

Yeah, you'll you'll definitely see it uh a lot less over there. Remember, we had this um trumpet player. I think he's still coming sporadically once a couple months a year or something. Um this guy, this Colombian guy that plays trumpet in Austin. And it's it's just like such a rare thing. Just just know him as Colombiano.

SPEAKER_05 2:22:08

I think Gino's trumpet player, actually. The new one they got. I think he's been there for like a year now. He's Colombian.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:14

Oh, really? Yeah, we'll have this um, I think he's still in Austin area, um, trumpet player. He was from um Dominican. Uh he was black.

SPEAKER_05 2:22:26

But what was you know like, but don't make a poppy.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:29

Yeah, he's this real funny guy. He but he grew up playing salsa. Oh yeah. He's a great salsa tremble player. Um and Mariachi just did it well because a lot more money.

SPEAKER_05 2:22:42

So are there a lot of guys who double like that? They're in uh at Texas State, the social group there. What do you mean? But they must use most because they have Latin American studies or Latin American music performance or whatever. So like double and like doing salsa and they do mariachi, or like you see guys in both of them, at least trumpet players, because you see violin.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:00

Uh honestly less violent, less trumpet, but it used to be a lot more overlap, but that's because so back then John Lopez was director for both. Yeah. Now there's two separate directors, and although they still like they're friendly and stuff, but it's different, right, when you have the same director for both. Uh, but there still is overlap. Um, but the overlap happened a lot actually with the singers. Oh, yeah. So people that were primarily vocalists and the mariachi would would um be vocalists and salsa. Um some trumpet players would the ones that were MG on honestly on not really, that would just kind of focus because salsa is different, yeah. I I know like the range too, and then the stuff like so they just kind of stuck to kind of their own, at least trumpet-wise. But there there was uh some overlap, and and we used to hang out with the Southsack people a lot more too, because we would go on tour with them and stuff. Um yeah, they they had this trumpet player, his name was Hayle. I forget where he was from, but like Dominican or something. And he was an amazing trumpet player uh in the South Side group. Um he he plays with some South Side group in Central Texas now. A lot of those people, a lot of the guys from the South Side group end up just like kind of gigging.

SPEAKER_05 2:24:23

Yeah, I play with a lot of them in the Hannah Music, like they end up in the Hanna music.

SPEAKER_01 2:24:28

Yeah, you probably run into some that I know, like there's some saxophone player, or a couple of them, I forget how I say forget them. I still follow them. Um some of the vocalists sing in uh some salsa group now. Um some of the people in campanas were in uh Texas State. So I don't know if you know Nelson, trumpet player, uh, or Mandy, she was a violin player. Uh they played with campanas, and but they were in the salsa and mariachi. I took world music, but it was mixed. They for non-music majors and music majors, they just put us together. Um our final was like we literally had to build a Spotify playlist throughout the semester, and then at the end of the semester, the final was we would go to the professor's office and he'd just give them the phone, the playlist, and he'd just click all right, uh, play that or can he's like, okay, tell me where it's from, uh what it is, the origin, the country, everything. And you pick like five songs or something. Yeah, just that's no one.

SPEAKER_05 2:25:41

I might do that for my final. That sounds that sounds pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:44

Yeah. I don't know if I'm gonna go to the if you're actually gonna care.

SPEAKER_05 2:25:51

I'm gonna care. I care.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:53

Uh he assigned us like uh groups to different countries, and we had to present. That was another thing. I got Spain. Yeah, a lot of flamenco music. No, it was all over flamenco music. Somebody else that was in the mariachi at the time, um, she got Mexico. So and you know, it happened that course happened at the same exact time that um Pepe Martinez passed away.

SPEAKER_04 2:26:20

Oh wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:21

So that was pretty much the whole presentation. Just Pepe Martinez. Um Let's see. Did you talk about everything that your thesis was about?

SPEAKER_05 2:26:34

Pretty much, yeah. Look at my thesis, Mariacha memory through a couple.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:38

Yeah, you need citations.

SPEAKER_05 2:26:39

I have my citations. Oh, oh yeah, for people cite me, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:43

People to cite you.

SPEAKER_05 2:26:44

Digitally circulated Mariacha repertoire. TCMR. Use that use that phrase, please.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:49

What's your index right now? Oh your your index, your H and it's something when you have more publications, it's like the amount of people that cite you. Oh yeah. What's yours? I think mine's zero, probably. I mean nobody, I don't think anybody cited my paper that I wrote three. Yeah, so are you going Albuquerque?

SPEAKER_05 2:27:12

Uh I'm thinking about yeah, I really want to go. I'll use this podcast. They should make Albuquerque and also an academic conference. Let me let me present. They they've done some. I know people just do like there's no like application process.

SPEAKER_01 2:27:28

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:27:28

Yeah. No call for papers.

SPEAKER_01 2:27:32

Oh, you you mean that that in that sense, yeah. Yeah. Is there is there a place where people submit um Mariachin?

SPEAKER_05 2:27:39

Yeah, Society for American Music. Um present actually here at FSU. Um the Society for Ethnomusicology, Society for Musicology, Society for Music Theory.

SPEAKER_01 2:27:52

But nowhere where it's like um only Mariachi.

SPEAKER_05 2:27:55

That's what I'm saying. We don't have a body like that. We should have a like there's so much to be studied, like people could maximize Talon methods and stuff like that. We just need data. You know, you know it better than anyway. We need to apply the scientific method to mariachi.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:09

And I can use industrial engineering techniques to optimize the efficiency of a talon group.

SPEAKER_05 2:28:14

How just you only be as good as you need to to get paid.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:19

That that's something that you can model. So it's like if you're trying to minimize the um let's say the the skill level of a player while maximizing your profit. What is the minimum skill level?

SPEAKER_05 2:28:34

Something that I think that would it's actually it's it's just a singer. If you have a metal metal singer, like someone who's just lays it down and you just have like a shit like BLLA player, uh they're gonna hire you again.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:45

Yeah. Um did did did any of the like um doing a show come into play with your cajon definition or anywhere in your thesis?

unknown 2:28:57

No.

SPEAKER_05 2:28:58

Um, I talked about um how the education's focus is on a show. That's what that's all about. Like I talked about.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:06

No, I mean like the acting out. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's the like Juan Gabriel's show, right? When you're taloning, I mean not just like performing the song.

SPEAKER_05 2:29:16

No. I I talked about that for a paper though, too. Got a lot of interesting papers. Like, I feel like or like the psychology of um Monoleam. What's what we're doing asked for that song? Yeah, like who who like I'm saying a lot of people ask for it, but like makes no sense on the psychological level.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:34

Yeah, it is weird. Um, I don't like playing it. I don't like it either. And it's like, no. But very insistent on it.

SPEAKER_05 2:29:51

Um also the form, like that paper, I could write a paper on that. The form, the rhyme scheme.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:58

Of um all they allowed. Oh, just you just need it.

unknown 2:30:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:30:04

Remember everybody, you just gotta get it into the academia academic world.

SPEAKER_01 2:30:09

That that is a um a skill, right? Being able to um improvise like that.

SPEAKER_05 2:30:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:30:18

There are some people good at it.

unknown 2:30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:30:21

I tell people I'm just like, I'm just bad at Spanish, I can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 2:30:26

You just start saying that we're like, what are you saying? It was one time you try to throw over a no, it was Joseph.

SPEAKER_05 2:30:35

It was Joseph. He said the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 2:30:38

Why don't you? Why does not just do this?

SPEAKER_01 2:30:42

Yeah. Um, and also, I don't know, I feel like you also have to be a certain age.

SPEAKER_05 2:30:48

Were you there? I don't know. Or we just cooked them like the first time we ever did it ever. Do you remember? It was like there was a fire in the middle, it was during winter.

SPEAKER_01 2:31:01

I don't know. Maybe.

SPEAKER_05 2:31:04

Oh well the guy left. I I kept I just I focused on one guy, and then he left right there after.

SPEAKER_01 2:31:09

Oh really? I don't I don't think so. I don't remember that. I don't know. Sometimes I've missed gigs. Um I've never missed a gig. Yeah, how does that feel?

SPEAKER_05 2:31:21

I uh it doesn't feel good. I would like to I would like to not I would like to miss a gig, but you gotta train somebody.

SPEAKER_01 2:31:27

I train them, but like train Gabriel train um train themselves.

SPEAKER_05 2:31:40

The thing is people don't understand. It's like that with any genre, you cannot put one foot into Mariachi, like especially Mariachi. Yeah, I try to get people to understand that like I recommend that people go into Mario, because there's so many opportunities in academia with the government grants and all that stuff. What mariachis have government grants do you know? There are some other usually the the top ones.

SPEAKER_01 2:32:00

The Chicago Maniochin.

SPEAKER_05 2:32:02

Probably.

SPEAKER_01 2:32:04

They probably do. How did that happen? How did the because it was uh from Covid, right? The guy from Covid that moved to Chicago and they kind of started building some stuff in Chicago.

SPEAKER_05 2:32:16

Yeah, the I don't know about that, but I know the one in Miami, Maniche Conservatory there. They they they did really well with in their grants, in their funding. Also, Walupe Cultural Arts Center, they they do well too. So much grant so many grants out there. Like we could be grants. I'm gonna apply for a grant, so hopefully we can get some trajes. I I I found one that will get suits and everything.

SPEAKER_01 2:32:38

Really?

SPEAKER_05 2:32:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:32:41

Um then you have to have it in their honor or something.

SPEAKER_04 2:32:45

No, you don't have to do that.

SPEAKER_01 2:32:49

I don't know. Um so what what's what's what's next with you? What are you gonna say you start on the PhD? PhD. So you're gonna be here another 10 years. Well, how long do you think really it'll take it? Three?

SPEAKER_05 2:33:02

I could take me two if I really really wanted to. It's basically I just need I just need to see what I want.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:07

Don't you have to take classes again then?

SPEAKER_05 2:33:08

I'm a I'm considered a second year, like the the the my credit transfer over. That's really, really like that's why everybody changed the FSU. I mean it's a great program too.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:19

That's how they got you.

SPEAKER_05 2:33:19

Yeah, that's how they got they got me. They're like, if credits transfer over. I'm like, whoa. That's not that's not a bad shout.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:25

I had to like redo my master's when I got here basically.

SPEAKER_05 2:33:28

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Why don't you go to musicology to see what credit see what credits transfer over?

SPEAKER_01 2:33:34

Of my public policy course, my transfer.

SPEAKER_05 2:33:37

Yeah, Jordan took a public policy course.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:39

Oh, really? Um but so you're gonna do the PhD.

SPEAKER_05 2:33:45

Yeah. I saw a video on Instagram yesterday. It made me feel bit pretty bad.

SPEAKER_00 2:33:49

What?

SPEAKER_05 2:33:49

It was like of all the people who move out of San Antonio, why don't they come back? And I'm like, oh man, it made me feel bad. I'm I'm gonna come back to San You don't think you'll go back?

SPEAKER_01 2:34:00

I I'm going to go to the book. I would go back to the valley.

SPEAKER_05 2:34:03

I would like to do something big. I would like to do a project. I don't know what to like.

SPEAKER_01 2:34:07

Project like what?

SPEAKER_05 2:34:08

I don't know. Like an organization or something.

SPEAKER_01 2:34:15

Like um Tejanos for Mariachi. Eighth generation. Well, yeah, 11th Mexican-American generations.

SPEAKER_05 2:34:29

Yeah, but I'm gonna do my these I'm gonna do my dissertation, so I'm trying to figure it out. I'm right now I'm leaning towards um as of now. What day is it?

SPEAKER_01 2:34:37

The 25th. 25th of June. 26th of June.

SPEAKER_05 2:34:41

26th of June. I'm thinking about talking about basically my own experience of becoming like it was a lot of work to become a Mariachi trumpet player from a classical side. Like analyzing like vibrato. I might analyze vibrato. I would like to analyze vibrato speeds, um, use spectrographs to to get the um sound of mariachi. It's like understand the brightness, understand the golden brightness, like or really um like just the straight numbers on what mariachi is. I think it could be and also like the transmission of um style over social media like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Facebook, like the role that Mahora's Music Mariachi does has what was the role of Balikwam? Uh to balance the force.

SPEAKER_01 2:35:30

Well, what do you think of that? That um I I don't know the really what uh goes into the group, but the leyendas of Mariachi or whatever. Like what has me that like what is do you know anything about that?

SPEAKER_05 2:35:41

Yeah, I know I know pretty much I got I got a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 2:35:44

Uh how does how did that form or like what was the idea or who's in charge? Like I don't know anything about it.

SPEAKER_05 2:35:49

Leandas is uh I think they have a comp it's like a company, like it's a management group, I think. Yeah, I just was looking through copyrights the other day from Mariachi, and I saw Lena's was in there.

SPEAKER_01 2:36:01

And you to just invite musicians to put on a show? Yeah, yeah, usually the top musicians from like the top groups, yeah, or like former or current members.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:10

Yeah, I I don't want to talk about that. I don't know I don't know the details. I don't I don't want to talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:36:15

I just started seeing it come up like the last few years, and I was like, what is this? And then you just see like like legend, like literally what literal legends like Vargas and stuff, yeah. Alejandro played of them, yeah, the USA. And I was like, huh, well, I mean, I guess yeah, he was in Seoul for a while.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:32

So Gamberto's at 15.

SPEAKER_01 2:36:35

Well, he was what?

SPEAKER_05 2:36:36

Gamberto's at 15.

SPEAKER_01 2:36:38

Oh, yeah, like 15 years old. Yeah, well, I mean, he was on the podcast. He had said that whole story. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, um trumpet to guitar.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:46

He's such a good trumpet player. I mean, he's such a good everything, but yeah, I really enjoy his trumpet player.

SPEAKER_01 2:36:51

Plays accordion. He said it's like on recording studio stuff that he started.

unknown 2:36:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:36:57

So you're gonna move to LA after your PhD.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:01

And Fort Wayne, Indiana. Well, there's no Mariachi there. Anybody wants that? Also, Jacksonville's a good place. There's no Mariachi's there. A lot of Mexicans, 31,000.

SPEAKER_01 2:37:13

Yeah, Jacksonville is the spot.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:15

I keep looking at spots like that are just up to like that we got we got lucky with this or micro lucky. There's in Tallahassee, Florida.

SPEAKER_01 2:37:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:23

Like those guys over there mobile, they they really got that.

SPEAKER_01 2:37:27

There's only like four mariachis in all of Alabama or something.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:30

Yeah, but they also get all of like Louisiana, Mississippi, over here in Florida too, and uh Georgia. They they got they did it. Yeah. I think Fort Wayne, I I shouldn't be I mean, when I did my imaginary conservatory, I said Fort Wayne, Indiana. The population, you go to Columbus, Ohio, you can go to Dayton, you can go to Detroit, Chicago, all within four hours.

SPEAKER_01 2:37:55

So that that's a goal after the PhD. You're gonna find some spot and camp.

SPEAKER_05 2:38:00

It's been fun traveling back to San Antonio and Tallahassee to play. It has to be worth it. Yeah, I would like to I would like to make my own group, just dedicated musicians. I mean, nothing.

SPEAKER_01 2:38:12

Oh, by the way, I play I play in Carlos's group, in case you don't know.

SPEAKER_05 2:38:18

I'm the people who work out while I stay and do build something long term.

SPEAKER_01 2:38:21

In Tallahassee?

SPEAKER_05 2:38:23

Maybe not in Tallahassee, definitely not. I don't know. I don't mind Tallahassee. We'll see. Well she's I'm I'm the research assistant for um for uh community music program. So we'll see. We may see about making a Mariachi program there in Quincy or here in the local Tallahassee area. We'll see how it happens. Maybe yeah, we got we gotta make it. We'll just remarket Tallahassee and Florida.

SPEAKER_01 2:38:54

What is it, Camperos? Tallahassee. You're gonna do it then the right way though, right? You're gonna bridge Cacon with education and show and concerts making them more well-rounded.

SPEAKER_05 2:39:11

Bella Bartock once said you're not a racehorse to be competing as a musician. Only racehorses compete or something, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:39:24

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 2:39:25

Um you know who Bella Bartak is? No.

SPEAKER_01 2:39:29

No, and um I'm just a little old engineer. Barely. I haven't even been an engineer in a couple years. I don't know what I am, but I know we've been here it's about three hours. So we're gonna wrap this up. Um anything, anything else you got thing you want to say?

SPEAKER_05 2:39:52

Follow at Mario Tallahassee on Instagram and Facebook.

unknown 2:39:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:39:58

Leave us a good Google review.

SPEAKER_01 2:40:04

Alright, so see you later. Bye.

SPEAKER_04 2:40:06

Yeah.