Los Mariachi Sagas S4 E3 - Gabriel Salinas-Guzman (Guest #3)

Let's welcome Gabriel Salinas-Guzman a 2nd year masters violin performance from USF. Gabriel is one of the original founding members of the FSU Mariachi and Mariachi Tallahassee. Originally from Austin TX Gabriel received his degree in violin performance from Florida State University. Recently Gabriel has started his own channel critiquing violin melodies and stylistic viewing incorporating his classical background and blending mariachi regional influences. Listen to his story and where mariachi in the US is heading. 

Follow us on Instagram @losmariachisagas and email losmariachisagas@gmail.com 

Follow Gabriel at @gabriel.salinas.guzman  on Instagram and YouTube

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You watch a lot of podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

I do. I do. This is kind of surreal for me. I've I get do I get like an intro by the way? Like drum roll and get an intro.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

I mean you you gotta you gotta let it ride.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Okay, so we're with no, I'm just kidding. We'll put that up. We'll put that up. No, there's no intro for you now. So um yeah, well, I mean you can do you want to introduce yourself or you want me to introduce you?

SPEAKER_02 0:26

I mean, put please. Oh me.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Okay, so this is um was it second year grad student at USF?

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Second, second year, USF.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, USF, uh violent performance, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Violent performance.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Right, after what, four years, around four years at FSU, uh originally from Austin, Texas.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Austin, Texas.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Uh Gabriel Salinas Guzman. Uh so we're here at episode three. I keep forgetting which episode we're on, uh, with Gabriel Salinas Guzman, who's in town visiting Tallahassee from Tampa.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

I had to, bro. I mean, the the money was good. We had no work on Saturday. And not that I don't like Talon. So I mean, I guess for the listeners who don't know, if there's no work, we'll go talon. So, like Fridays, we'll talk, Sundays. I try not to do Sundays because I'm trying to like evolve into my next stage where I'm like, okay, I don't work on Sundays. And then so um, yeah, but yeah, I I I got the call from I think Daniel. Like, come help us out. We have like four or five hours. It's like, okay, I'll go. You know, so yeah, came down. Good work yesterday. We got an extra hour at the end. It was nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

So we did five hours right yesterday, and it was um we had what five people, right? It was yeah, you and Michael, Carlos, me and Danny. Oh no, it's six with uh Angela.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

How different is the five hours we did yesterday from the five hours you did three years ago with Mariachita or Guru Puklas, whatever it was three years ago.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

So much different. We actually know rep now, believe it or not. Um yeah, it was so different. I remember when like when we started, we started off like knowing like maybe five songs, like the simple one, like La Negra, El Rey, Mozu Carino, like very simple stuff. And I think for for a good while in the beginning, we'd go like maybe an hour and we'd play El Rey like three times, muso carinho four, like yeah, volver, you know. But you know, now we can ask, like, what do you guys want to hear? You know, it feels good, like like just saying, like, what do you guys want to hear? We probably know it, you know. And even if we don't, we'll we'll invent something, I guess. But it's a lot different now.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

So Carlos talked a little bit about the the infamous four hours for $400, and he said you were in charge of that. What what's what's your side? Because I wasn't this is before my time.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Did I say that? No. Um, he's got a much better memory than I do, but uh I think my thinking was because when we first started, we had never worked like with mariachis. Like I did it in high school, you know, a little bit, middle school, but I never like played in any like professional groups or anything like that. So that was like our first kind of introduction into getting into like I guess the mariachi market, you could say. But I mean we we had no rep. That was kind of the thinking at the beginning, and so we were just like kind of hustling, like you know, there's four of us. We didn't even have a guitaron at the very beginning, you know. Our guy Rucas, he played a like a bass guitar. Um not an acoustic bass. Yeah. Uh-huh. We had no viuela, I think, started off with guitar. So I mean, it was it was kind of rough in the beginning, you know, to say the least. But we got it going, we got it going after a good while.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

So who was um so the the big the beginnings of it, um Carlos talked about a little bit how um at first I think he said you wanted it to be like a a Nortenio Grupo type of thing, and but it like evolved because then it was like, okay, nobody had a backup quinto, nobody played drums, yeah. So I was like, well, we just do mariachi because you played violin, you played trumpet, and then you just found people to fill in the rest.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Yeah, I don't know, call me a dreamer because I at the beginning I wasn't too sure what I wanted to do. Like, I know like obviously Mexican music um had always been a part of you know my my I guess my heritage growing up, but so yeah, I mean Mariachi just it's just kind of evolved into Mariachi because there's the rep, you know, we can put on, we can we have I had a traje at the time, I think Carlos had one too. So like we already kind of had you know the the bare bones for to start a mariachi, and obviously we both came from a background where we knew some of the rep, we needed music, you know, we needed the artists, and so that's kind of what it started becoming. Um, but yeah, at first we we were like totally clueless, and we weren't even sure if we wanted to do a mariachi, like it was part of my like uh freshman recital. We decided to add it, I think that semester, um, probably spring of 22, maybe 21, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Yeah, they said it was spring twenty two.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

That sounds about right.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Uh but how did you convince your professor to let you add a mariachi to your recital?

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Um, I can't even remember the conversation, to be honest. I I definitely brought it up to her because I told her that um my life performing, um, mychi has always been always had been really fun for me to perform. And you know, she's a very so she's a very supportive person. She was like, Yeah, of course. If you want to add something onto your to your recital, add it at the end. Why not? And so yeah, so I played the entire uh Vinyaski violin concerto number two for the first half of the program. And then the second half we did, you know, like a whole little mariachi set, Moso Carinho, um can't remember, El Rey, El Ultimo Beso, maybe. Um, I know we ended with Amor de los Dos. I had one of my friends come in and she sang the like the duet part. Um, yeah, it was kind of great.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

So you sang at your freshman recital.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

I did sing it at my freshman recital, yeah. It's kind of weird. I know. How is that? Is there video? I I do have some recordings. I can't sure put it right now. And there. No, it was it was cool. Um, I'm sure maybe Carlos talked about this, but they used to make fun of me for how I sang, because I guess I had like a very like maybe my tongue stuck up. I did have some, I ended up having some lessons like later on, like second year. No, no, my third year, I think into college. And he was like, Yeah, bro, your your tongue's lifting a lot. Okay, and so we kind of worked on like tongue placement, uh, like opening up the jaw instead of like, I don't know what I was doing. It was like very like, I don't know, I think crunching up my face almost. So yeah, I did an I did a little bit of work. I even had a lesson with Jonathan Palomar at the name drop. But um, yeah, he even he told me like my voice under like stupid. I was like, I was hearing this back because at the beginning I would get mad, and you know, Carlos would say like, like, why don't you voice that like you know, whatever? And I get pissed off. I was like, no, it doesn't, you know, sort of in denial. But then I kept hearing this over and over, and then I was like, maybe maybe I should log in, you know. So it um, you know, now I I like to think I sound better now. I don't know, you could you can say no.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

No, you do sound better when I first got here, fall 24, I heard you sing the first time, and uh, it just took me aback because the main thing was like the pitch was was there. It's just the tone, like the way you were singing was just like I don't know, in a way like so heavy or I like to say unique. That you you would say unique, but uh I was just like the what just freaking I was gonna get your mouth like open open up yeah tall and uh yeah but like yeah, so the pitch is there, it's just um you I mean you also I mean you didn't had voice lessons, right? I mean you played violin, like that was your thing from when how old were you when you first started?

SPEAKER_02 8:23

I think I started around the age 11 or 12. I started in middle school and um what middle school was it? Beto check middle school. Yeah, oh no, it was pretty fun. I just got to do the the their final orchestra concert, I got to solo. My first time playing with a I guess an actual orchestra, you could say. Not much of an orchestra, like it was just strings, right? But yeah, it was still fun. Yeah, the idea is there, you know. But yeah, I started there sixth grade. Um I think I wanted to start because there was like a picture of my uncle at my grandpa at my grandma's house, and he had like a violin. Like, that's cool. So I don't know. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

But then you went, oh I mean you continued throughout high school. Um why why did you kind of stick with it?

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Well I think the mariachi definitely helped, if I'm being completely honest. It was fun, you know. We we got to start in the seventh grade, and our teacher, Philip Swayze, was our our conductor, director. And that's when I was like very first introduced into the the mariachi scene. Like, of course, I listened to the music growing up. Like I remember my great-grandma would play um, she had the cassettes of Vicente Fernandez, she put them on on the cassette player, and she'd play that like while cleaning the house or whatever. I remember being a kid, I was like, it sounds nice, you know. And um, so I yeah, I always had that in my ear. Like, I of course I knew uh Vicente, um, some of the older guys, Jose Alfredo, and then but yeah, getting to play the music and putting on the traje for the first time, I was like, wow, I made it, you know. But it was nice, it definitely helped. And then obviously I continued going into um I guess deeper into the classical scene too. I started taking violin lessons like right at the end of middle school. And um my teacher, well, first I went to this this uh Crockett High School, um, and they had a Mariachi program, which is what I went. And um my teacher was like, you know, I think you should go somewhere else. Like someone's somewhere's that's gonna push your your classical chops. And so I kind of had like a sort of a falling out with the director a little bit in in high school, and the Mariachi director. And so I went to McCallum, uh Fine Arts Academy. And I mean I stuck with classical music a lot there. I barely did any mariachi during that time.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Did they have mariachi at McCallum?

SPEAKER_02 10:53

No, not at all. I think we did um, I don't know if they had all city mariachi where in the valley.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

I mean we we had all region.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Yeah. It's sort of similar, but this was before like uh region mariachi became a thing. It was literally like I think a year or two before they like indoctrinated it. And so um or they they had it for a while going on.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Well, I I don't I mean they've always had it, but I I don't think the All Region hit the Austin area until later. Because uh I mean I did all region in like 2012. Okay. Um but uh I think in the Austin area though, I don't think that was uh a thing. I think now it is. I don't know. I'm not up to date with the school Mariachis in Austin area. Yeah. But uh you well, I mean you so you continued in the classical sense. When you were uh doing the Mariachi in in high school or middle school, did you sing then?

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Yes, I did sing. I thought it was hot ship too. I I yeah, I was definitely an asshole. Um, but yeah, I remember just you know singing. Um I was very good. My Spanish was pretty horrendous then, too. Like even worse than it is than it is now. Um Wow, yeah. But it I mean it was fun. I mean, I I really didn't, I never thought I was gonna sing. I really didn't. I think my teacher was like, look, guys, we need a singer. Somebody needs to step up. I was like, I guess I'll try. And and yeah, so they they started to compliment me, and I guess I I was like, Well, maybe maybe I am good at this. And so I kind of stuck with it for a while. But you know, it was it was nice. I think my first song that I did sing was Hermoso Cariño, so that kind of was my like starting place in the singing world.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Well, when you got towards the end of your high school, right, and you're graduating, figure out where to go. Why didn't you go UT or Texas State or somewhere locally or within Texas?

SPEAKER_02 12:54

It's expensive.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Well, I mean, yeah, but the moving across the country is isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I did the math, like I had a spreadsheet, I was kind of locked in a little bit, and my teacher helped me like he well, I I guess I should say this. I did take a gap year. Yeah, yeah. So I I I did I applied to a bunch of schools my first time, and I can't remember if UT Austin was on that list. Um it was it was a very interesting list. Very interesting list. Um but I think my teacher looked at the list too. He was like, what the fuck is this list? And uh we talked a little bit about it. We changed a couple schools the first time and I went through the whole um what are they called? Pre-screening, pre-screening process. Yeah. And um, yeah, at the end of it, I I remember I was recording at this church, very nice church. Um, I think I was we were taping uh the first moment of Lalo, um, some Bach that day. And then after the recording session, my teacher just walks up to me. He's like, Gabriel, I think we're gonna have to run it back. Like, you don't sound that great man. I was like, uh, you know, I was like, you know, my grandma was there. And we had to have that conversation, and he was basically just saying, like, your best bet if you want to get money to go to school is to you know, take a gap year, do this again, practice. And that's what I did. I mean, I really lucked in. I moved in with my grandma at that point. She was like, Look, you're gonna live with me, you're gonna practice all day long. And she had a couple rules at her house. She was like, Look, I have a couple rules. You can stay here, that's fine. She was like, All you need to do is practice, make your bed. You're gonna lose some weight, man. Okay, sort of like made me uh jog up the driveway every day.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

And you were big back at that point, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Yeah, bro. I think at I was like 275 at the end of high school. I was big, I was big, big dude, but yeah, she made me like she was giving me like one egg a day for breakfast. Like, like no jokes. She was like, no tortillas, you don't deserve them. So yeah, I was I was like losing weight.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Is that why you have 5,000 calories for before noon every day now? You're trying to make up for that.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

I guess I do I do love like I still have that fat fuck heart, you know, where I'm like, I gotta have some tacos, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Um we're gonna put a picture of Game of Right. No, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:15

I remember I remember like looking at some of those pictures like after getting into school, and I was like, oh my god, I was that big. Like there's I think there's some photos of me like in like my like my graduation count, and I just look like bloated, you know, like a balloon, dude. But yeah, it was good times.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Did did you feel like my weight has fluctuated a lot over the years to this point where I was really big and then extremely fit and then all that? But what I one thing that I found was when I was at my biggest uh like fall 2016, I was actually the best I had been at playing. And I don't know, I it was probably more because I was consistently playing and practicing, and like that's all I was doing. So I wasn't focused on working out or the eating stuff. Like literally, I was just traveling all over and playing and and rehearsing, and like that's that's all I would do, and then just eat and sleep. Yeah, did the loot the weight change, did you feel it like affect you your playing?

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Yeah, I and the singing for sure, because I remember like being bigger and like I could just sing and like it was kind of there, you know, like regardless if I was I had warmed up or not, you know, the voice was there, I could project, you know, very round sound. Um, I was pretty round at the time, so probably helped. But I mean, I don't know, because then you know, getting into school too, I remember losing all the weight, and then we started singing, like uh like my first year in FSU, and my voice sounded totally different from what I used to sing before. So I mean I'm sure there was like some still some technical issues that I never figured out. But I mean I I was really noticeable um from that first year.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Did um what what was your freshman year here? Was it fall 21? Yeah, because spring twenty two was your twenty one. So then you graduated high school spring 2020.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

2020.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

You famous year. The COVID graduation. Yeah. How's that? Did you still have a graduation?

SPEAKER_02 17:30

No. Well, I'm I'm lying to you. We they canceled our graduation at first, and then they um I think they had it at, I can't remember, some high middle school or high school downtown. Might have been like the Johnston or something, maybe the new one. And um, we had it in their football stadium, and you know, they may had us walk around the football stadium, go on stage, and we had to wear masks too outside. Oh and you know, it was it was something. We they had like a parade too, like a trunk parade. So people would people like decorate their cars, you know, drive around um our high school. So I don't know, it kind of sucked. I feel like I I lost that, you know, that little that year basically. It was really fun uh at the begin the start of the year. I like me and my friends had planned out this camping trip. We went on the camping trip for like a week, you know. I think we stayed at um I can't even remember the lake anymore. It's like by Lake Austin. There's a there's a park out there. And um yeah, I remember coming out of the out of the trip, and I think the next day we had like UIL, and then we got an email from our teacher saying like hey, it's kind of sick. So that was it. No prom, no graduation.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

So I mean that that that gap year though, and then it was also kind of nice because you RC would have had to do a lot of their first year remote or or some weird like hybrid stuff. Would you even have still come then your fall 2020?

SPEAKER_02 19:06

To FSU?

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

It's kind of a funny story too, because I wouldn't um FSU wasn't even on my radar the the second time around. So I had a couple schools in mind, my teacher basically handpicked all of my school um kind of to send me up for some success. And I think I think we were about a month out before like pre-screenings were due. And he was like, hey, I just got a friend request on Facebook from the professor at FSU, and he was like, Maybe you should add it to the list. Tell me, talk to her. I'm like, okay. And after that, I think he can maybe talk to her on the phone or something. And yeah, it was FSU was on the list at that point.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

So um well, ultimately you you you decided to come to come FSU, and then so you end up meeting Carlos and um Lucas, uh Michael, uh the the core for, and uh apparently there's a a fifth person that I never met, but uh Francesca um and at what point did you kind of think that you would um I guess kind of play full time or like there's a main source like where you can actually you know make money and do this with Mariachi?

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Like when did I think I could do it full time?

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah, well like when when you guys were building the group, because at first, you know, you did it for your recital, or I mean you used the Mariachi at your recital. Right. Uh did did it when when it was first building up, did it ever like occur like, okay, this is we're gonna use this to eventually make money?

SPEAKER_02 20:56

I think we thought about it at first. And I remember I think Carlos was like, maybe maybe we should like start playing. And I was like, Well, we're about to go home for the summer, what's the point? And so I was like, let's come back to this, like come fall. So I remember the fall of our like second year. We we all got together. Let's let's start. Let's start. Yeah. And we started working, practicing, started learning songs. I think we were rehearsing in the basement of um HMU where we started, that one room. The whiteboard room. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

So what was the I don't know, what was kind of the motivation? Because you guys could have stopped. You guys could have, I guess you could have been uh giving lessons somewhere or work like at a school, um music store. I don't know, there's probably other things you could have done. What what was it that kind of meant kept you guys going? Because it I assume it was rough in the beginning, but I Also, you guys didn't really have a really good frame of reference of I guess how the gigs are supposed to go. Yeah. So did y'all think, like, oh, we you know, we know we we need some work, but we're still getting paid.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Yeah. Yeah. To be honest, we I mean, we were total oogaboos at the beginning. Like, we had no idea what we were doing. That's just being honest. Like, we really didn't. Like, we didn't know a lot of songs. Like, I remember at the beginning we had a list too, the famous list. The list. Carlos was in love with this list. And you know, clients would ask us, like, you know, this song, uh, like at the time, like Camino de Michoacan. Um, I'm trying to think of random songs. And we're like, we don't know that. You know, we've got a list. And uh the clients would be like, You're not a real mariachi. You know, like some Moshoven, you know. But you know, we we really didn't know anything. And so uh, yeah, we I think we were really naive, and that helped a lot. A lot. We didn't know the songs, we didn't know what we're supposed to do. So we're just like, well, we're kind of we we are where we are, and so we'll we'll kind of just bring what we have to the table. And you know, we did that for a while, and you know, it's not like we're we weren't like practicing musicians, like we we'd we'd add a song every week, you know, maybe two, depending on how studious we were. And you know, we we slowly started building the rap.

unknown 23:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

You did, and I think you guys formed a a like a pretty cohesive cohesive thing where y'all played with each other very well, and especially when it got down to that core, like four of you, um, which is when I came in, fall 24. And well, I first met all of you spring 24 when I was visiting. The famous, yeah. Right, the famous meeting. Yeah, and it happened to be the same week as Carlos's uh recital. Um, and we talked, I talked a lot about that with Carlos. But you know, I came throughout the summer a little bit because I was well just trying to find a place to live, and but ultimately I get here in the fall and start doing some gigs, and then immediately I was like, wow, you guys have created a system that the four of you can like play off of each other, and you played to each other's strengths, and it it worked, right? Y'all were making money, y'all were doing it. It did work, right? But it's just you know where I come from, then it's not even just the valley, but the the idea of gigging and mariachi. Um there there is a certain expectation of things that are songs that you should know and how to act and and how to handle certain situations or like the loning that y'all did none of that. Y'all did your own thing. And like I said, it worked, but and this is what I was trying to explain to Carlos yesterday is you you all made it work in this specific area and in another vacuum. But as soon as you leave out of here and go try to play somewhere else, you're you're gonna see a huge difference.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

In terms of the the arrangements um and the songs and just how you handle certain clients or situations where I I think you guys got really comfortable with each other and never really considered that. And then also you didn't know what really cajon arrangements were. You didn't know any of that. What's that?

SPEAKER_02 25:43

Yeah, it was it was rough when you first came in for sure. I mean, it was helpful, and I think we learned to like you. It's not that we didn't like you, but I was like, who's this guy coming in here? He knows everything. And it wasn't, I mean, obviously it took some time for for us to kind of get on board. I think maybe some of the other guys, I feel like I was the one who like maybe deep down inside, I was like, who is this guy? You know, but I mean, yeah, it was it was it was definitely an eye opener for sure. Like, I mean, I think the the first one of the first songs you like we played that day was like Hema. I was like, what's a Hema? You know?

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

There's I'd never heard that song ever until like that day.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Yeah. Um it was a specific specific situation. And so another thing I talked about Carlos about is a lot of the people that I've I met um that gig that came through the school system. It's different when you learn the gig on the street, right? Or from your dad or your family, and just go through that, and you never go through the school system. Um there's very contrasting difference, and we talked about it too. So, like me and Danny kind of are parallels. Yeah. Right? He we started at we started roughly the same age, but he came through just learning with um his family and and and different groups. I started in the schools and then came to gigging later. Now, most of the people that go through the school do not gig. They say that there's like hundreds of high school mariachis, right? And then after graduation, a tiny percent gig. Now it seems like it's getting a little bigger, but even then, it's still not like. So, my my high school, my senior classers, eight of us, I'm the only one that gigs. Uh, and then that's the same with with all the high schools in the area, it's a very small percentage. Um, even the ones that make it to University Mariachi, even like at Texas State or Asalani TRGV, not all those guys gig. So then still only do the school group. Because it's a very different skill.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

I mean, they know the rep though.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

No.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

They don't?

SPEAKER_00 27:52

No. Okay. That's part of the reason they don't gig. So um they can perform, they'll they'll be able to sight read anything, they'll be able to play, but pull them out of that concert out of that off that stage and drop them in the backyard and say, okay, we're gonna do uh Nieve Zanero. I don't know. But you see them on stage and they are like just tearing it up. They can play anything, they'll do solos, they they can play, um do a whole show, right? Choreograph and everything. Some of them do know the rep a little bit, but still aren't that interested. Um so the same, so at Texas State, right? We my freshman year from the 13 of us or so, only I'd say three of us gigged. And you know, that was all university students and people have been doing it for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Right. So you say this, and then when I when I think of the valley, I'm like, bro, all those guys are in backyards playing songs, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

No, they're they're they're not. I mean, it it's getting bigger. I feel like more people do just because well, the it's people see now there's like money. And I I think Carlos talk touched on it too, is access. So access to these songs and arrangements is becoming easier now than it was back then. Uh, because when I learned when I had to do all this stuff, luckily that's around the time YouTube was getting bigger, yeah, but still wasn't as vast as it is now. And there were so many songs that Zombie had put out and Taylor Fuentes and Raul Castillo, all these guys that did a lot of tutorials. And that helped me so much. Uh, because there wasn't sheet music for it. I could sight read like perfectly, right? I'd I just go through the school so much that we would everything we do, there's a sheet music there. I'm like, okay, now I memorize it and then you got it. But then go do a gig and be like, okay, well, we're gonna do, you know, um. And I'd be like, uh, well, do you have music? And I'm like, no. I'm like, uh, well, I can't play. So it it just um when you get to a certain point, you you have to be able to like adapt to that. And the thing you guys did that I would the way that I described it was a very weird hybrid thing. Because you started in the school with the FSU Mariah. Like, yeah, that's kind of that's where it formed, right? You all were in school and then practice rooms and then you performed at recital. Then you started doing like restaurants and then eventually gigs in backyards.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Well, I feel like we were doing that even before the the actual school group.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

But I'm saying that it formed at the school. Y'all were students, yeah, yeah. Right. Um, and and then also that so it it kind of y'all did kind of kind of together. Y'all did it parallel, like you were doing gigs and still building the school group at the same time. Yeah. So and and I think you guys kind of really conflated that. And like it was just one. Oh, I see what you're saying, yeah. Right, there's no separation of okay, this is a school group, and these are the people in it, and this is how we're gonna handle performance at a school. And like, okay, now we're a gigging group, we're we're different people or a different mindset. It's like a switch, you gotta turn on your brain and do this.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

We weren't logistics majors. Yeah, it's not that.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

But so a good example of that is so Michael, right, went on to be Wela. And we would do um uh what what was it? What was that song called? Uh Hesuita and Chihuahua. Yeah, right. So Hesuita and Chihuahua, the the intro, the pup but that last um note or beat or whatever, Michael would always do a a slap, just like a ch right there in the gigs. And I was like, all right, cool, fine. I was like, I don't care. I'm I was very different, I don't know if you noticed, on how I I treated performance at school and gigs. And when we were gigging, um, or with at least with Michael, I'll be like, all right, I don't care what you do. But then we did a performance on stage on campus. This is like a club down under, and we we did Hasitan Chihuahua, and while as we were rehearsing and leading up to it and everything, I was like, okay, don't do the slap and um don't do the sweep here. We're gonna do a chord change here, and then uh lead into this and all this stuff, right? And so we're on stage, and you know, everybody's starting. It's I think that's one of the first songs we did, and the intro comes in and it's and I hear it. And I turn to Michael, and Michael looks at me, he goes like he just he forgot because it was like a natural instinct, right? Right, to do that. And that's something that uh separates people that gig and do shows. Being able to switch. Okay, so you're on stage now, you have a microphone in front of you, you have hundreds of people, thousands of people. You always gotta imagine like there's a camera right on your face on each 13 of you, and everything you do is being watched and scrutinized. Right. In the backyard in a gig. Is that not a show though? Um, I mean, it if you okay, so you can treat both the same. Now, are you gonna treat both the same?

SPEAKER_02 33:44

I think it depends on the size of the group, too. I I feel like that helps a lot. Like if you're a four-piece, you can like kind of get away with whatever you want, essentially. Yes. But if if I mean if you're coming in with like you know eight, ten guys, you know, and you guys have a system, then it's a little bit different, you know.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

And and but I mean that's more than my point because you are we're a four-piece gigging group, and now we're a 12-piece. Yeah, we kind of brought some of the energy into the school group. Into the school group, and I'm just like, guys, it's not you we can't just pull out a song and be like, okay, we're gonna just run through this and the rest of you just try to keep up, or like, oh, just follow and open we can do it, or we know because we gig. I'm like, this isn't a gig. I can't understand. Yeah, we're just pumped. We gig, okay. Like, yeah, well, we get paid to do this, right? And so it's like, but it it's just not um now the big debate that Carlos and I had was there so there's a distinction, but should there be? Should uh the schools focus more on trying to build musicians that are more capable of handling themselves in an association where they should gig or where they can. And that's like learning cajon, learning tercera, all the endings in the intros, as opposed to you know, focusing on 10-minute competition sets or concerts or UIL, or maybe within conjunction of each other, because the director still has to be evaluated in some way, and you can't evaluate a director on how well your student knows um Primera Sona Tercera, how much money that your student is making. Right. That that doesn't show that um in an academic setting, like a core, like an orchestra and a band that have Pixin, that have UIL, Mariachi is treated, has to be treated the same way.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

There's a lot of variables. And I think I mean, depending on what a director wants to focus on, is eventually what the students are gonna come out basically um not knowing, but like practicing. And so I mean, I definitely I I I'm in that the party where it's like you kind of need a mix. You need both. You need the performing and you need to be able to like make up something if the clients are asking for Kodidos, for example, right? Because a lot of that music's not written. So you just kind of have to like play some scales, you know, do something just to make things interesting. And you know, if if there was a curriculum, you know, uh a part of my thing right now, because I've written a few papers uh on this in my masters already, is sort of advancing the curriculum for mariachi education within a university. Um or I guess within the university tract, I should say. It's a better way of putting that. And so I mean if you're to start including like, okay, let's let's have you play I mean for violins, except for example, because you know that's kind of my my thing. Um you know, we'll we'll set them up. I kind of put this in like a like a curriculum summary essentially. And so basically, like you'd be with a guitarum player, a wild player, they'll play Orido, for example, and then the violinist just has to like you know make something up on top of that.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

And so I mean just having that skill. And I feel like you learned that, you know. I I I remember in in the beginning uh when we started playing in Tallahassee, there was we really did stick to the list. And it wasn't until recently, I should say, um, like when I started playing in Tampa where they asked for songs and here we go again. I remember the beginning when I first moved to Tampa, I was like getting cooked every single weekend, like just not knowing anything. But you know, it's a process.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Process it is. Um, but the thing with including that, because I've thought about if I were a maniachi director at a middle school or high school, I I would want to introduce Mariachi theory, right? The idea of the chord progressions and changes, following a guitarron, following the violin or trumpet or the diction from the singer, um, which is all extremely helpful and beneficial. But again, you gotta consider the fact that a majority of those kids are not gonna gig. And some and it's also not because they don't know how, it's some of them they just don't want to. They just do mariachi, they they go to these competitions, we go across the country, uh, you get to stay at hotels, go play Carnegie Hall because it's fun. And then you you bring in this aspect of this like theory or having to learn to improvise and all this stuff, and suddenly not as fun as putting together this 10-minute set and showing off and and having hundreds and thousands of people cheer for you. Right. So there definitely should be some of that taught in there. But I mean, and and I'm biased, right, because of how I mean I grew up in that system, but to me, these two things are are just are separate and they're separate for a reason because the the goal, you also have to consider the goal of something. The goal of Mariachi Tallahassee are the groups in Tampa, the groups in Atlanta, the groups in LA, the groups in Mexico, it's all the same to make money. The goal of Texas State Mariachi is not to make money. So if you have two completely different goals, how can you treat them the same? Right? Your your goal isn't to produce uh or to educate somebody in in the hopes that they make bunches of money for your program because they're not getting paid. See at Turkey State, we had plenty of requests to play at weddings, at events and stuff, or private gigs, and we turned all of them down. We said no, and director said no, because that's not the goal of a university ensemble, just like it's not the goal of a symphony or just the jazz band at the university.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

But I think that's such a disservice, though, to the students. Because I mean the whole point of university, like we grew up, like I'm sure you probably heard this too. My my grandparents were like, you need to go to school so you can make good money, so you can buy this house. I mean, like that's the whole point. Like, you know, yeah, that's the society we live in. And I think for like universities, especially the music schools, not to teach their students like, okay, like obviously you need to sound good, you need to, you know, good sound, in tune, you know, these standard principles, right? Of course you have to have that. That's you know that's that's non-negotiable. But once you start looking past that, once you got that, you have to also be like, okay, how are you to make money doing this? You know, what are what are your options? What what are the the what's a venue you can play at to make money? You know, these things aren't taught. You know, we we very much had to learn um all this from like scratch, you know. Yeah. And maybe we were abused with with how we were getting paid in the beginning, you know, not getting fed, I guess, after plantas. Yeah. But um, I mean, it wasn't for too long.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

If the argument is that the that the fundamentally how um ensembles are taught or cultivated at an academic setting is to change that, well then you know that's a different argument. But I'm also I'm just arguing how it currently is set up now. Now, if you say it should change, um yeah, I think it should. Um because so the way I see these top groups, right, like Vargas and Gamperos Sol, all those guys. Now, so now that's another level above like Texas State and UTRGV college, top college mariachis, and even top um gigging groups that aren't at that level. Um, so you have somebody that's on stage and can perform like better than nobody. Um, and I and there's been multiple people that have like won best in the US, vocalists at Extravaganza, and and then they go on, and some of them are like nurses, like they didn't do anything with music after high school. Yeah, but they're really good at their instrument at their singing, but it was just something fun, right, to do at the time. And then you have somebody that that is a really good um talon or like gigging mariachi, and they have uh different skills. Um now uh there was uh this guy, and I think you you've you've met him, uh well, Jimmy Olgin. Yeah, right. So he talked a little bit about how the classical setting and the mariachi setting could come together, and if you're able to basically master both, I did. You you can write.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Sorry, I I I was just thinking you said that and I immediately thought because I interviewed him for one of my master projects. Oh, you did? And this is all he talked about. Yeah, he was he brought up a couple people, I'm sure you've met um talked to him about some stuff, and yeah, he brought up some people from I guess back in his his growing up. Um I think you're talking about this one guy called Elote. I was like so good at violin. He could play Paganini and Mariachi at the same time. Like, what? I tried looking for this guy everywhere and I could not find him for the life of me. I was like, Elote, mariachi, uh, mariachi barrias, and it didn't come up.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

He yeah, I mean, he has a whole bunch of stories. But the the point that I was getting at is so these guys in Sol and Vargas and all that, they're somebody, or they're people that can, or they are people that can um be on stage, entertain a crowd, um, have that same kind of showmanship, and the next day go to a backyard and play six hours and like handle the gig. And I guarantee you they're gonna play differently how they play in that backyard than how they were carrying themselves on stage. If it's still like if it's like a smaller group or it's still not like you know, um a show setting, if it's just you know, like a backyard thing, like you got now, guys in Solo that gig, they're not um uh acting the same. Way they would on stage or in a backyard gig. And it's not like saying that they're acting worse in the backyard gig, they're just acting different. They're acting accordingly to the situation. Because now you have a very small intimate setting where you have to be a little bit more personable with the clients or the situation. You play a certain song and you act a different way, as opposed to when you have 500 people in an auditorium.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Yeah. I mean, you have to play to the crowd. Yeah. Because I feel like if you don't, the crowd's gonna hate you. And then from that point on, the gig you're just gonna feel like shit, the entire gig. And so I mean you have no choice.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

And I think that's what you guys were not doing, or understanding. Like, yeah, hey, we're not at a restaurant, we're not at uh the um what would you call them at Hef as backyard? Yeah, we're at a school with a bunch of 18 to 20 year olds and administrators. And that you, you know, I was expecting some kind of professionalism that you would not have to do. We weren't that bad. Come on. No, not that bad, but it was more of the the preparation to that performance. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Was still is treating it like ah, this is just that's the other thing too. I mean, when we started doing these university things, I think there's there's a there's a certain level when when you have like you know, some some big professor walk in the door, all right, we're gonna be doing this, we're gonna be that you know our group didn't have uh it was student-led, I mean still is to this day, yeah. Right. And so I mean that that definitely changes the environment of how you know the mariachi functions within a university setting. And I mean that being said, from where we came from, no nobody really knew or knowing um how you know a university mariachi functions until basically you came in because I mean you you played with uh I guess some university mariachis in your time. And yeah, I mean we had no we had no clue really.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

So yeah, but but I think by that point when I came in, you guys were already so indoctrinated in your ways that everybody was just so resistant to change. And I was like, all right, well, if you guys want to keep doing, how are you doing? Yeah, um, fine. But so I at some point I backed off a little bit, and then well, then you graduated, and then Carlos Um was finishing up his master's and stuff. But so I mean, you weren't you weren't there, but we um we had the recital, right? Sure, you heard about that the money show.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

I saw I saw it. I never got to hear it. I couldn't I didn't know where to find the video.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

Um apparently it was recorded, but I never got the video. Josh was supposed to handle that. Okay. I don't know if you ever did. There's clips or some people have some videos, but like an actual full bit. Because you know, I was trying to well, I was directing the whole damn thing and playing in it and setting up the sound too, because we used basically my equipment to mic everybody up. Okay, you think of the recording? Um there was like I said, the some there is a recording of it, we just never got it. Okay, um, so I didn't have time to set up my cameras because at that point I was just like so attacked because we also had Pedros that day. Uh and it was just so much going on that the recording the the recital was like at the bottom of it. So yeah, there's video of it somewhere and like clips. I have some clips of it. Um but yeah, we're we're finally able to put that on, which was one of my top goals when I when I came here, and I was like, okay, you guys have an actual ensemble with the school or at the school, like you can do this. Now that video has been seen by the way, the library performance. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

I remember it came up when I was in Albuquerque. Yeah. And some some of those guys out there were like, yeah, we've seen that video. I don't know if they said that, but this one the spring 24 or the one we did fall 24. I can't remember. It was the one that I was in. I think I'm only in one of them, maybe, or two.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

No, we're in both. Well, I mean, we've only done two.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

You're right. Well, I think it was the second one because we had more violins the second time, I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

Um probably. Yeah. I don't know. But um yeah, we'll talk about avocado sure in a bit. But uh I mean what what I was getting at is you guys never had did it ever occur to you in the two years before I got here to do a recital at the school with the school mariachi. Just for the mariachi. Yeah, just mariachi.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

No. We thought I mean we had them. Like we we did um like for my junior recital. Yeah, that's okay. It counts, it counts. Or mariachi, you know.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

No, because you were the focus, not the mariachi. The mariachi be the show.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we we could kind of we fit it in where we could get it, basically.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Yeah, but I was saying you guys never had that a goal. You guys wanted to make money, and which is great. I mean, you guys made money, and it was cool. Um, yeah, it's just a personal thing for me because I come from a time or the way I was introduced Mariachi was to put on a show for the people and not get paid for it. You just do it because I don't know, it was fun, and then you get to put like you get to orchestrate this whole show that has like a beginning to end, and then you know the songs and how it flows.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

In a gig, you do not get to do that. And I think that's another huge distinction. When you put on a concert in a show, the director or the the ensemble directs how the show goes. Right. We're not gonna stop in the middle of a concert and be like, oh, does anybody have a request? No. In a gig, we don't have control of what we play, right? Um, I I mean, at least you guys made a list. Like you guys gave the clients like that. I hate that list so much with a passion now. So you guys kind of did that, and that's why I'm saying you guys did some weird hybrid thing. Yeah, you gave the clients a set list of your show.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

I'm not gonna lie though, it worked. Yeah, I think it was said yesterday, like when the cheers that were heard during those times when we brought out that list, like were amazing. Like, I I remember we we played, I think it was like Volver Volver one night at um I can't even remember Casa Grande. And can we say that? Does it matter? Okay, and I remember everybody was singing the yeah, the sponsored the the chorus, and I just remember like seeing the wall, like you know, like I have not felt that energy since those days of the the famous list, you know.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

But the the you know, and okay, so Danny then Danny comes. Right Danny comes a little bit after me, almost since it's because I met you guys before just because the circumstances, but me and Danny arrived or started school here at the same time. And it was very it was very funny to me when Danny came and uh started to do some gigs or started to get you guys to know more, and then how he managed gigs. And this just kind of I guess solidified my point a little bit more because okay, now comes this kid from Tampa across the country from where I'm from, never met him, a whole different scene, Tampa from Austin. And he has the same critiques that I have, the same type of uh things like who does a list, you guys are gigging, you don't need to do a list, and then why are you doing these arrangements there? How come are you doing it in this key?

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

Um, and I mean we don't know each other, right? Completely opposite sides of the country. And then that was the the thing I was getting at with in terms of the gigging. Like you guys built your system very well with the four of you, and then as soon as you leave, it don't work, it doesn't work, it don't work. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

No, you guys were a blessing in disguise for sure.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

I mean and you guys resisted sometimes outwardly or inwardly, but you guys did not like it at some point.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

Maybe, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

I think it was just like I can get it.

SPEAKER_02 52:05

It took some getting used to. It took some getting used to. But I I mean, you know, we we we have we're pretty headstrong because then again, like like I was saying, like, you know, we get those cheers and like it works. And I think another part of why the we were so like insistent on the list was because you know, we're we're all performance majors. Um, we're gonna say uh education, but like we we still had like the same sort of standards in mind, and so you know when we you when you come from this background, like for instance, like we're we're playing an orchestra too at the same time as doing the mariachi, right? And so for orchestra, you know, you come in, you know your parts, you know, for the concerts, we have standard um how do you say repertoire, I guess, for the concert. Yeah, and you know, this is what we play, and we play it, we sound good, right? But for the mariachi, it's different, you know, especially now. Like um, there's just so much rap. And at the beginning for us, we're like, why are we gonna play songs we don't know? Sound like ass, and then you know, it sort of like tarnishes our reputation in a way. You know, that's that's at least the thinking, right? Right, and so yeah, then you guys come in and you're like, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

You don't know it, figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I I I never grew up with it with that sort of you know, in mind, or at least that that style of how to run a gig. And so yeah, it was it was definitely eye-opening. But I mean, even today, even you know, to this day, I I still feel it in my heart where it's like, you know, clients will ask for songs, and then you know, I I obviously work in Tampa now, but um, you know, I was just like, okay, okay, we'll play it. And we'll take two seconds. I'm like, are we really doing this, guys? You know, there's that part of me like, can we just say no, please? But you know, I'll whip up my phone, like, you know, real quick on YouTube, just at least you know, the the beginning, and we'll play that, and then I'll just you know make up the rest, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

You know, yeah, you just do it. Yeah, to get hasted. That that's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 54:07

Um but the hazing never ends, Alexis. That's a that's a problem.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

It it doesn't until you're like 60. Even then, even then, well, you're hazing all the time.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

What's the new guy's name? Uh I forget. He's the the the Filipino singer. Um famous guy. He just came up with the Mariachi song.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

Bruno Mars.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

Oh he's Filipino, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:30

I hope so. I I mean he's um he was born in Hawaii. So he's Puerto Rican and something else. I don't know. But he was born in Hawaii. Don't cancel me, guys.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

I don't think he's no, I mean he comes out with that song, right? With the Mariachi, and then you know, a couple weeks later, Clients like, oh, can we hear uh I can't even remember that.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

Is it Risk It All?

SPEAKER_02 54:48

Risk It All, yeah, exactly. We we practiced it though too, because I was like, it came out, and I'm like, guys, I guarantee you somebody's gonna ask for the song in like two weeks.

unknown 54:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 54:57

And sure enough, like three weeks later, they're like, Can we hear risk at all? And yeah, we we sounded like ass that time too.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

You know, and I mean, so now you've been in now a situation outside of town, I see playing with these guys, older guys that their whole life is Mariachi, or at least was, or they grew up with it, or their parents, like it's just a way of living, right? And so now you have to survive in that environment. And you already knew, you know, uh some songs going into there, and and you can play the instrument very well. And that that's an advantage that coming through the school system has over some of these, um, or going through just the street, because I'm sure you've also noticed there there are players that know a lot, but they're not very good. Like they're playing or they're singing or something, sure, but they get the job done or the gig done. So the same similar with me, I wasn't ready to gig when I started, but I could play the V Well, I could recite, read anything. I just I didn't know the songs. So um, but I was also just thrown into the environment. I always started with a four-piece and I was on Autumnilla by myself and I didn't know songs. Yeah. So, you know, really got set up for success there. Yeah. But so that that's and then so then that that goes to it too, where if you um most people, so that's a very high-pressure environment. So, okay, now you're getting paid, and you have um clients looking at you, and there's been plenty of times where I'm growing up gigging in my first few years, where I would have clients or people at the gig start heckling me while I'm singing in front of them.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

Just because they didn't like the way I was singing, or I wasn't singing loud enough, or there was a girl singer in our group, and she would only sing, so she sang, and then I came after, and they're just saying, I'll bring her back and all this crap. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:58

And I'm like this happened last night too at the gig.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

But I I saw I was 19. Uh huh. Now, how many 19-year-olds are gonna go into that environment and then keep going? A lot of them are gonna quit or are you know just not be able to handle that kind of pressure.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:19

So that's why I say that the gigging thing and being prepared to gig, you you can institutionalize it however you want. You can do the the cajon, you can do the one, two, three in the school, but then once you get on the field, it's gonna be very different.

SPEAKER_02 57:35

Well, I mean, I I think it it sort of starts at in the education. Because I I remember, you know, starting to take lessons privately outside of school. That's the first time like where I heard a teacher was like, Gabriel, you sound like ass, you know, like go home and practice, you know. Yeah, that was the first, like, no one ever talked to me that way. Like, no one. And you know, that this is why I I have so much respect for my my former violin teacher. Um because he would actually tell me, like, it sounds like you did not practice. Go go home. You know, you're dismissed, you know. And you know, even in college, teachers don't talk to you that way. It's it's very, you know, it's it's institutionalized education where um you you do have a relationship with these professors, obviously, but there's like a there's like a film almost like there's a you know that you don't want to cross. And if you cross it, you kind of almost get like outcasted almost. At least at least that's how it works in my mind. And so you know, to to say that you know these kids can't get a healthy dose of you know criticism. I don't know. I feel like it's sort of BS almost. Because I I think it needs to be said, especially when you're younger, because then you like you start to develop these, you know, these principles. And then if you don't get that, then I think you know you're basically setting yourself up for failure. But I mean, I you can call me a hypocrite too, because I remember learning some of these songs at the beginning of the mariachi. I'm like, oh shit, you know.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

The the amount of times that we would have to correct Gabriel on his timing. It's gotten better over time, but last night, bro. Yeah, last night. So and um Caminos de Metrocan, you you got the the one, two, you got it on time, right? How can you get off time on a country nos is what still amazes me when you dictate the I know why, dude.

SPEAKER_02 59:30

I know why. Well, because I there's this recording of a country no, it's a stupid recording. It's not a it's they're great singers, obviously. I I think it's from Las Tres Grandes or something. And I remember listening to it as a kid, and I just really like that their opening, their phrasing. And so I feel like I stuck with that for a while. Obviously, I listened to like Vicente's recording, um, a few of the other ones. Um, but I just like that phrasing in that one. I was like, it kind of sounds like a violin phrasing, you know. And so I think I stuck with that for a while and kind of became a part of how I sang the song. And so yeah, even to this day, I think I'll still like kind of mess the timing up a little bit, I guess, comparatively to maybe what you're used to traditionally to be.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

Yeah, when I got here, we it it was it was wild because like I said, you guys were already so used to each other that um Michael and Lucas played according to how you sing. And so they adjusted um to the timing that you were giving. You know, and then I come in and I'm like, You're freaking off time. What do you like why are you what is going on? Like you guys you're just off time and then the chord and this clashing and then all other stuff. Um, but I mean ironically, I I understand because many years ago um I played with a guitaron player that he was so off time online, just consistently, and wrong notes too. But the thing is, he was an older guy and he learned guitaron later in life. He was originally a trumpet player, but he learned guitaron for the church and Catholic Church, yeah. Uh which when I interviewed a lot of the people, like guests um in in the podcast of the previous years, majority of the origins of where they started Mariachi's at the church, the Catholic church. Um that just kind of found that as a kind of interesting kind of connection that they all had. But this guy would play off time, and especially in a song like uh La Leila Monte, because he would sing it. So he would sing and play, and it was off. And he was already you know older, and and for him to like adjust, change that it would be much more difficult than for me to adjust to him. So I did. I adjusted to how he sung it and the off-timeness and pretty much everybody because that's just what you do at a gig setting, because you're just trying to get the gig done. Now, you can argue it should be a higher standard, and it should be, but I I mean, I'm sure there are four or quartets or that play weddings and stuff that some of the musicians may not be really that good, but they still play or get the job done. Yeah. Um, similarly, Mariachi, you're gonna have that. You're gonna have groups that are are really well balanced, and some where it's like, wow, these these guys just are not that good. But the clients are are uh content with it. But by adjusting to that, um eventually I left that group and I played another group that was a lot more, I guess, rehearsed. They would do the rehearsals and other stuff. And then I come in and I'm playing and I'm off. I'm offbeat, I'm off time for this specific song or some other songs, just because of years of playing alongside this person conditioned me to be like, okay, this song is playing, and then I'm gonna do it this way.

unknown 1:02:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:00

And then I and I would come play with a whole new group, and I was off. And I had to like relearn or getting cooked. Yeah, just a song. He's talking about Las Mayanitas too. Which I I don't know, I feel like maybe you kind of you probably felt something like that when you first went to Tampa. You had to like recondition.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:20

Well, I mean the good the good news about that, or I guess that I I kind of found out was they had a another violinist, um Don Pot, I say call him, uh Jesucita is his name. Um he was um also came from like I guess a classical background. He's Venezuelan, violinist. And but he knows he he knows all the rap. So I I I sort of was blessed, you know, to have uh him as like a I guess a teacher when I first got there, like learning the rap. And um, yeah, I remember because I I did I did do uh Avirgen with with him, I think a year ago. Not this past the year before this past year. And um so that was my my first time playing with that group. You know, so that was my first time learning all those songs, but yeah, I mean it was it was a lot different because for one, I guess too, for the longest time here in Tallahassee, I was solo violin. You know, I didn't have to worry about playing with the section. I could do whatever I want, any boeings I wanted, whatever. And yeah, so he would get on me too about doing Boeings. Um I think the other thing I I found really fascinating about him because he came from this classical background, he would do like left-hand pizzicado or like uh all upostaccado sometimes and different things, just to have fun, you know, because he knows the reps, so he do whatever. And yeah, so I remember like sometimes during gigs, like I remember like for La Guadalupana, we would do like these like scales and runs because we could both do them. And so just to have fun, you know, playing playing these songs. And obviously in the Virgin, you're playing these songs every single hour on the hour. Um so I mean that was that was a lot of fun. But I remember recently, I think this past summer, I actually played with Jimmy's group in Austin, and we did like I think two or three plantas in one night. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, he didn't pay me those gigs, by the way. Yeah, because we had talked and I was like, look, I just want to I need to learn some more rap. I need to I need to like really lock in. And he was like, okay, how about you come play with us today? I can't pay you, but we'll give you free dinner and you get the experience. Like, you know, I I was in Austin and I don't have anything going on because we're on summer break and I wasn't I was home for a little bit. Yeah, like sure, I'll go. And bro, I mean, I got cooked. I didn't even know the chicken dance, you know, like it was like stuff like that. Yeah, and so yeah, I definitely got cooked that day. I mean, he he knows all the rep, him and his wife. Yeah, um, very good, you know. Obviously, not classical, classical players, but I mean they're they they know all the rep, technically speaking. And it was I learned a

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

Lot so I mean you graduated last um fall tw or summer twenty five. Yeah right from FSU well officially graduated because you had to finish up courses or whatever over the summer. Um before you left, you you got involved with competing at Albuquerque.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:24

I did, I did. It's a last minute thing. It's a last minute thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:27

So I went to Albuquerque in summer of 2018 uh with Texas State. We competed at the the college uh university division. And oh man, that show was so stressful to put on. And I was playing guitarra golpe for that show. Um and I changed tunings so many times just because the tuning is not a standard like how it is on viola or guitar. Golpe tuning depends on the region that you're at or what kind of sound you want. Like golpe is such a unique thing. So I changed tunings multiple times, um, literally till the days before the competition. Um so I had to relearn the whole competition set because they're different chord shapes. Uh yeah, literally. Did you guys play? No, we explains it. No, it wasn't me. But we got second that year. Okay. Um the open division? No, in the university.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:29

Oh, this is the okay. What's cool?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:31

What do you mean, what's cool?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:32

This was uh Texas State. Okay, Texas State, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:35

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we got second um that year. Then open division. We didn't do open division. I mean, like if you're university, we're gonna compete at the university division. We're not gonna do open. The only time Texas State ever did that or would do that was the um the Houston rodeo competition.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:53

There was like no universities this past past year, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:57

Yeah, there hasn't been really.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:59

I think I think Vegas. Or no, I don't even know. I think it might have been Vegas. They're the only school that showed up. So they like got it like out of uh how do you say? I don't even know. Like when you show up, like the but there's nobody to compete, and you just get it out of uh like a consolation or something like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

Yeah. Um so yeah, I w I went uh summer 18. Um it was cool. Um I think we didn't we drive. Um yeah, we drove. We took some buses or some vans, and so it was it was like a it took a while to get there. Um and there was workshops and stuff, but I mean we didn't really do workshops at the university level, you're not really gonna do that. And uh so getting on that stage, it's not really a stage, it's just like a slab of concrete. Yeah, yeah, and it and it it it was so difficult to play. So basically, in normally we're like in a kind of semicircle thing, right? Where the the last violin lines up with the guitar, and you know, everybody else falls in line. On that at Albuquerque, it was like almost a straight line.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:21

Straight line.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

And it was like, what the because I was like, I can't, I was trying to see the violin. And um, we had a pretty large group that summer as well, and also it's outdoors um afternoon. There was so much wind, and these microphones are picking up everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:42

Who does the sound at that festival, by the way? I thought shit on the festival, but like, come on, like, come on, guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:48

It was bad. We could not hear each other, the monitors didn't help. It was just one of the most probably difficult. Um, I would say the second most difficult. There was one that was worse in California when we went. Um, but the Albuquerque probably the second most um and we we got second part of it, you know, part of it we blame on that, but the other part is just yeah, we we our show wasn't as good as we we thought it would be.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:17

I'm surprised they didn't do dress rehearsals either for the for the stage.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:21

Oh, yeah, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:22

Like at least just walking up like there's like tapes or something, like you stand here, you stand here, you know, just so like we have an idea, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:29

Yeah, well, I mean, the thing is that there's just so many groups, there's so many people that go through that trying to accommodate for for all that and for everybody. Um, and the open division honestly wasn't uh as big of a deal as it is now as it was back then. Yeah. Uh and also because what what was funny is university competition was a little bit more, I don't know, I guess more prestigious maybe back then, uh, than it is now. But also a lot of the people that competed during that time or that were around for that time are now competing in the open division. Because they're older. And then you do have some younger people that are at the university level, but the universities just aren't competing anymore, so now they go with the open division. So it's like a mix of like the the newer generation of university Mariachi students with the older crowd that was either there 10 years ago or um that were around during that time. And then so you get a call, right, to to audition for one of these open groups.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:39

Pretty much. I think you were there, like we we just call come out. Yeah, yeah, we're moving out of the house. I think this was after like a planta or something at Pedros. Yeah, thanks. It was Sunday. Yeah, and yeah, I remember my friend uh from Texas, uh Michael, um, he gave me a text, he sent me a text, he's like, Hey, like, give me a call whenever you get a chance. Uh, I want you to look at some of these excerpts, uh, mariachi excerpts for this competition. And you know, I was like, what? Competition? And I'll look at it. And so, yeah, I think I looked at you were there, yeah. We ended up looking at it for like maybe 20, 30 minutes. Um, you wanted me to send a recording? He's like, we're doing an audition process. We need to audition you. I was like, okay, great. And so yeah, put the metronome on. We worked on that for a little bit. I should have paid more attention to the to the key. I think I had like a wrong note, and I played a C natural. That's what it was. You played a C natural instead of putting C natural. Oh, what can you do? You played A minor. I want to be that guy that's known for playing wrong notes, you know, but like I keep doing it every now and then.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:48

But yeah, so when he sent the music, and I'm here, I'm like, I've heard this before. Like a lot. Where did I have heard this? And then I'm searching, and I'm like, so it was one of Roma high school's old temas. Yeah. But the intro was kind of modeled after that, but it changed slightly.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:04

Yeah. Well, he made a big deal about it because I guess him and um, I don't know whoever else was helping him find the music. They had said that they got, I think, one of the composers that writes for Roma to to put together a program for them. And so, I mean, yeah, it sounds like I think some of the guys from Abu Kirby were talking about this, how like it's basically just like uh a Roma concert because all the music sounds essentially the same because it's written by the same people and it, you know, it's being played by a lot of the kids from the valley, and so you do get a little bit of that, you know. It's a fun competition. I should say, which is funny because I don't even know if we should talk about this in the pod, but I just like you know, like you go for the classes, or usually you know, the festival, but like uh I didn't go to one class when we were there.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:54

Uh that's just a bit drinking fest. I mean, everybody knows that, especially people that watch this. So, yeah, so I I would assume your experience is probably similar to mine, you know. And then especially at that time, it was we're all young university students, so everybody was between the ages of 18 to um I don't know, like 23. There were some group of master students, um, but I think yeah, it was like 18 to 25, maybe it was the max. And there was the jam sessions every night, and and that's just a common thing if people know the same thing happens in extravaganza. Um, and that's where I met Joe Barker for the first time. He was at the jam session just playing, I think he was playing guitar. I met Tony Zuniga. He played on the golpe that I was um using for competition that day, and he showed me a different tuning, uh, which I didn't I didn't change for the comp the competition because I was like, okay, I'll use it later. Um uh Aslan, I feel like Aslan was there. Yeah, it was one of the last times Aslan was there because I haven't really gone. Um and then they had the female group, Asalea, or probably pronouncing that wrong, but they had a female group at the time. And uh yeah, it was just a big fest. There was somebody in in the Tech State, Mariachi, that oh my god, this guy, he he was like 19, maybe 20 around that time. Uh I remember seeing him at the jam session, and he had like this big thermos that did not have water. At the jam session. Yeah, at the jam session. Okay, and we did not find him or see him until like 8 a.m. the next day. He just disappeared, went out, he was drinking, and he just got into a bunch of stupid stuff. And so yeah, that happens.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:53

Bro got locked up.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:55

No, he got locked up, but apparently that and then there's drama going on with I don't know, people in the Mariachi or with other Mariachis. It it's it's common.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:04

Uh all that stuff that was that that was another interesting thing too, because we we all stayed in like this big, like essentially a mansion when we went. Oh yeah, and it was it was really fun. Like, you know, we had all these nights, um, you know, where we just hung out, drank, had a barbecue or whatever. And yeah, I think a couple guys like brought their girlfriends, or you know, and so we were just all living in the same house. And I remember like when we first got there, because I I went with um our heart player, his name is Jacob, Colgri, great friends now. And um, yeah, I remember like getting uh on the phone with Michael because he was kind of core helped coordinate everything for the event. He was like, Yeah, Gabe, I think you're gonna be bunking with some one of our guys. We'll we'll see who it is eventually. Like, what do you mean, bunking? He goes, might have to share a bed. Man, I don't know. I was like, Great, here we go. Yeah, I get there. He's a cool dude, his name is Angel. But I I get there, I'm like, I'm gonna be lucky with this guy, I have to look up at him. I was like, great. But I was it was it was cool, it was cool. It was, I mean, you know, big house. There was always something going on, like never bored, always somebody to talk to. And I remember a lot of those guys like kind of looked at me funny, like because I always I was practicing a lot then too, like even during the festival, because I think I had um I was trying to learn new rap for the for the next coming fall. And so like during the day, I would just like practice. I think I was learning learning Tchaikovsky uh at the time. And like you practice a lot. I was like, uh, yeah, I guess. But yeah, and even those guys, they were they were getting on to on me about like memorizing the mariachi music, which I I guess is sort of one of my problems that I have to deal with. Because I I even struggle with that like learning with like learning classical rap, like just memorizing. But for Mariachi, it's always been easier, I've noticed. I mean, obviously the music's a little bit easier technically, less demanding. But you know, it's I don't know, I think it's just because it's fun to play for me. And so like I'll just like get into a groove, you know, maybe dance a little bit or whatever. But yeah, I've noticed frequently that Audiachi music's always a lot easier to memorize when we're playing.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:20

How was the um I guess uh the rehearsals and leading up to the competition? Right, because now you're in a situation where I think pretty much everybody in that group had done Mariachi for a while and like uh either the school, some of them gigged, um, or like most of them probably gigged. Was there did you feel or notice like a difference in how they approached the music, the the rehearsals, um kind of things that they like um they just did without really even noticing uh as opposed to you know when things that you just weren't aware of, especially starting the Mariachi with like no real reference.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:06

Yeah. I mean they were pretty strict about rehearsals. I I would say that. I mean, at the beginning they were like, okay, guys, we're we need to have like a rehearsal, trying to do two every single week. And you know, these guys seem pretty serious about it. I I think my first rehearsal, I think we rehearsed at one of one of the guys' houses at Ruse. And yeah, I mean it was it was nice like getting to play with other like mariachis who were like actually um I guess you could say technically efficient at what they do. It was nice. I mean, you know, especially that size group, because I I think we ended up going with 16 of us on stage. That's the biggest group I've ever played with. Um in terms of the mariachi at least, right? And so yeah, I remember I I kind of I did come in with a little bit sort of a pompous energy because I'm like, I'm classical violin, I gotta play whatever, you know. Even still to this day, I I still have that, I guess. And um but you know, it's or we learned the music. I mean, obviously I would I would kind of bud in every now and then, like kind of nitpick with like phrasing or like intonation. I don't remember from what I remember, something that needed to be worked on a little bit at the beginning. And um but yeah, I mean, for the most part, I I think we all had sort of these like the same principles. Like it needs to be a good show, you know, we need to we need to go up there, we need we need to sound good, we need to play good. And so, you know, I think even though, you know, I would say a lot of these guys are come from this classical background, they still come with, you know, the I guess you could say like the formalities of the and you know I I I won't like uh underplay these guys at all when it comes to that. They're musicians, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:01

How was the um the show itself? Did did it change from like say that when you first got the show day one to like what came on stage? The show changed. Big difference.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:14

Big difference, right? Yeah, I I kept hearing people say, like, oh, it always gets it always comes together the week of the concert, it always does, it always does. I'm like, that's not how it works. Yeah, but I we got there, and you know, as soon as we got to Albuquerque, we were rehearsing like at least three hours a day, just the competition music, really like hitting all the stage. Because I remember you talking about this when you first came to Tallahassee, like, oh, it's all about like the stage shifts and going to the mics, presence. And then, you know, we I get there, I'm like, oh shit. It is it is yeah, I mean, because you're playing with these mics, you know, you're playing with the mics. Um, it's not just that, but like just to have that presence too. Like when you're singing, you know, you have to give the show, right? Yeah, and you know, and never we never did that, I think, in the early stages of the Tallahassee group. You know, obviously, I guess in the gigs we would, but like never to the extent where it's like um practiced.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:16

You know, it's all choreographed rehearsed. You do the same thing every single time. Well, in in the show. Yeah. And so every at a high level group like at Texas State, like I said, we would rehearse, we would have our rehearsals three times a week, plus um three-hour rehearsals Wednesday night, a masterclass, and then Sunday night three hours. So five rehearsals a week, a total of um nine, um, ten hours as an ensemble and then sectionals. And there's some people thinking like, well, that's way too much, and that's all that stuff. And well, we were also learning other rep too because we had to prepare for a concert and and other other things as well. But the competition was was the main thing. And to to be very precise on a 10-minute set um takes so much, and it's not the music, and I think that's what people misunderstood is like, oh, why are we gonna rehearse so much and these songs aren't that difficult? Or I can site read this right now and get through and like we already got it. I'm like, well, yeah, that's the point. The music isn't supposed to be the most difficult thing. The the coordinating everybody is now you have the music and you have it memorized. So now, okay, okay, now you're gonna stand here, and then at minute three, you're gonna walk this way, and this person's gonna walk behind you, and then they're gonna adjust the mic for you, and then all the V-Well players are gonna come, so you've got to lower the mic for him. And all that you can't do that if you gotta walk around with your damn music stand because you still don't have the parts. Yeah, yeah. Right? And then that's what takes hours and hours of rehearsal, weeks or months to condense that and put it into like a perfect 10-minute set, which it's not gonna be because it's somebody's gonna play wrong note. Um, a string can pop, uh, bubble gets caught on a jacket that happened to us. Um, me and my cloth I had fell during the performance. And all those things you can't account for. Uh, and then the show changes. It it changes and it does and it will. And I remember Michael would always come to me, he's like, Why won't why wouldn't you guys just then craft a perfect show at the beginning and then just practice that, and then it'd be much more efficient that way. And I'd be like, it just doesn't work that way. Maybe part of it's just you know, we're indoctrinated to think that's how it's supposed to be, it's supposed to change. But also, it's just I I would relate this a lot to theater, right? Or plays where you have a vision. The director has a vision for how show's gonna go. And then you get the pieces together and it starts playing out, and then you realize, okay, well, this person can't do what I envisioned them to do. Yeah, or now, or this now now I had a change of heart. Now I want to do this thing differently. And now it sounds so the strength and overall weakness of the ensemble is in this area. So now we're gonna scrap this and add this quotal here, or now we're gonna change this solo to this person, right? Or this song, or if we add this song now in the beginning, instead of having it halfway through, it can impact the show better. All this stuff is happening in real time that you can't predict. You just can't because you really start to learn people's weaknesses. I just say that. Well, yeah, that's that's a big part of it. But yeah, you have to you don't know who the people are gonna be at the in July when you're trying to prepare for a competition in December. So you you just uh because especially in a school setting where things change, um and even though this is in school, it it's a new group every year, which was one of the funniest things I saw when um they're announcing these groups, uh the open division, and then they'll say the winner or the the second, third place, or whatever. And how it was so funny how the the announcer, because I watched the live stream, or how they when they presented the winner, and they'll be like, Oh, because this group, I forget the name of the group, but they'll be like, they've only been together for or they've been playing together for less than a year, and look how amazing they sound. But all these groups are made up. We know that the musicians, the the people in the competitions know that the audience doesn't know the audience thinks, oh, this is a real mariachi that actually goes and performs and does gigs and shows and stuff, and then they're like, you guys got together for six weeks, and some of you are never gonna see each other again. But that's um how the open division kind of came, like how it's become now. Yeah, and I don't know, I don't fully agree with that, but it's just there's no rule against it, and and some people still want to compete even though they're not at the school anymore, because it's fun, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:25

Um I think it's open to all ages too, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:27

Yeah, that that is a part of it too.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:29

It's it's yeah, because I remember I think one of the groups that went on in the open division, there was like three like really old guys who are these guys, and then like the rest of the group's like like really young, like you know, 20 year olds or whatever. Yeah, it's uh it's uh experienced. You get a you get a whole kind of array of mariachis in there. And I mean, it's just so much fun too. I you know, playing in in such a big group, you you get to learn about you know what. What it really means to be in like a show mariachi, you know, which I don't think a lot of people do get to experience. Like, I mean, that was the first time I played with the harp too in a mariachi setting. So that was like cool. Like he transitions like brrrrrrr, you know. So it was, I was like, I I made it, guys. Hearing a harp for the first time. Yeah. So it's it's an experience. I mean, I think I I think too a lot of you know, I I I do kind of regret not going to more of the the festival like actual activities because um, you know, I just I was kind of not I didn't play my cards correctly when it went when it came down to like I was listening for like the master's portion. Yeah. Um yeah, the master class. Which I was at the concert, they played interestingly.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:48

Uh the master class, sometimes yeah, I don't know. Sometimes they sound great, and sometimes it's like what how what happened?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:55

I I won't I won't put it all on them too, because I mean it is tough. Like yeah, like besides working with your own group, and you have to put together an entire program in less than a week. And I imagine that has its own difficulties too.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:11

Yeah, and they played you know difficult songs. Right, and I mean that's the point, but I don't know, they should really work that better. But that's that's the way it's been. That's the way they've done the masterclass for a long time. They changed it a little bit now, although it won't really affect the outcome much because they're still not announcing who makes the master class until the week of the conference. Right. So they're still gonna have the same amount of time to prepare the show, but it's just they had to audition like a month before. Which I mean, if you're you already know by now who's gonna make it, like send out a list and send out the music, say keep it quiet, or something, because you know, you can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:52

But you never know though, because somebody some rando could show up. Like, you know, I I think if I if I were to audition, I'd probably make it. And you know, the the music is one thing, but it's like the memorization, at least for me, that I think would be hard. And also likewise putting together like, okay, you're gonna walk here, you're gonna sing here, you're gonna come back here, you know, doing all that too.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:13

I think that's in a week, it's tough. It it is. Um, it's also a skill though. And then some of these guys start competitive mariachi in, you know, sixth grade. And you know, by this point they're like 20, so they they've got almost a decade of doing it, of making those mistakes the first time on stage. That I don't know how is it that you felt when you finally got up on the stage or in the microphone and a bunch of crowds of people? Um, but yeah, you were you were going up against some people that had been doing it for over 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:55

Yeah. I feel like I might I I put up a good front. I think I did at least. I I remember the first for sure the first song because I think we did like a trio at first, at least when I started singing at in the portion of the set. And I was struggling. I don't know if you saw the video, but I was like struggling to put the mic on the thing. And so I was supposed to put the mic on the stand and then get my boat and then lift it up, and then like we all do a little spin at the end. I could not get my my mic on the thing uh on the stand for the life of me. So I was just like, fuck it. I just started getting I kept sticking to the end of the song. Yeah. But you know, what can you do? It shit happens.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:34

It happens. It even happens that that uh, you know, with ensembles uh very well prepared, and uh uh there's the a secret that I learned that oh people in Texas State aren't listening right now, but um their one of their most recent competitions um when they ended the show, they were supposed to end a very specific way, and there were multiple people that did not do that because apparently the the the way they decided to end well the first song um was changed the day of the competition, the morning of. And I mean majority of people got it and they're like, okay, well, it's not that big of a deal to do this change, and did it. There's a couple people that either ultimately everybody did it, but it's somewhere late to get to it. And if that happened, that changes the day of.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:33

If that happened in an orchestra concert, like a legit, like you know, somebody's getting fired. Like that shit doesn't happen, you know? And that's what I hate about Mariachi so much sometimes. It's like the it's the um, it's like the the like variable. It's uh you know, you never know what's gonna happen in a in a gig. You know, somebody could get drunk, you know, throw the keel on you, or or like if if you're in a concert, I don't know, the mic stand doesn't want you know, you don't want to put doesn't want to like let your mic on. And it's there's just so much. It's just stressful sometimes, I think. Yeah. But likewise, it's it's like I feel the most free too, because even in the orchestra setting, it's like you have to be so so solid in your own part, you have to follow exactly what the conductor's doing, you have to make sure you're keeping up with the section. And I think I mean a lot of those little components are in the same or at least held to the same standard in the mariachi group, with some differences, obviously, but you know, it's different worlds. I just wish we could bring some of the more, you know, standard stuff to the mariachi, make make things easier.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:46

Um it would, but you know, a big thing is like the the style, interpretation, which changes. Um because there's um like the the top groups, right? So you have Vargas and Camperos, Notecalia, and all that. You put them on stage together, and there are videos of them playing La Negra or Volver together. It sounds like crap. And that's because they're playing three different styles of the same song. Some of them are doing that half-step shit with the in La Negra, and then some aren't. Right. And then the swinging is different, or the the phrasing of certain parts. The manico is gonna be mostly the same, but the accents are a little bit different, and and these are like the highest levels, right, of Mariachi. These are the guys, yeah. And they don't agree with what the style is. So and that doesn't mean that Mariachi's broken, it's more of like there is no one way to interpret it. And we do things a certain way. So, like when we're doing the school group and we're rehearsing and doing a song, and like, okay, let's do the intro this way, or let's shorten her in your instead of quarters and do the short, whatever. And that didn't mean that that's the way it's gonna be forever, or that's the correct way, or that's because how I want to do it. Let's just do it, and we're all gonna be together. And then I and then in four months from now I'll be like, you know, I got tired of the intro, let's do a different intro. And that's just extremely common in Mariachi. But talking to Alex in the classical world, she's like, You don't you don't do that. Yeah. Especially you're preparing for a show, a concert, and then the conductor's like, okay, make this change, that's it. Right. And then you don't touch that song again for five years or whatever, like the the orchestra itself in Mariachi, you're gonna replay the same song consistently, um, even a gig setting or not, just because sometimes you've got to throw some standards in there to fill in time. Now it uh you do it in next semester a year from now, you're not gonna play it the same way that you just learned it. And I think that's something that people struggle to within the Mariachi. Me and what?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:09

Yeah, no, no. I mean Carlos have had this conversation where we kind of like see the parallels in how uh classical music has evolved, specifically within like the Western tradition. So like we'll refer to Mariachi as it is now, and like it's kind of like the Baroque classical era we're in now, and it's like sort of evolving like into a more romantic era when you hear stuff from like Sol or um you know Campero, some of the new stuff, you know. And I think what's interesting, I feel like it's gonna happen. It has it has to have happen, what's going to happen is where we're gonna see this sort of continuation or advancement within the the collegiate mariachi, and it's gonna get to a point where mariachi is taught almost how it is like with classical music. Like, okay, you play sons this way, you play boleros this way, you play, you know, and everything's gonna become so standard, and I think mariachis might start to um like feel the YouTube curse, like where you hear it on YouTube, and it's like, but this guy says on YouTube that it's this way. And and I think very much, you know, we're gonna come to a point where there's gonna be different schools of mariachi, like, oh, I'm from like um the Garibaldi school, or no, I'm from the Tampa school or Austin school, wherever you're from. And so I think you know, very much um that mariachi is gonna shift sort of into that to that realm. And I mean it already is, right? You know, we see this in the competitions, we see this um at the universities. Um, you know, a lot of the I think right now, at least a lot of the the top groups in these competing, or at least in the competing groups in the competitions, they're mostly from like Texas State, the Valley, right? Like that that's where these guys are from. And but you know, we we start to see differences. Like I think Harvard has a mariachi now. Yeah, every school has a Harvard uh uh has a Harvard, has a Mariachi. And so it's I mean that's just where we're going, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:04

It it is. Um but also I think there's not enough of uh so there's starting to be a large like demand of it across the country of mariachis in schools or colleges. Not enough supply of educated directors in in the area. Um it's growing, and and Texas State's program has done a decent job at trying to prepare students because of certain specific things that the program does. And there's other universities that are starting to do a mariachi curriculum thing. Um and I don't know, it's just even in Austin, right? They're like not every uh Mariachi director has mariachi experience. Did any of them have Mariachi experience?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:03

Um the guys I played with no, uh I learned from. Um, I mean, my first director in Austin, he was really talented classical guitarist. I mean he was he had the chops, he could play whatever. When it came to mariachi, I mean he obviously knew a thing or two because he'd been teaching the curriculum for a while. And but they were both white guys. Like neither of them were Mexican or had any lineage. So I mean, no, you know, and that's the thing too. I think if you grow up learning mariachi from people who are not actually from the field, you learn you learn things that are like not right. So they'll they'll say things obviously that might that might work, that might, you know, be relatively within the scope of mariachi. But when it comes to like the actual tradition, they're not teaching you the tradition. You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:59

Yeah. Um so um even coming from the valley, coming from specifically Nikki Rail High School, because McAllen had has um three different um main public high schools, my director was uh orchestra violist. Like that was his thing. He studied viola. Well, he he had multiple degrees, but um his music degree was in viola. And he he was in in Mexico, right, and playing in the orchestras in in Mexico, and he somebody from the the fine arts district or something got in contact with him to be a director at uh in the school district, and he was like, Okay, right, sign the contract. When you sign this contract, they can put you wherever they want. And then so he gets there and they're like, Okay, you're gonna be teaching mariachi. And then he's like, I don't know mariachi, I've never played Mariachi in my life, and then just they told him, Well, you're Mexican, you you figure it out. And he was like, Mexican, yeah, he's because he was Mexican. And um, by the time I got to high school, he had already been directing Mariachi for I don't know, close to 10 years or probably over around 10 years. So he had already had experience or he learned a lot throughout that time to get there, but he never gigged to this day. He has never gigged in Mariachi. He's done plenty of orchestra gigs of um chamber or court quartets and still plays with the Valley Symphony or other orchestras. And he only wore trache one time ever in his life, and it was just because in the very beginnings of the Mariachi, and this is when there used to be one Mariachi for the entire city, because it wasn't big enough for each high school to get their own, he put on a suit to play with the school group because they just needed, you know, people to complete the the show, and he's and that was like the only time. Uh so he wasn't playing viola though, right? No, I mean he played violin, okay, but it's just his degree and where he what he played in the orchestra was viola. But um, and then he also became the classical guitar guitar instructor, which he could play as well, but it was still very, you know, basic level. Um, but he has perfect pitch, and he, I mean, he knows music very well and had had the idea of like how to do the shows and stuff, but so much that he still didn't know. And when I got there, right, it was like in this weird transition phase. So I started making, you know, some of the all-region um ensembles and made the all-state ensemble, and I did a couple things that um nobody had really ever done, or a few of us are in really the history of that program. And so being in these ensembles and having now directors that were actually gigged or did stuff like that, I learned things from there that I actually bring back to my high school. And my director would ask me, like, uh, because I remember when we were setting up for a competition my senior year, the only competition I ever did. Um, the way that it the the kind of money's kind of lined up, right? From first violin down to third, and then the first trumpet next to the the first violin.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:44

But I just remembered all that. We did like a reverse setting of the violins.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:48

Yeah, dude, and an annoying. That was one of the things that hurt me the most.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:52

Even to this day, though, it still makes sense to me. Because if you think about it in the classical music setting, the higher um I guess the higher voices will be on the outside so that it projects to the audience. The inner voices could kind of matter.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:08

You have microphones.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:10

Well, we didn't have we didn't have a budget for that in the beginning, all right? So we were working what we got. But yeah, but now I I guess I can understand the reasoning for the money issue placement now, because you need to be close to the middle of the group so you can cue, look at everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:24

Yeah, and that there's just so much dialogue that happens between the trumpet section leader and the violin section leader, especially because of intros or you know, cueing, and you're gonna be next to each other. What what the hell is the first violent gonna do over here? And then the trumpet's all the way over here. You can still see him, right? Yeah, but that now that yeah, there's a lot of talking though that does happen in these concerts. Um, even even in not in the competition, because it is everything's very tight and already really rehearsed. But when you have an hour and a half long concert, there's dialogue that happens in between that you're supposed to be kind of discreet about it, the audience not you're supposed to do it in a situation where there's a singer over there, so the audience attention's there. So now you can quickly uh recap something or progress in the next thing, or remind somebody like, hey, you remember you gotta be over here. Yeah. That that that's just um how it's done. And so there was things that, yeah, like um that I told him that I learned I was like, okay, yeah, well, the the trumpet and violin are here. We didn't really do it that way before. We we had a row of violins and then the the other one, yeah, and then trumpet, which is another form of doing it too. Yeah. But we had the space to do the full semicircle, we just didn't do it. Uh so it evolved over time. And and so I that that's me coming from the valley, which is like the mecca of high school mariachi competitions and stuff. And even within the valley, there was still disparity of uh mariachi educators. And I mean, maybe even less in Austin or Dallas and Houston and all these areas. So that the demand keeps increasing and the supply is just not there. And so I I fear that there will be even more watered down programs. Like I'm sure there are plenty of classical programs that talk. All right, yeah, that's just not good. There's some orchestras, there's what they're called conservatories that are just or taught by somebody that just doesn't really know what it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:31

Like now I see it. Like I hear, like in Tampa, there's this school I work at now. Um I go in there to basically give sectionals to their orchestra. And this isn't, I mean, the director's a great guy. I love that guy. But he's not he's doesn't he doesn't play violin. He and he tells these kids to do things, and they'll be holding the bow like with their fists, like that. I'm like, that's not how you hold the bow. You know, there's little things like that, and it's it's it's not to say that the program's not good, right? But you're you're actively teaching kids incorrectly, and these bad habits can form into like severe injuries down the line uh if you don't fix them quickly. And so um I mean it's it's not just happening in my actual. I see this happening in all kinds of things because of the I guess the lack of educators, which is a problem, but it's it definitely does affect the the quality of the musical though.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:30

Yeah. But I think a big difference though with like that, so how from your experience, because you've done classical gigs as well. Uh you played at weddings or quartets or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:41

Yeah. Orchestras.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:44

How how would you so let's say in how easy is it to get a classical gig compared to a mariachi gig, if let's say both players are below average or mediocre players, which one would have an easier time getting a gig? Mariachi player or what instrument? I mean, what it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:11

Okay. Um I think also depending on the area too. Like if you're in like a pretty active mariachi environment, and like you know, you're not that great at your instrument, I think you'd be able to get it some work. But if you're in the classical field, you're not that great. And I think it also depends on who you know. I think that's a big factor. If you if you have a good teacher, they can put you in you know in contact with somebody, or I don't know, your teacher prices you a gig. That's I think you know you have more advantage that way. So it really just depends. Because I feel like there's a lot of like average mediocre players who are getting a lot of gigs, they're making good money, and then you see other people who might be like maybe more talented or you know, just have more hours underneath their belt, and they're not working as much. In classical or mariachi? I think both. Both. I think both. Um, you know, um, I don't maybe I don't know the guys in the mariachi who are so talented and not working. But I mean, I I see it a lot in classical music for sure. You'll see a lot of talented players and they're just not working very much because either one groups are filled, like orchestra, everybody's uh dying to get an orchestra position. But there's just so few because there's so many, there's so many players.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:37

Is there a big difference in um quality of um a big difference, I think, Mariachi and classical in terms of the gigging side is there there is no equivalent that I can think of right now of like a Mariachi musician Getting into some uh something like so a classical musician can join an orchestra for a season, but also be a part of a quartet to do wedding gigs or something. In Mariachi j just gigs, like there's no equivalent to like joining a season orchestra.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:16

I feel like the equivalent, at least in my head, would be like you join Mariachi Sol or Vargas, and then you also like alone on the on weekends you're off or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:25

Well, yeah, but I mean there's like community orchestras, right? And the the level of a community orchestra is very different from the New York New York Phil, yeah. Yeah, New York Phil Harmonic, right? And as it's so is like New York Philharmonic.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:44

So you you can't just like be like, all right, I have so let me in for a season. Yeah. Um, no matter like it, it's just like classical musicians have more access to like less prestigious orchestras that they can be a part of.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:59

Yes, and I think the reason for that is the tradition is just it stems back for hundreds of years at this point. You know, if you if you're looking at the even in the American school of uh classical music, um, we're talking about almost 200 years now going on, 100 years plus. And you know, I think Mariachi is getting to that point too, kind of like where jazz started in like the what is it, 1950s, something like that, the education system. I think we're finally starting to see like the like the starting of the education. Uh Texas, California, some of these states, southern states have these programs. They're progressing. And I think pretty soon, maybe maybe like when we're viejitos hello, we'll be running this podcast back. Can you believe the the Telehassee community Mariachi?

SPEAKER_00 1:51:51

The Tallahassee community mariachi. So so then are you saying you think that that will happen in Mariachi as well? There will be like community level mariachi ensembles that are like more full 15 piece that musicians now have.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:04

It depends. Like I don't think it's gonna be everywhere, like classical music, at least not in in the project in the let's say we have like a 50 year, 100-year projection. I don't think it's gonna be that soon. It would have to be much, much further, probably.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:15

But like um But I mean it's not impossible. Atlanta City Mariachi that does concerts uh seasonally, yeah, and then that they basically rotate players in and out. Um is that something that you think would happen?

unknown 1:52:30

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:31

I mean, you're starting to see like mariachi's what is it, the Dodgers Stadium has a mariachi, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah. Like you're starting to see groups like that. And I think, you know, as as the the Hispanic population probably as as it has been statistically proven to do, it's gonna continue to grow. And I think you're gonna start seeing you know these bigger groups, hopefully, you know, God willing, I'll give I'll be one of these big groups too. Um, you know, in in in more states. So I mean that's that's where it's heading. And you know, if you don't think so, I think you're wrong, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:08

Uh I don't know, but maybe I honestly haven't thought of that just because um uh a little bit of a pessimistic, pessimistic view, but it's just like I don't see the Mariachi evolving outside of the school, how the way that how classical has evolved over the years, but that's also because I'm not you know involved in the classical world anyway, not nearly as much as like you and Carlos, or people that studied classical music. I did classical guitar for a lot of years and I've studied how that kind of evolved over time, but from my viewpoint, classical guitar kind of staled, like it reached its peak, and now you don't really hear about the top classical guitarists, like it's just not you know a thing compared to even I know who Maxim Van Groff is, yeah, right, and people will you know see his videos and then it's like oh it's amazing, or Ray Chen, right? Especially with his but YouTube and two-set violin, right? With the stuff they've done. Right. Um classical guitar, you don't you don't see that.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:17

Yeah. Um well I mean the the classical community is I mean it's it's very inclusive, right? It very um communal. And I think the mariachi community could be the same way. Like we can have the like these Facebook group chats and stuff, right? I don't I really don't I don't really feel the community with these with these chats. Um or like the partitura group chats, uh-huh, you know. Um you don't really get a commun communal sense from those. But I mean it's it's not impossible. But I think one of the big factors in why the the classical scene has been able to grow so much is because of the the donors. Because without the donors, without the big money, right, the the classical scene would die pretty pretty soon. I mean a lot of a lot of musicians, at least today, project that the the classical scene will be done pretty soon. Hopefully not, you know. I'm I'm a believer, I'm a believer. But you know, we'll it's it's hard not to see. At least, and then that's not to say that the bigger groups won't survive, because they will, like New York Phil, they're probably gonna survive. European groups, Berlin Phil, uh Radio Phil Harmonica, like these these groups, you know, they've got that prestige behind them. I think they'll be fine. But maybe some of these smaller groups.

unknown 1:55:40

It's possible.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:42

What what's after the masters? Because you have a year, maybe two left. Don't be scaring me. And yeah, but have you considered I don't know, moving LA, Texas, Chicago, or like do you want to continue trying to break into the classical world? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:57

I don't know. I I I I I'll tell you this. I actively change my mind like daily almost. I'm like, today, today, you know what? I think I'm gonna compete in this uh violent competition. Then the next day it was like, who knows? Maybe maybe I should join the military. Or the next day I'm like, maybe I could just live doing you know, phalan or something. But I don't know. I I'm definitely at a stage in my life where like I change my mind a lot, especially when it comes to profession. Um I think right now I'm looking at doing a Sphinx uh competition. It's basically for black people, Latinos, uh classical music competition. But the prize, the prize money is pretty good for the fact I could win. And um, so I don't know, I might I might do that. Um right now my teachers at at USF are saying that I should probably just extend my masters. And I talked to uh one of my teachers like a few days or last week, and he was like, Why would you not extend? Like it's it's free, but right now you have the opportunity to do so.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:59

So I'm definitely considering it it yeah, I mean, I don't know, probably should. So one advice I got, um, and I I I mean there's fundamental things different about STEM and and classical, but at the end of the day, it's still getting securing um a job or source of income. Um, because that's all we're we're trying to do in a capitalistic world. No, we're talking to something else. But um there's a lot of benefits to being continuing being a student. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:39

So if you have a lot to the early stages of life.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:42

And also if you're not accumulating debt. Right. Um and so you know, being a student still g it gives you more access or opportunities to even things, small things like software, right? Or trying to being able to get it funded to go to a conference, uh, still building your network that way. So that well, one of the biggest things was right, like it doesn't matter when you graduate, it matters what you're gonna do the day after. If the day after you graduate, you're gonna keep doing the same thing you're doing the day before, then what difference with degree? Would it but yeah, it made might as well just stay the student longer or have gone to go work at Amazon and building up your 401k?

unknown 1:58:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:29

I don't know. I'm I'm I'm reading a lot of Dave Ramsey right now from his podcast. I it was actually Carlos introduced me to the baby step are you? Uh I'm in the early stages.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:39

Early baby steps $10,000. Um, yeah, I'm past that.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:42

I'm past that, yeah. But no, I remember first learning about this, and I was like, what's this guy know? And then yeah, I started watching and reading the uh the total money makeover, and bro, I'm told um when it comes to finances, at least.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:58

Is Caleb Hammer like the millennial Dave Ramsey?

SPEAKER_02 1:59:01

Is that yeah, pretty much? Yeah. I was talking to Daniel, he was like, why don't you just watch Caleb? I'm like, yeah, I'll watch him too. I just get annoyed too because the people on there they just complain and complain. And obviously, some of them are like in bad situations or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:16

It it is funny, and it makes it a lot more relatable, a lot more hit to home that it's in Austin. That his show or like this lot of the guests come from Texas. Yeah. And it's like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:28

Austin's booming. I hope I can afford a house there one day.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:31

It's it's it's getting scary. You should have bought one when you're like 10.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:35

I know. What the fuck was I doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:59:37

Two weren't. Oh, you know what? We didn't even talk about, and I'm real glad I remembered before we end this. Um the fact that uh we like kind of were possibly like met each other years before I even came here.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:53

Oh yeah. Yeah. No, I did meet you. I I guess we didn't really talk much, but yeah. Was that a blonde that you were doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:00:00

I think so, probably.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:02

Okay, yeah. You you were uh pretty big dude.

unknown 2:00:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:08

Don't be fat, like you're actually No, yeah. Um I don't remember that. But um, yeah, apparently uh it was at um what was it? Uh Jalisco. Jaliscos. Jaliscos. Right, yeah, Austin Texas. Yeah. In 2000 and what like was it 16, 17, something like that? Probably around. I mean that that was the height of my gigging time between 2015 and 2015. Back in your prime. Yeah. Uh my voice lessons, all that stuff that I was doing back then. Uh but yeah, so I was playing with Mariachi what were they called? Mariachi Hali School. Mariachi Hali School. I think it was Mariachi Hali School, even though ironically they're all from Monterey. Um except for me. And we would play at restaurants, we would uh yeah, I I don't know. I I don't have no idea how many gigs I've done. I mean, I've been doing gigs since 2015, 2026. Um hundred probably thousands, maybe or maybe a thousand, I don't know. Because if you do an average of like let's say three gigs per week in fifty-two weeks times eleven years, that's one thousand seven hundred and sixteen gigs, seven hundred and sixteen gigs on the city. You're almost a pro. Yeah. Uh I'm not even at 10,000 hours yet. That's just one hour. I just started like a uh two years ago. Oh but yeah, so that was um because yeah, I went sex day 2015 to 2021. So I played all over that area, and um I I don't even know how many the amount of people I probably came across.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:07

Yeah, it was funny too, because I I feel like I'd recognized your face when I first met you. Hold on. I don't even know how I found that video. I was like, hold on, is this you? Yeah, I was that was funny. That was funny.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:22

And do you so is it in high school where you met um Danny Daniela? No.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:30

Um we went we went to middle school together. Oh, in middle school. Yeah, so I would think I was like a grade above her, and um we played an orchestra. I feel like I had sort of beef with those guys even then, but I was always kind of stuck up, like I always had that energy. I don't know why. And I I I like to think it's gone now.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:52

I mean hopefully, probably not, but uh I think it it's because you were babied as a kid.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:00

Maybe yeah, I was definitely the favorite. I was definitely the favorite for sure. You're a spoiled child. I was I was definitely spoiled. My my dad likes to, or at least in my undergrad, he he'd like to remind me, damn boy, he's spoiled.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:13

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I met Danny because uh well, she plays Maria Chi Amor, right, in in Austin, and that was the first group that I was like officially part of in the Austin area. And so I was there. Um I don't remember how it exactly came up, but I think she asked me about she was like, oh, because I don't I don't know how it came up that I was a Florida State, but I don't know if I told her or Alex. But then she asked me about like if I knew this violin player named Gabriel. And I was like, I mean, probably it's probably you, I assume. Um and yeah, so she told me that that she she knew you. Um I can't even remember what year this was. This had to have been spring of 20, maybe fall twenty four, spring twenty five. It had to have been or not time because that was my first year here. Um which it's it's funny. Have you ever heard of that um that I don't know what's called a theory or thing where it's um like butterfly likes or something? No, the the six degrees of separation.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:35

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:36

Where everybody's connected by you know six people, yeah, or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:41

Well, I mean the money as a community, I feel like it's like three degrees. Like you know somebody, yeah. You just gotta talk to somebody. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, um great group. Uh Amor. I played with Alex. I played with his his son recently in Austin. Oh, you played with little Alex? I I played with I I don't remember his name. He played uh oh, his name is Alex too.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:04

Yeah, so he's he's either called um little Alex or LA for little Alex. Okay, or I mean people will just call him Alex, but uh because they're both called Alex, um, they call Alex the trumpet um Big Alex. Okay. Or Alex Sr. But mostly Big Alex or Little Alex. Uh what was he on? What instrument?

SPEAKER_02 2:05:28

He played Vwella. It was so interesting. We had we did a three-piece that day. It was me, it was my friend Jacob from Albuquerque, Albuquerque, he was playing harp, and then he was playing uh Alex was playing uh Vuela. Yeah, yeah. So Jacob was playing all the bass lines on the on the harp.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:47

And it was a very interesting game. Three-piece. Uh on just you you had the confidence to do that. Why not? How did it go?

SPEAKER_02 2:05:56

It went fine, it was a little serenata. I think the first the first song they asked for was uh I think it was like scene D. And I had never played Scene D until like that point, I think. Or no, I don't think it was scene D, I'm lying to you. I can't even remember, man. Long long ago. But yeah, I remember that first song. Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:19

And Alex, uh little Alex, he's a really good violin player.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:26

Did you see him play?

SPEAKER_02 2:06:27

No, I've never seen him play.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:29

Oh, that's his main instrument, violin.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:31

Okay. Yeah, he said he played a little violin.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:33

Yeah, I mean he's just saying that. But he his main is violin.

unknown 2:06:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:37

So yeah, vibala, guitarron. He can play him too, play him really well, but like violins is that's what he's been playing his whole life.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:47

Yeah. I mean, cool guy. That's the only other time I've ever seen him. I don't know. Yeah. No, but I mean I I got I got to work with Alex Sr. uh quite a bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:59

And uh that was uh how was that um that brief stint you had gigging in Austin?

SPEAKER_02 2:07:06

Yeah, it was it was eye-opening. I keep saying that, but I feel like I keep like getting thrown into these positions where I'm like, oh shit, what am I supposed to do? You know? But I mean, yeah, they were playing a lot of rap, and this is before I even like I used the iPad full time. And like obviously in Tampa they let us use the iPads because you know I guess more efficient. But yeah, we were coming up with things and I kind of depended on Danny for like a lot of the stuff. Like this was even before I had like, I don't know, Camino Zomicho Khan or like memorized. Yeah, so I was just like, you know, going for it. But yeah, come a long way since then. I don't have to use my iPad all the time. I can survive, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:07:58

Yeah, it's a damn crutch. I didn't have that growing up. Different times, man. Yeah, when I first gigged. Um, you know, at least we had the phone. But it would it it wasn't as easy to put the damn phone on the instruments that is now with that thing, the sticky thing.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:15

Yeah, the magnet you got.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:16

Yeah. Uh but even before that, um, right, because Mariachi still had to go around. And you know, hearing some of these older guys' stories of like before they had GPS and they had to like literally the map and then find addresses that way, especially like when it's dark, or people give them directions based off of like landmarks, or like there's this broken down car in the corner of the street.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:45

Oh, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:46

And there's this guy that played a bewella. Um, that he still did uh this this thing even when I was when I got there. Um, I think now he uses the phone, hopefully. But he had like this little Rolodex of note cards that had lyrics of songs on there. So some of a client asked for a song and he didn't have a memorizer, just like flipped through and be like, Well, that's wild. Nope. Don't got that. No, Google. Yeah, so that's what he would do. And he still did that even after Google came out, but I think now because it's more accessible, easier to use. Yeah. Um, I hope he uses the phone now.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:29

Oh, yeah, there's this guy in Tampa. I think his name is Dominito, and he's got this little little notebook that he writes down songs and shit and the lyrics, and he'll just be flipping through the book during a gig. But yeah, I mean it's times are changing. I I honestly I'm a believer in the iPad, at least for right now. Like it's so helpful. And I think if you're like starting out in the Mariachi scene, like don't the only other thing, the only downside to the iPad is that a lot of the scores are wrong. Most of the scores are wrong. And so you kind of have to for Mariachi? For Mariachi, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:08

And so if you want to like play cajon arrangements, like you better do your listening homework, you know, learn, learn the parts, and you know, pray to God that they're doing them in the keys that the groups say you listen to. Yeah. Because I remember when we first when I first like like started to commit to like okay, I'm gonna listen to the part, I'm gonna learn the adorno, and then you know, it wasn't until that point, like recently, like basically last last year, where now I'm able to like okay, what key are we in? No problem. I'll play it in that key. But for a long time, I was like really stressed out. Like, hold on, we're gonna do a different key, and I don't have the music for that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:10:48

So it's yeah, yeah, you all do um la Lel Mont in me.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:54

I still prefer, I still prefer me as opposed to Fa. I mean it's easier to sing, but like nice. What the hell?

SPEAKER_00 2:11:01

Nobody does that. Oh, but then you guys do Cintia in Re, which everybody does it in the Well, I haven't played Cintia in like a year.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:13

Uh then you all do um the mujeres divinas in Fa. Everybody doesn't sol.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:20

Everybody doesn't sol, yeah. Or you know what's so funny? My my first, I think it was my first gig in Tampa after the Virgin, we did Mujeres Divinas, and this is before I I knew the before I did that that entrance. I think I started off like plucking because that's like the arrangement we used to do in the early stages. And I just remember these guys looking at me like, the fuck are you playing? You know? And I I I I quickly learned that that was not how you start in Wednesday minus.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:51

I mean, I I've done both. Um there were in Mariachio Mode, the violin player at the time, um he would pluck. But yeah, I mean you should know both. Uh yeah, there's things that I did that probably um all the the one thing that still bothers me the most uh still do with this group today is the entrance to money at you. Look the freaking scratch, scratch the trumpet of the but, but like I hate that entrance so much, it just bothers me. I don't know, just because I'm so used to just doing it with where you say hey, yeah, you hey, hey, hey, uh that's just like it's entrance, but then I hear like just freaking notes clash and just bap, bap.

unknown 2:12:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:41

I know I I wasn't used to the dancing either in Mariachi Laplo.

SPEAKER_00 2:12:44

Got down to temple like, hold on, we're doing cumbias and shit?

SPEAKER_02 2:12:47

All these steps, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:12:48

If you ever play in San Antonio, there's a group, um Mariachi Espuelas. I don't know how much they are together anymore. Tiki, he was uh the manager. I honestly don't even know this group exists anymore. It was a pretty big deal group, like uh, you know, almost close to 10 years ago. Um but they would do I played with them a couple times, Adrian Mariachi Loco, and Tiki would do this full-on rap in that middle section. And and it worked out the whole choreography. They like um they would get in a line, like a conga line, like close up to each other, and just like bounce forward and bounce back. Yeah, and I'm just there like helping out. I think I was a guitar or something, and I literally just was staring at them, like watching them.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:42

He was doing it's it's I know like for the my like for us mariachis, like when we're in that kind of like scenario, I'm like, this is so stupid. But if you're the client, that's just badass, you know? Like you're looking at these like fucking old guys fucking hopping around, do these dances or whatever, and like that's what Mariachi is supposed to do, you know, they're supposed to entertain. And I I oh bro, I always hate it when like you get to a gig and you start playing for the clients and they just look at you with like the dullest face, like you know, I'm like, oh fuck. It's gonna be one of those gigs. They they're gonna hate us. That's I always hate those gigs. They it's like we're playing forever.

SPEAKER_00 2:14:19

Yeah. I do have the respect though for those mariachis that like have that energy or that charisma to like say the same thing uh at a new gig for like the same song. Because to the client, maybe they've never heard that before, that phrase or or how like um something that's said like I don't know, and like those those random jokes or things that are still like an LA, right? And after over 10 years, I'm just like I'm so tired of it. I don't know, it's so stupid. Yeah, but then you know it's just as a client, sometimes the client's first time ever having a live Mariachi in their living room, and it might be their only time ever. And so that's why I've never really been the the face of the person to be like up there, because I don't know, it's just not me. But there are some people that are just like that, just got it, and they just do it or understand it, or and that's the skill to this.

SPEAKER_02 2:15:21

Yeah, I've noticed I started to copy some of those phrases because they do help, like, especially like if you're like tired and you know it's it's just you know, it's a long day. You can throw those in there just to bring up the energy, and it helps. It helps. And like I think I've done that around Daniel, and he's like, Why aren't you copying my dad or something like that? I'm like, Well, you know, that's what I'm exposed to right now. So you know, a lot of the energy, pick up the same jokes. It's always cool. I always love when I get to like play with like some of the older groups. Like, I think uh this this Pacinco de Mayo, I ended up doing uh a like three-hour planta basically with um Don Alberto and some of the older guys in Tampa. He just a group put together like for that day because we our group got split into two. One would do one restaurant and the other one, did another three-hour planta. And I mean that entire gig, these old guys, like because the the entire restaurant, mind you, is filled with nothing but white people. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, right? But it's like, you know, we can only play Cielito Lindo, you know, um, the hat dance, you know, so many times. So these guys just start naming songs, and some of them also I never heard that song ever. So, you know, we're just making stuff or making stuff up, but like the the amount of rap that these old guys have is just crazy. And I mean, yeah, you know, rightfully so. They spent the time getting developing. So yeah, it's it's nice. But yeah, anyway, the whole point in saying that is like they just have all these jokes, all these sayings, you know, they mess with the clients or whatever. But yeah, it brings it does bring, you know, that that spark which is nice to the to the kids. You don't get that with without age, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:06

Yeah, I and I think that's part of it too. Like I don't know, I also find it kind of cringy or corny when there's like a you know, 19 or 18-year-old kid that's trying to do the same or say the same kind of things or interact with the crowd like how a 45-year-old man does. Like you can't say the same thing, like you don't relate to the person, the 50-year-old birthday person, yeah, the same way somebody around the same age does. And yeah, it's still just you know part of the show thing, too.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:36

But I'm just like, it's just feels but you ever get those clients that are like, You're a mariachi, you're too young to be a mariachi.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:43

Yeah, yeah, I see that a lot. Uh he said that they you know they have the image of a mariachi, like old Mexican men that bar and drunk. And you'll you'll get there soon. Bruh. The Mexican part or the drunk? I'm gonna talk to uh what what are you a a 15th generation? A Mexican uh 27th.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:07

No, I'm I'm actually uh seventh generation Tejano. Seventh generation according. I don't know if that's actually true or not. I mean, it might be less, might be more, but the the sound of seventh generation just sounds so good, so I just say seventh generation. Seventh. Yeah, but it's it's definitely up there. Like my my great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, um, who I knew when I was like little because they were alive. Um, I still have great-grandparents still. I have two left. One of them's 92, the other ones, I think like 88, something like that. I had very young parents if the viewers didn't know. And but yeah, so I mean, our roots are in Texas. Um, even my great-grandparents speak very great, very good English. Um, yeah, but I mean obviously different times too. Like they grew up, and I remember my grandparents telling me stories like if we spoke Spanish in school, we get hit. I was like, oh shit.

SPEAKER_00 2:19:01

And now you're you're getting haze for not speaking Spanish.

SPEAKER_02 2:19:04

Exactly. Never by Americans, I must say. It's always by the mighty hatchy people. Yeah, so yeah. My my Spanish has gotten a lot better, I will say. Um, so maybe maybe the next time we're I'm on the pod, we'll speak in all Spanish.

SPEAKER_00 2:19:19

Oh, you think so? Probably not. We'll say that we'll say that the whole entire time. Yeah. Uh is there anything else that you want to say? You have like a list of questions I'm supposed to answer or something from the viewers. Uh no, nobody knows who you are. I guess you're right. Um so I mean you said you know, you're still figuring out what's gonna happen next, but what what's what's happening right now? Where you where are you gonna drink tonight?

SPEAKER_02 2:19:46

Uh I have a couple drinks with uh with the old crew, the old Mariachi. Um yeah, I mean, life's life's going up, hopefully from here. I I don't know. I definitely want to be in maybe in the mariachi education scene. I think um, I don't know. I I thought about being university professor or something like that. So that's where I'm thinking. Can I mention my my new YouTube oh yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:20:10

So I'm starting a channel. Let me preface that too. So you you called me uh um a week ago. And I mean you brought this up to me over the like the last year, I think. But yeah, so you want to start.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:19

You're the you're the tech guy in my world, so I always call you if I'm like, what's a good mic?

SPEAKER_00 2:20:23

You know, so this is uh audio technique.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:20:27

Um so yeah, talk about that. Because I don't even really fully understand what it is that you want to do.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:32

Well, the idea is like you know the Willow TV, right? And you see a bunch of these guys on YouTube, they'll they'll do like tutorials on uh adornos for violin or you know, whatever the instrument is. And for me as a violinist, I I hope I I don't come across as as an asshole saying this, but like you know, some of the violin uh playing, like the quality is not amazing. And um, you know, that could be lighting, that could be like just like visual images or just like you know, in terms of like what music is being played alongside you know the actual playing. And so I just feel like they're not set up really well, especially like let's say like you're in a gig, I'm like, oh shit, I don't know how this goes. I can pull up a video real quick. And for me, I've gotten to a point where like I'm able to like hear something and like almost play it the same way. That is if I'm not freaking out, and if I'm freaking out on my head spinning, and like, come on, we gotta play it right now. Then it might not do so great, but but yeah, I kind of want to start you know making these videos, something like you know, these tutorial videos, kind of just playing some stuff. I also thought about seeing us adding some classical stuff into it, like abosicado on some uh alornos or I don't know, figuring it out as I go, like maybe some left-hand pits. Um be fun to do, just just for fun, you know. Um now if you ask your your I don't know your musicologist if this is uh if this is mariachi, that's up for debate. We can talk about that when we get there, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:21:59

Yeah, so I mean you just want to kind of build a a reference, a guide. Yeah, kind of like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:05

I think you know um it would be so helpful to get some of these references. And obviously, you know, uh mariachi's kind of look towards musicians from Garibaldi to kind of set the the standard for Adornos. And right now it's kind of all over the place, like even on YouTube for some songs, it's really hard to find anything. And so I think you know, I think it'd be uh good for for the violin community in the mariachi scene to have these like references. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:22:36

So what what's the channel gonna be called? You know, yep. No clue.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:41

Maybe come up with something live right now.

SPEAKER_00 2:22:43

I could add that in in the description or or probably when this is out. If you guys have a better name, leave it in the comments. Well, by the time this video out, hopefully you or you might have started already because this is gonna be a few weeks before.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:56

Well, I I just picked up some some softbox lights the other day. So I mean it's happening. It's happening, it's just a matter of when. Um I'm moving into a new apartment too in like a month, two months. So I might start there when I have like a nice space to kind of set up. I'm trying to get my apartment packed up right now. Yeah, so we'll see. I'll be I'll be definitely calling you. Like, what mic stand should I use? Yeah, how do you set up a cardioid uh condenser mic?

SPEAKER_00 2:23:21

What's the super cardioid versus regular cardio? And what's high pass filtering?

unknown 2:23:26

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:27

I'll let you know. I'll let you know. Okay. Well, um, anything else? I don't know. Is there anything else? Thank you for having me. I this has been a blast.

SPEAKER_00 2:23:38

Yeah. Uh see, not so bad, right? You weren't bombarded with questions that you didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:44

Oh yeah. We'll we'll save that for the second one.

SPEAKER_00 2:23:47

Okay, well, so this has been what episode three. Okay, three. Right, yeah, with uh Gabriel Salinas Guzman. Yes. From uh where do you say you're from now? You say so Austin? I'm from Florida.

SPEAKER_02 2:24:01

I think from Florida. Yeah, it's it's growing on me like, yeah, I'm from Florida. Yeah, but I even got a I even got a FSU uh license frame in my card. So yeah, the you got the Texas plate and then it put the FSU then out.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:15

Yeah. Well, it's been Gabriel from Florida. You will see him soon directing the um New York City Mariach.

SPEAKER_02 2:24:25

You will see.

unknown 2:24:28

I don't know what's in.