LMS S4 E3 - Michael Mesa (Guest #4)

Let’s welcome Michael Mesa one half of @DuodeCuerdas and a founding member of the FSU Mariachi and Mariachi Tallahassee as well as bass player for the ​⁠ based out of Tallahassee FL. Michael received his bachelors degree in violin performance from FSU in 2024 and since has been performing all over the southeast. Listen to his story of growing in a Cuban Ecuadorian household in the Miami area to embracing the mariachi culture. 

Follow ​⁠@losmariachisagas on Instagram and Facebook 

Email Losmariachisagas@gmail.com

Follow Palace Rats at ​⁠@palaceratshq

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Hello. Do you say you're from Miami?

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Or what do you say you're from Miami? I do say from I'm from Miami. I'm part of unincorporated Miami-Dade County. So I guess Miami-Dade County, if you want to be particular.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Not Brower County.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Not Broward County. I'm way south of that. No, that's yeah. I mean, if I drive straight east, I'm in Miami, like the city of Miami.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

And you were born there. Born and raised like your whole life.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

But where where did the the music kind of come in? Because so your dad plays um trumpet. Right? And he went to Florida State. He did. Back in the day, what was it, 80s?

SPEAKER_03 0:47

It was like I think 91, 92, or 93. It was here.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Okay, so do do I mean do a lot of people in your family play?

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Not really. I think like the only musicians in my family are my dad. My mom plays piano too. And then my dad's brother also plays piano. And their mom was an organist at a church back in Miami for years. Um but I I think it mostly came from that part. And then I looked up to my dad a lot uh musically growing up.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Well what what how old were you when you started the um the violin?

SPEAKER_03 1:31

I was eight years old.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Was that your first instrument?

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Yes. That was my first instrument. Well, I mean, it saved for the recorder and like you know, first grade. But you know, the I it was when I went on a trip to I think North Carolina or something, or North South Carolina, maybe whatever's above North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Um Virginia.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

No, it wasn't that far. It was it was definitely in North Carolina that I saw a like bluegrass band play, and I saw the violin player playing really fast, and I thought, oh my god, that's so cool. I want to be able to do that. So my parents took me to a local shop. I I can't remember the name. It was pretty funny. He had like a YouTube advertisement and we'd like recite the advertisement back to each other, my parents. But uh they got me the violin, and then we were staying at my dad's friend's cabin, and I spent hours there sawing away probably the worst playing you've ever heard in your life for hours. And they were just upstairs, you know, either ignoring it or tuning it out, and then but I that that's where it all started, and then I yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

At six years old? Or what was that eight? They didn't give you a mute or nothing.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

I don't think they knew what a mute was. I didn't even know what a mute was at that point.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

So you you continued it. Um but you went to an all-boys Catholic high school.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

That was now that you know, I you see that in the movies. Is it like how it is in the movies?

SPEAKER_03 3:12

No, it is not. Well, only because most of the ones you see in movies are like boarding schools. Yeah. So you go away and you're just like living with them. It's like a it's like more like a college experience, but in that time I started in middle school uh and was there for seven years. Uh but yes, they make you wear button-up shirts, ties, slacks, loafers. If you wear anything out of line, get in trouble. My hair was too long for a lot of it over over the eyebrows, uh, over the ears, and not touching the collar. Um I was very self-conscious about that.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

So, how many spankings did you get?

SPEAKER_03 3:57

None. I was I was a good kid. I I I behaved, I stayed out of trouble. I tried to fly under the radar as much as I could because Did you all have a sister school? We did, I think. Well, okay, so there were there were four schools, main schools, that were well, it was the fifth one, but that was co-ed. Doesn't count. But there were two all-boy Catholic schools. One of them was middle to high school, and the other one was just high school, and then the other two were like the same format for all girls' schools. Um and they I don't know, there was always a rivalry between the two boy schools, and I think between the two girls' schools. But I don't really know which one was the proper sister school to ours. We didn't really do much with that.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

So y'all didn't have that um that thing the way you see in the movies too, where the the the all-girls school and all-boys school go to some like retreat or something and at the camp on the lake.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Nope. There I don't think there's any lakes in in Miami. It's mostly uh canals and swamp.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Alligators?

SPEAKER_03 5:09

Lots of alligators, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Um what so did they have orchestra uh the school?

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Kind of. It was so the way the music program was set up there, it was band, and then you'd split off to whatever your instrument was. So like there was obviously like the you know, concert band or like high whatever the high school band was, and then within that class period, the people who played strings would go to a different room, and then then they had orchestra, but it was like eight violins and a bass, and then maybe a cello or a viola.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Um so did you like perform? Yes. You had like concerts and yeah, we had we had concerts.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

It was not great. Because I mean, obviously we're all young people, but like a lot of the people that were in the program were not there for or the people that were at that school were not there for music. They were there for you know academic enrichment.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Um and they got sent there because they're bad kids. Something like that. Some of them were.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Some of them were. There's some interesting stuff that happened there.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Well, where did the then like you deciding to major in violin performance? Because so in my mind, Red, somebody that does performance in music, they usually spent, you know, a long time playing and and they like in school orchestras or they do like all state and all region and stuff. But you didn't really do a lot of that, or did you?

SPEAKER_03 6:51

I I guess the extent of what I did classically in middle and high school, like so when I started playing violin when I was eight years old, I joined the Miami Youth, uh, sorry, the Greater Miami Youth Symphony, which was a program that had different subsets of orchestras for different levels, and you know, you would progress throughout the years as you got older, and they had, you know, the first one I I don't even remember what it was called. They had like Young Mozart strings concert, and then the final group was Symphony, and that was the one that had like, you know, 80-piece orchestra, ton of strings, brass, harp, everything you could think of. Um, and they always put on I think they put on more concerts or something. They they'd perform at uh at the University of Miami. Um, I forgot the name of the concert hall. Um, but they I don't know, it was it was a very involved program. And a lot of those kids were in programs that in their own schools, high schools, and they would I I guess they all knew each other because they were at Coral Reef, they were at uh New Orleans Symphony Orchestra uh was another one that I forgot. Um but the they were also involved in that, but that was like kind of my only outlet to do that because I didn't have that in high school. And there was a whole point where I was like, I didn't know if I wanted to keep doing music because I started doing other stuff in school and I was getting more involved in that. But I think coming out of that, I realized that I was better at violin than I was at uh you know mock congress and speech and debate or like acting, you know. I I tried different things. I wasn't trying to, you know, totally diss music, but I it I kind of came to the realization that I definitely enjoyed classical music more than anything else. Uh or even just music performance. Like I like the act of playing an instrument, that's what it boils down to at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

How well at what point did you then decide you were gonna um major in the violin performance? Because you had to audition right to get on the school of music. Yeah. So by your senior year, you're pretty much set. You're like, I'm gonna go to FSU and uh do violin performance.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Yes. Yeah, I auditioned for I I think the point that I like decided was like between I think 10th and 11th grade, I was like, okay, I like doing this. Nothing else really seems of interest to me. And if I'm gonna do something and if I'm gonna produce something in college, I want to further my education as a musician. I would like to learn more in that regard, and then so I did the whole audition thing. I had actually one thing of note was in high school, in fact, through all of middle and high school, the orchestra director at my at Balon, which was the the Catholic school, um since I was the only person that like actually practiced and cared about it, we had a like good relationship, and she was very uh like nurturing towards the growth of my artistic development and skill-wise, and she was like very, very uh adamant about my tuning and playing in tune, and she was like the phrase, just I everything that I didn't really get anywhere else. Uh she did provide that for me. So I do have her to thank uh Anna Ruth Bermudas, Cello Player, um growing up because that should she kind of like changed my view on music and performance, and it it I don't know. I I have a lot of memory I have a lot of memories from that uh kind of fueling that decision to pursue it. Um and she helped me with the auditions and uh I have my private teacher too. Um but like I since I'd see her like every single day, it was a very it's like having an you know apprentice or being an apprentice or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Did you think that like kind of I guess playing an orchestra was gonna be like your thing that you were gonna um pursue ultimately kind of like as a career?

SPEAKER_03 11:25

No, really. I I I didn't really have too much interest. I mean, I like playing it, it it was it was a good skill to have, and it's very important to like be able to play it with other musicians and being in that setting because that you know sometimes the job calls for it, but I always preferred playing in like chamber ensembles. Like I like I like the smaller groups and you know one person per part, and it's just like kind of a more it's it's a little more freeing musically because you could take more liberties, I guess, which I like doing.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

It's it's more fun, musical artistic liberties that you can't do in uh 80 piece um orchestra. Correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

And granted, you know, the orchestras have their own means of art and in their own right, but it's it's I think it's a lot more personal, no sorry, personal when you're working with these other musicians and get like closer with them. I that was a yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

But what so then what when was this? When you're freshman, were you was it fall 2020 or 2021?

SPEAKER_03 12:29

When was your uh it was fall of 2021? Sorry, 2020 was when I got to FSC.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

So you got here before um Gabriel and Carlos? Yes. Were you here then with Lucas? Did you and Lucas start at the same time?

SPEAKER_03 12:48

I did not know Lucas, though he did live down the hall from me. Um, but like I I barely knew him. Like it was. I I mean that was also when COVID was all happening, so we were all like confined to our rooms, and you know, my my suite mates would go into the bathroom with a hazmat suit and like bleach everything if if when they found out that my roommate had COVID, I never got it. At least I don't think I did. Um, but he got it, and I was just like, okay, well, I I can't use the bathroom because they were cleaning it like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Your freshman year, uh consider I don't know, I want to put this like I guess like branching out to I don't know, different things or clubs and stuff. But you're just like focused on practicing and playing classical music and nothing else.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

It was mostly that. It was mostly the classical stuff. I I I wanted to be as like involved and indulged in it as I could be. Uh the only thing I did want to do was join a band. Uh, because I did play on one in high school. I started with friends of mine, and that was also a very musically fulfilling experience because you know you just get a bunch of friends together and you play music, and you know, if you're good, it it's a lot more rewarding. And I I played with some pretty good musicians at the time. Uh, and I probably thought they were better than or I thought we all sounded better than we did, because I look back at some of those videos and they're a little a little rough. I think we had we're a little in over our heads. Uh but when I did get to college and I was like wandering around campus because I was the only place you could really go, is outside. I'd see posters on the wall, and there was one poster on the wall that said drummer and bass or drummer and guitarist singer looking for a bass player. And I called them or like I emailed them and I sent them a bunch of videos of me playing and all this stuff, and uh they said their influences were like, you know, Radiohead, Primus, and other bands that I don't really know because I don't really listen to that stuff. But I was desperate and I really wanted to play with somebody, so I called them up, emailed them, and they're like, Yeah, you know, you're in, whatever. And then so I met up with them, and I kind of slowly realized that they were not what they said they were, I think. Um did you ever ever do any shows? No, it was like it was mostly like a recording project, and by the end of it, like the guitar player had left and the drummer who was the singer, and the like he would write the songs, he would basically try to like make me his producer, and I'm like, dude, I am not gonna produce your music. I don't even like your music. Yeah, not not to not to be rude, but it was like he was he was expecting a lot of me, and he was a very sweet guy, but it was just not the kind of music I wanted to play. Or like I I didn't I didn't feel it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

So uh so then so after your freshman year, what do you go back home for the summer?

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

So then you come back, so fall 21. Um and then so spring twenty-two is what I think a consensus of when the the Mariachi started forming.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

And that's when I guess like Gabriel and Carlos talked to each other, and then they started recruiting. How how did you come into that picture into that whole thing?

SPEAKER_03 16:29

That was that was like almost all Gabriel, uh, because I was an orchestra with him, and I think we were in the same section, or we were stand partners at one point, and I don't remember for what it was. I don't remember if it was his fall or spring recital, but for one of them, he was like, Hey, can you play violin? And I'm like, sure. And I was like, here's the music, and then we played El Rey, and I don't remember the other song that we did. It was that was a really that was a long time ago. Like I look at the pictures and we have like the big gray moños that I think his grandmother made, and I had a white shirt and black pants.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Do you remember what arrangement of El Rey that was?

SPEAKER_03 17:15

I do not. I don't know if it's the the one we've been doing for. I don't know if we started with that one and kept doing that one. I think it was the one that we're doing now.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Probably. The one that starts with two quarters. Um do you remember how you played it?

SPEAKER_03 17:35

How I played it?

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Yeah, how you interpreted that song on the violin.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

No, there was there was no interpretation being done. It was me and two other violinists, and I was just like half of my battle was just trying to keep it together between the three of us, and then whatever was going on with the Armonia, and Armonia was upright bass and a classical guitar sitting down. And I think I I can't remember if he was like finger picking each quarter.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Probably. Um what did you know about Mariachi at that time? Nothing at all. No. You I I mean, growing up in Miami your whole life, did you ever see Mariachi?

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Yes. I saw one that somebody hired to play in the neighborhood. It was during COVID, actually. They hired this group to play in front of like I think my grandmother's neighbor's house. And we all sat outside and watched them, and they played, and I do not remember a lick of what was played. I I didn't even think about it. I was just like, wow. Who the hell are these people? Like, why did they hire them to play in the middle of the street? And I forgot about them until you know I started, you know, it didn't have that same impact on you as a bluegrass. No. But even yeah, no, no, it didn't. I didn't I didn't think twice about it.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Well, you kept with it though. Like, why? With with the mariachi.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

Because I didn't know any other Latinos. That was that honestly though, I think that was probably the biggest reason because I didn't, you know, I thought it was cool that, you know, oh my god, Carlos and Gabriel speak Spanish. I can like kind of relate to them more than literally anybody else in the orchestra because they're all you know white and I don't really know what they talk about. But yeah, well, they kind of speak Spanish. They kind of speak Spanish. I if if I'm gonna throw Carlos under the bus, I think for like the first three months of knowing him, I did not understand a word that came out of his mouth in English or Spanish. And I would just nod and I'm like, oh wow, that's very interesting. And I I always tell him that, but I I've I've since learned to attune my ear to to how he speaks.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

That's a skill. There's still times where he'll be telling me something and I'll be like this far. Yeah. And then I'd be like, I don't know what you're saying, Carlos. Like you need to slow down the because you're mixing your words and you're forming new words that don't exist. Yeah. Like, I don't know what you're saying.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

Even yesterday, like my ears are have been clogged for the last few days, and like every time he speaks, I've had to say, what, what, what, what, like every single time, every sentence that came out of his mouth. I'm like, dude, I cannot understand a word you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Well, summer of 2022. Uh yeah, summer twenty two is the summer of your sophomore year. What? Uh so you went back home again? Yeah. And then y'all came back, and then um you just started going like really at it with um mariachi, like learning mariachi songs and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Kind of, yeah. There was at one point where the guitar player was not present, and then I ran up to the instrument library, grabbed the classical guitar, went back down to the rehearsal room, and I started playing on two and three, and then on everything.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Well, yeah, too.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

That's uh we'll get there.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Um so yeah, is that why you switched over? Because so your violin for I mean, yeah, for me, that's what you played, and then you went to the hard one, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

Yeah, uh it was mostly because I like the the guy that was playing guitar didn't like I could tell that it was missing the attack and like just something. So I I came and I played, you know, probably the more basic things, like nothing even close to a son or even a horopo. Uh but I like I was able to keep time and you know they they told me I was like, Oh well that's better than the other guy, so Yeah. So we just kept doing that for a while. And I say it on it because I mean no one else was really gonna do it. Um you can find violinists all over the place. Yeah. You know. So I was like, oh well, I I might as well just keep doing this. And we did. And then I guess going into the new year I I was pretty solely on guitar.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

And so this is um now kind of like spring twenty-three.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Probably. I think. I mean so at some point you all started doing gigs, right? Playing restaurants and like that.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We remember I think the first Sync of the Maya we did was on in 2023.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

And by that point you were already fully on the rhythm section.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Yeah, yeah. I've been playing with them throughout the year. Like we played events, and obviously we did you know Casa Grande for a certain amount of time.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

So I get here at uh fall twenty-four. Or spring spring twenty-four is when I popped up randomly because I happened to be visiting. Yes. And it was um Carlos' senior recital. Right. And then I I'm uh Carlos reminded me actually that I I talked to Lucas outside of the that hallway thing before the recital started. And then um you guys played and then I went to watch. Um and in in that, like um what is it called? DRH? Right? The recital hall. Um it's kind of hard to see sometimes when because of the way the lighting and how it's all structured, but there was just something that I was noticing about like your hands. I was like, what is that on his hands? I can't tell. And then so we finished, and I go down there and I look at your hands, and I'm just like, oh my god. That's a thumb pick.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

It was a thumb pick.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

He's using a thumb pick on the viuella. And at this point, you already had a viuella.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

It was not my viuella, it was someone else's. I don't know who the hell it was.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Yeah, well, you're playing on a viwella. He still never got yours. But I saw that, and Michael, in my 10 plus years, right, since I was 14, at by that point, at that time I was 27. So 13 years, right, of within the Mariachi world. Never saw thumb pick on um on a viuela. So you're a pioneer, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

Pioneer of something. Would you care to know the the uh breakdown in my head as to why I got to that point and why you witnessed that that afternoon?

SPEAKER_02 25:00

It I don't want to give the listeners ideas of implement no, go ahead. What why did you do that?

SPEAKER_03 25:07

So the reason I did that was because when I started on guitar, I started playing with my hands. I just like strum with all of my fingers and I'd try to get it somewhat in time, and yeah, it kind of worked, and then my hands started bleeding, and I'm like, Good, maybe I should start using a pick. No, well, a pick on a guitar, which is acceptable, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah, but you would use a big triangle pick so right.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

So I didn't know what the hell that was. Yeah, so I found a random pick and I'm like, okay, well, this is better, and I can get a stronger attack with it, and it hurts less. So I started doing that, and then my hand started cramping up because I was gripping the damn pick so tight because I was trying to play so loud in the restaurants that I was like, dude, I am like my hand's gonna fall off if I keep doing this. You know, like half the battle is holding the pick in the first place. So the next train of thought was I'll get something that just stays on my hand, I don't have to grip it to death. I could just play it with the pick attached to my thumb and I can let my fingers go a little bit more. And for in terms of longevity and playing loud in restaurants, it worked pretty well um to like just be heard and be audible within all the noise. And then after that was I think when uh Carlos brought up like, Oh yeah, I think you were supposed to be playing on a viola this whole time. And then I'm like, Okay, yeah, sure, I'll I'll play you. You give me whatever you want and I'll I'll plan it. I'll try to plan it. So I you know, he I don't remember if this was the one from the instrument library, um, or if it was his. It was at one point where he brought in his own, but I played on both of those for a while, and then I had the thumb pick on, and I just kept playing it on that because it was easier. And then yeah, I kept doing it, and I kept getting and what was really nice is I could tremble really fast because I didn't have to like think about anything. I could just spasm out my muscles and it and it worked, and it it it did the job for a very long time.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Um upslaps though.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

I had no idea what that was. I cannot tell you. I can get the downside was pretty good, I think. Because I I instead of using like my thumb, I'd use like the palm of my hand, I'd go like Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

You would I remember that. Um then when I I came, I said give me that. And then okay, now apply in your like then your hand was all stupid or something.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

It was all bruised up again. I had to go through the I had to go through what I started with back then, which was the whole, you know, well my hand's gonna start bleeding. So I just I mend I mend up.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Supposed to bleed.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

No, it sucks.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Um how did you know to to use uh the strap? The um well, I don't know. In Mariachi Utan, it's called a Viola strap, but it's a classical guitar strap. How did you know to use that or where'd you even get one?

SPEAKER_03 28:08

I got that from Carlos. So again, for like the first probably several months of gigging, I sat on a stool. Yeah. And I'd and I'd sit on that and I'd like you could see the old videos from a long time ago. I think it was like the audition for the Costa Rica thing. I don't know, Carlos mentioned it the other day, so I'm remembering now. Um, but in those videos, you could see me sitting on a stool with my hand. I was playing actually, I wasn't even playing with the pick, I was playing with my I think my index and my thumb, I think. And but yeah, I was sitting, and then eventually when we started doing the gigs, like I just like lobbed it into my arm and I just like death gripped it so that it wouldn't fall down. And I I would be so tired after those gigs. It was awful. But I was making money playing music, which is what I I I like doing. That it's it's nice, and and it wasn't on no classical violin, it wasn't no rock band, the gliss it of all things I was you know boom chuck chucking on for four hours, and I'm like, you know what? I why not? Because I I it was fun because I also was was friends with the the guys, so you know, a lot of you know arguments and yelling all the time, but you know, it was it was still fun because it was all for a common goal, which was being professional musicians, quote unquote to some degree. Well, sorry to answer your question, Carlos gave me the strap. Oh, Carlos gave you the strap? Yeah, he had one, and then I was just like, okay, and it worked. You figured out how to put it on.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

But you do the thing where you put it around your back.

SPEAKER_03 29:50

Well, at first I didn't do that. At first, like I was like, oh my god, this thing's like flopping all over the place. And then after that, I think I stuck my hand through it. Uh huh. And I'm like, oh, this I can like I was it's a little more stable to do the crossbody strap. And then when we auditioned for the Disney cruise, we went to uh uh the Galo's mariachi shop in in Nashville, Tennessee, and it was like, check out this like shiny crossbody strap, and I'm like, oh my god, this is what I've been looking for forever. Yeah, you know, it was awesome. So I that's the one I still have, and I will put on playing Viva.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

You know, the the around the neck or crossbody, that's pretty highly debated. I used to be a crossbody person, and then it it became more of a convenience thing. It's just a lot more convenient to put it around your neck on and off. Because when you have it across your body and you're in a full traque, you have to take off your jacket to take that strap off.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

And it was just very annoying. And also is especially the stringy, the black string one, the real cheap one, that thing would just slide everywhere. And then an another argument people make is so when you have it across the body, it it is more stable, but it does limit your range of motion with the instrument itself.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

I don't know if you've come across that.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Not really, because like every time I'd play like with the I guess the front body, what is it called again?

SPEAKER_02 31:35

The what?

SPEAKER_03 31:35

The front is it front body, or what what do you call the non the top or the top?

SPEAKER_02 31:41

The face? Or what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_03 31:42

Or I'm saying like it's crossbody versus Oh, around your neck? Around the neck, yeah. So for the around the neck ones, that's the one that I've had the mobility issue. Because I'd always tend to bring my left hand forward and like my and tuck my arm back. Uh-huh. So like it would always like start swinging back that way. And I'm like, I don't want to play there. I don't want to play like this. It's you know, ridiculous. So I'd well, at least for me, I felt ridiculous because I'm I guess I'm used to the violin being in this direction. So if I just go like that, my hands in front of me. Um but I would always put on the crossbody strap before I'd even get dressed. That was the first thing I did.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

I was I'd I'd put it on the shirt, nothing, just your underwear and the strap.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

Yep. And then I'd go to the gate. The uh yeah, pants, shirt, and then I'd open up my baby case, I'd put on the strap, then the coat, and then I'd just be ready for the rest of the day. And it was like I'd it was a one-time thing. I don't have to worry about taking it on or off, and or like dangling around the place. Yeah. Because the the I already forgot what it's called, the front body?

SPEAKER_02 32:41

Around the neck.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

Around the neck. I don't know. I can't remember that. But your round-the-neck ones would always get in my way of anything.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

So yeah, they they would. Um but you know, you're supposed to use a finger pick, right? And guitar, you have the guitar and then the strap, and and all this is standard now. Um, you know, listening back, especially now listening to like Carlos and Gabriel's explanation of why y'all did the wild stuff that y'all did to form this group. It's funny because in a way it's like y'all were um inventing it, figuring out how to do it, like how it was in its origins of a hundred plus years ago. Because a hundred plus years ago, there was no fingerpick or like strap like that. Um it was literally like for the guitaran when that started coming around. Whatever, like a piece of rope, right, that you would use or a guitar and you would tie it around the neck there. And now if you see somebody with uh on mariachi and a guitar and you have it around your back and has that thing where you have like the buttons and you clip, and it's like that that is so bad. That's very unprofessional. That's not what you do in Mariachi, you have to do under here. Yeah. Or on the on the sound hole. And then that's just like how it became the standard over time. And what you all were doing was like um figuring out how to do it uh with without any guide or without any reference of like what the standard was. Um because I'm sure probably in the early forms of Maniachi 2, they probably sat. There was no strap. Um there was no guitaron didn't exist back then, or so there's the the harp where um before the guitaron. And probably the violin had very different technique. Uh there was no trumpet at all in in the very beginning. But still, there is a standard now. And then growing up in in it, and then coming here and seeing the the wild mess that y'all did that what y'all were doing was was just very shocking to me.

SPEAKER_03 35:23

And was it shocking to see a German with a guitar run and a Cuban with a finger pick?

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Um yeah. I mean, I had played in Florida before, right, years ago in like Orlando area. So I mean it was used to like some South Americans playing. Um but I mean they were all older. And uh big old German guy playing Guitarron was uh that's funny too. I can't think of any buddy that I played with that was like white German in all the years um playing everywhere. Um there's been a couple guitarron players that have played that that are black. Um but yeah, I mean a majority is gonna be Mexican, and also I mean being from the valley, everybody's like 90 plus percent Mexican. And so yeah, you know, I get here and then what was that like when I came here and I said, y'all are doing this shit wrong? Fix it.

SPEAKER_03 36:37

I tried fixing it. Well, at first I was very reluctant to do so because I was like I just figured out to get into the groove of this way of playing, because I'd been working on just like in my head justifying everything and like okay, I got used to playing it this way. And the other thing is that I'd seen other videos of I had seen videos of people playing Bigwell, and you showed me the videos. And the biggest hoop to jump through, I think, or the biggest pull to swallow in my case, was the idea that you're supposed to do all of your downstrokes with your index and all of your upstrokes with your thumb. And the hardest thing for me was to strum down without getting my thumb in the way, and to strum up without getting all my other fingers in the way. And for someone who's never done that or even heard of that technique to have to, you know, like usually for most guitar players, it's like you have one object that which is the pick, and then you use that same surface to go up and down, which I imagine how it is for the guitar, mariachi guitar too. Um, but you know, to do that with your index and thumb, it was just like I couldn't get around it, and I still struggle with it now.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

It's it's a I don't know, I guess it's kind of yeah, a unique thing because um so even in mariachi guitar, there there's a a debate about that too, on how to use the pick. You're you're gonna have you're gonna find different people in different schools of thought, right? Because you have a pick, and some literally do kind of like this thing where these fingers are kind of fanned out and then the pick is sticking out here, and it's just all pick, everything. Right. Um, majority, almost 100%, except when there's like a something that's like a very specific, has like a sweep in there. And then there's other people that they kind of tilt the pick in and then they relax these fingers, and they use part, just this little tiny bit of grazing of of this part of your hand. Uh, when you go down, and up is still just all pick. Right. But the down, there's like a little bit touch of of the skin, like the flesh, to give it more of a warmer or rounded sound or whatever. It's just different ideas, uh, philosophies for how the it should sound. And it does sound distinctly different if you just use a pick and if you com use a combination on Viwella it's just become universal that a finger pick in that's it. I used to play without a finger pick and just my hands. Just my hands just like that. Uh so some people put acrylic nails. Um I did that too. You did the acrylic nails?

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Well, um on my thumb, because Oh yeah. Well, at least when I first started after you told me, you know, you're doing this wrong, you know, go eat dirt. I was like, okay, alright, fine, I'll I'll I'll learn the right way. So I sp the summer of 24 is when I spent like three months relearning everything, you know. And that's when I started using the acrylic nail on my thumb because my thumbnail would keep breaking. It's like super I don't know. I was always doing something wrong, and I'd always keep clipping the strings on my way down with my thumb, and then it would go and it'd break off, and I'm like, oh crap, I can't play gigs. So I'd slap on an acrylic nail, and then I'd do that, and then that would break too. And then it was just it was a struggle.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

Was it like the real thin ones that you like kind of paste on or glue or whatever? Or like the thick gel type?

SPEAKER_03 40:30

I think it was one of the thicker gel ones. I don't know. I just got whatever was at uh you know CVS and I'd you know look down in shame as I'm checking out.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Um that's not seven. You you know, there was a guy in um in Austin, he doesn't really play anymore. Um, but his one of his rituals every week was to um or Saturday morning go early to Nelson and get his nails done, but only on his right hand.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

And that's that then he would play. I don't think he he he would use a finger pick sometimes. I don't know, I don't know if but um I've been to Nelson before. And it's always an interesting conversation, right? Because especially when you go with like the Asian ladies that don't speak a lot of English, and then you're trying to explain to them that you want the acrylic like gel, but just on like just like on two fingers. Yeah. And then they're just like, but why? And then they don't know what to charge to, and it's just like, oh my god, just give me the freaking nails. Uh so yeah, I I only did that one time, and it was an emergency situation because we had a concert at Texas State and my thumb nail broke. So the it broke the week of the concert, so I went and got an acrylic nail. Which to this day, and that was in 2000. Oh man, I got it, I think like 2017. So nine years ago. I think it was like spring 2017. To this day, if you like you can kind of see, but I can feel it. It's like like a ridge.

unknown 42:23

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

That happened from that. Like my nail kind of deformed when I was taking off the acrylic, it kind of like broke my nail bed, and it was just like waved and like weak for months, I don't know, maybe a year, till finally it was like it got some strength back. But it kind of like deformed my nail basically to this day, and this is nine years later. Uh so I never did it again after that. Because the thing is too, is when you do that, you kind of always have to do that. Or else, um, I don't know, your nails it takes time for your nails to get strong. I would do this whole ritual thing where I would like take pills, um, I would buff my nails, I'd clean them up. It would take me like hours to just do my red hand and look perfect. I also did classical guitar in high school, which is why I already had like nail care like thoughts and stuff and how I would do it. And it kind of translated to mariachi. But in classical guitar, you're you're kind of supposed to angle your nails a certain way, on depending on how your hand falls. In mariachi, that's not as important. The angle of your nails. But so yeah, then I came here fall twenty four. Um I would come a little bit in in the summer too, or like randomly because I was looking for a place to live and stuff. Um and then so At the same time, um, Danny came 'cause we started the same semester. What was it like when we came in? And you y'all y'all had already kind of set your your songs and your arrangements and the way you play with each other for like the last year, last year and a half, or two years.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

More like two.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

Um well yeah, so we were talking about fall twenty-four. Um and then I come in, or we come in, and it's just like you guys gotta change everything you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

I was on like well, I mean, I don't even think we really changed much until the fall of twenty-five, because we kept doing the same arrangements for or not arrangements, but we kept doing things the same way we were doing before. The only difference is that I was playing with a slightly less wrong technique. Um still probably wrong, but you know, I guess we just kept going the way we were doing it, and then you know, you were you sang more stuff, playing guitar, and Lucas was still playing bass. Um and I don't know, at least on my end, nothing was really different for that whole time other than like, oh, we're learning more songs, and I'm like, oh crap, I have to learn more songs. So I was just trying to like memorize more stuff, I guess. And then I think Lucas like I guess left in the fall of twenty or in the spring of twenty five. Like his last gig was like the Mother's Day of then. Obviously, he's come back a few times, but like yeah, that was the the point where he broke off, and it was like I think that was when it kind of just like shifted to what it is more like now, because when we came in the fall of 25, that's when Danny and Joseph were like uh established in the group, I guess. So yeah, you know, I still played V well a little bit, but it was like you know, I had no idea what I was doing because you guys had just seen and you were playing bass by then. Yes. So the amount of rip that you and Danny knew, like I could not keep up at all. Um and it was at that point where I was like, I don't know anything, you know. So like I it it got to the point where everything that I did know was nullified because the rhythm section was different, and because you guys knew all these songs, and it's you know, I personally think we could have kept going with the same product that we have and we learn more songs, whatever, but it would not be the same product as if you were it in my head, it's not the same group, you know. That's something that I also have noticed a lot in the way like all you guys talk about Mariachi. It's like the group doesn't really depend on who's in the group, it's just whether the group gigs, you know, and you'll have people call in and out, and you know, you'll have subs and all that, but it's not like a it's not a band, you know, it's not like a group of musicians, which I'm used to in every other I guess, form. You know, obviously orchestras you have people coming in and out, and but even chamber groups, it's like this isn't really the same chamber group if you're like switching out members, you know. If you're in a band, if you switch out members, it's not the same creative vision. So like that is also another thing that I was kind of not used to up until that point. Um where it's like, oh, let's just change it, but it's the same group. So in my head, it's not really the same group because Lucas and I aren't playing uh Armonia because we don't have the same repertoire that you know you and Daniel do. Yeah. You know, and then so for me it got to the point where it's like, I dude, I like you guys have this database of songs in your head that you've been listening to since you came out of the womb, you know, and here I am you know reading sheet music for you know three chord songs, you know. I I got I think I got okay at you know following the bass at some point. Um I was I could I could like kind of keep up, but I th I think when Joseph got there, it was kind of like the point where I was like, okay, wait, I can play violin because there's music. That was always a common denominator, was if there was music. I couldn't keep up with you guys because you were playing everything by memory on rhythm. But with Joseph, he had this also instead of having the database of knowledge in his head, it was like actually written down. So um that was when I switched over to violin or back to violin as to when I first started. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

All the way from spring twenty one.

SPEAKER_03 48:55

Pretty much, or twenty two. Spring twenty two. No, twenty one, yeah. Wait, no, twenty two.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Yeah, spring twenty-two. Yeah. Um, so so it's like you were um uh filling in the the Armonia section until somebody else got there, and then you're like, all right, let me go back.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

Honestly, yeah, because that was the whole reason I started playing Arbania was because no one else was gonna do it and no one else really knew how to do it. I didn't know how to do it. Yeah. So but that was the closest thing they were gonna get for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

So put the the Cuban guy that plays in a rock band on guitar.

SPEAKER_03 49:36

That's some rhythm, jeez.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

It it it is an interesting thing to look at it that way. So in mariachi, in gigging mariachi. Um the last when I talked to Gabriel and talked to Carlos, talked extensively on my belief of how a gigging mariachi and a and a show piece mariachi or school mariachi are two different things. Right. Um and I still believe that when in its current form. Now, should they more coincide and being able to somebody that gigs can play on stage and somebody's stage play on gigs? Yeah, but there's a lot of reasons why it's not like that right now. But in in the gigging sense, um like the first group that I played with in Austin that I was officially part of was Mariachi Amor. And when I joined, it was so we go by like saying generations. So it was like technically like the second generation of that group. Right. Um, and now that group uh I need to go back and look at all the pictures, but uh and I I talk about this with the the owner of that group so sometimes, and I think her so like this is like this you could argue it's like the sixth generation of that group. Uh because the people that are currently in the group right now, some of them were like in middle school, yeah, elementary or whatever, when I was there, right? Because this is uh 11 years ago. And if somebody is uh 18 or 19 in that group, they were just a small little kid. Um, but it's still Mariachi Amor. The repertoire changed, um the some of the arrangements might have changed, the keys, and and it actually there are big differences. So when I've gone to go back and play with them a couple times, and um like a year ago, I went and we played at a restaurant, and then so I called out songs that were just like a staple, right? That that were like, okay, we're Mariachimoda, we're known to do this song. I was like, okay, let's play, let's play the song. I don't know, like one thanametta or something. And and the new generation of the players didn't know it. And it's just something that just didn't do, it got like lost over time. And I think practice a very similar thing happened here. There's things that we don't do to today, and then that we could probably couldn't even do like um the one that's probably the the most common would be like I'm Orif mi familia or something. Uh if we were to do that, I don't know how to play it. Danny doesn't really know how to play it. Um we don't do it. But you guys could just if the four of you come back together, you'll be able to just play it like instantly.

unknown 52:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:57

I don't even remember what'd you say this fog was?

SPEAKER_02 52:59

The the Disney one that y'all learned.

SPEAKER_03 53:01

Oh, the Yeah, the World is Me Familia. Yeah, the World is Me Familia. I'm ashamed. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

The world is me familiar. Um Familia. Yeah, so like D'O could probably play that now, right now. I I don't play it. Right.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

And it's that's another great one.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

Cynthia, yeah. Y'all do it in the key of D, where I've always played in Q of C, and I'll just a completely different arrangement.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 53:36

Um it it evolved. I don't know you we have different generations. Um just like one Mariachi Vargas. What are what are they like the I don't remember what generation it is now, ninth, I think. Because they they're from 1890. I should know this by heart, right? I don't know, 1899, I think, around there. Um there's still Marichi Vari Takali Lan. But you don't have 150-year-old members in the group. And I don't I don't know, I guess maybe I never really thought of it that way, but yeah, maybe that is kind of a unique thing too with with Mariochi. Um because I mean rock bands. You you do have people change and they keep their name, but I think like that's what like a majority is the same. Is there any like big rock band that's changed their members so much, but they're still called the same?

SPEAKER_03 54:40

Uh well, I mean, the ones that like I I went to see the Beach Boys last year. Yeah. It was like two of the Beach Boys, and all of the new members were these like prodigy, you know, hired musicians to play with them. But like at that point, it's not really the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson's not there, he's dead, you know. So is it really the Beach Boys or is it like a glorified Beach Boys cover band? You know, the same thing with uh Yes is another band, a five-piece band. They broke off into different bands. Some of them played with each other, but they would all play the same music that they recorded in you know the early 70s. But they wouldn't really call themselves that, but some of them did. Some of them had the right to the name Yes, but it's like which one is the real yes? Because there's they're still around. It it's just confusing. But I I think kind of like the only comparison I could draw that to is like orchestras, you know, the London Philharmonic is, you know, not Berlin. I don't even know, I don't even know the names of orchestras, but like these orchestras, they do not have members that were there 200 years ago. You know, and they're probably not playing the same rep that they were back then, but they're still called that. It it's but I think that also lends itself to the idea of trying to keep a traditional life. Which I think is what from what I've gathered over knowing you and like everyone that has been involved in Mariachi, is like it's mostly for the preservation of that cultural tradition, if if that is a reasonable observation to make.

SPEAKER_02 56:35

And I don't know, people call could call me hypocritical for the fact of some things or some stuff that's happened at at gigs um where I wouldn't uh represent that and say it's showing the respect to Mariachi. But the thing is to me it's it's different. I define um a gigging mariachi and a a showpiece mariachi as two separate ensembles entirely. Like um it was one question this morning that that um Gabriel asked me um that we didn't talk about in the podcast. He's like, you know what, you you we should have talked about if uh if people that are in the school group are would be considered mariachis. And I looked at him and I was like, yeah, they would say why wouldn't they? They're in a mariachi. This is a different kind of mariachi, it's not a gigging mariachi, but they are. Um so it it it just depends, I guess, your definition of mariachi. Now there are people that carry the same standard from a showpiece uh stage performance to gigging in a backyard. Right. And you know, I don't know, I I had that kind of discipline and dedication at some point, and it just kind of uh went away over time for I don't know, a variety of reasons, but I was also never fully committed to music because I mean, even now, I'm doing a PhD in engineering. I I never majored in music, yeah. I minored in it and I've always played it. My family's always played it. Um but I treat them differently because the goals of the groups are not the same. The the goal of of Mariachi Tamahassi and FSU Mariachi are not the same. Um the the goal of of any gigging mariachi, right, and mariachi amor over there, um all the mariachi's in Mexico, uh Mariachi's everywhere outside of um a school. They have the same goal. It's it's the same and it's to make money. Which is the goal of pretty much any business, unless you're like a nonprofit. And and it's funny, it's like, well, it's like, no, well, we're um the goal of our company is to provide customers with the satisfaction and further no, like you're you're making money. You that that is a consequence of your product that you're paid for to do. And you wouldn't do that without getting paid. Most people, Mariachi, the gig, would not do it, would not spend six, eight hours a day traveling, performing, playing in these backyards, dealing with clients, if they weren't getting paid. And and I think that's something people struggle to admit because they're like, well, no, it's like the love of the music and the culture and tradition. And I'm like, but then why are you getting paid? Why don't you do it for free? If that is your purpose, if that's your goal. And it's like, well, well, because I need to get paid. I'm like, well, yeah. Then there's there's a factor in it that is monetary. If you weren't getting paid, um you wouldn't do it. You would find something else to get paid. And it's because you need to. We need to have money to live in this capitalistic world. A school group does the point is not to make money because you don't get paid. So to me, in in a showpiece group, in in the school, the university, the high schools, um, competitions, is when you can fully um showcase that like tradition and culture and like love you have for the music and the genre purely for the love of doing it. Um if it's a competition, I mean it's probably to to win, right? And it's money. But uh like in the school group, we would we would put on a concert every single semester. We didn't get paid for that concert. We just did it in some and we had to pay to be in the class. Um it's just how it how it works, but yet we'll still do it. And that concept to people that grew up playing Mariachi just gigging, so somebody like Danny or Joseph, that that's like um stupid or unheard of. Like, wow, like why would you spend six months um rehearsing and uh putting a show together and then not get paid for it? Because like, well it's mariachi, of course you're gonna get paid because they've been getting paid to to play since they were teenagers. Uh and then to me that's like, okay, well, then you're only doing it because you get paid? Like, why would you not want to do it to showcase Mexican music and culture? And I'm like, well, do you get paid to play orchestra concerts? How many times do you get paid to play at the with the USO or UPO at Florida State?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:53

Zero dollars. Zero. I mean nothing. Okay, it's I did it. I mean, you had to do it for credit to graduate and stuff. You're also learning stuff too. I mean, like I the it is that is also transactional because it's not like you're getting nothing out of it. You're getting you're getting paid with experience. You know, it to some degree because you're learning to work with other musicians who are also there to learn how to work with other musicians, and then the conductor is giving that whole group of people, you know, lifelong information about how to work with other people, which is what they're there for. You know, but they they put the concert at the end of the show because they care and they want to be able to do it in the future so that they can get paid.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:39

Yes. To do that. Now, well, so in Mariachi, we we would I mean there was there was some benefit to transactional benefit being in the Tex Day Mariachi. Just being in the Tech State Mariachi or UTRGV gives you a certain amount of clout to where you will just get invited to gigs, right? Are invited to groups or put in positions where people not in these groups wouldn't get, or they had to kind of work their way up into it from gigging and just kind of like knowing people do it, going through that route, as opposed to you know just being a part of this group, having never gigged before, or being part of now a university ensemble that is like highly looked at and respected and be like, okay, well when you're in that, you know that the people know that you can play your instrument very well. They don't know how well you you can gig or what your repertoire is like, but they're willing to take a chance, at least the first time, to be like, okay, well, this kid can play. We'll see how much he knows or how he can handle himself in a in a gigging situation. And when you're doing, when we're preparing for the shows and stuff, some of that does transfer to gigging. Um like the stage presence, um, some of the songs do transfer of but the changing keys, that's not something that we would practice. Um playing with no sheet music is not something that we would normally do. When you get to university level, is there's a certain level that you're expected to come into. So, like day one of rehearsals and at Tech State, Mariachi, right, a freshman. I was like, okay, we went over the syllabus 15 minutes, whatever. Okay, everybody get it? Let's play la negative. One, two, three, go. Everybody starts playing. And just quickly the violins be like, okay, you play second, or you're gonna third, and I'm gonna be first. And then trumpets do the stuff, and then that's like, okay, we're gonna do this, Monica, hear it. And then uh ten seconds later, okay, everybody's got it. Let's go play. Nobody's gonna be taking out the sheet music, nobody's gonna be um following her, nobody's gonna be like, oh well, I don't I only play first or buy the second. Like that that's something that's just kind of expected to to know. And so like El Rey, Relampago. We never really had sheet music for that. Those are just songs that you should like kind of know because they're like basic um standards in Mariachi. And to to have like uh an idea of that the the culture and the and the tradition should be continued. Uh I always feel it like it gets tainted a little bit with with all the the money. Which so basic ultimately that's why I played in the school groups for as long as I did in high school. And even Texas State, even though I I never majored in music, I didn't have to be a part of any of those ensembles. Um well for a little bit, because I did minor in music, so I did need ensemble credits, but I earned those pretty fast. At a certain point, I didn't have to anymore. Um my final semester of undergrad, um, I remember I reached out to the Maniachi director or one of them, and I was like, hey, I want to go, I want to be, I want to go join the Mariachi again in Tuck State. And then he calls me. He calls me on the phone. I hadn't talked to him in a while, and he was like, Are you serious? Are you gonna come back? I was like, Yeah, but I only want to be in the second group and I want to play viola. Like the way that was my like request. And I mean, I could say that and do that too, because I was already older and I had been through the program for years. Right. I wasn't gonna make that request at an 18-year-old coming into the program, uh, knowing nobody. Uh but yeah, then I joined uh and I did a concert and we rehearsed I don't know how long. Um I was living in Austin, sounded drive to San Marco's back and forth multiple times a week. We recorded a virtual concert because this was spring 21, and so we didn't have a live audience. We ended up having some live performances, but um I did that, and that took away so much time from one, from filming, from doing the podcast, from taking gigs, uh, from doing other stuff. And it was because I wanted to do that again. I want to do it basically one last time, because I didn't know if I was ever gonna be able to play on stage uh at the university or the school group, um for just for fun. Because I knew I'd continue gigging and I'll keep doing it, and it's great, and you know, you you have the interactions with the clients. Uh but uh at the end of it, and just like anything else, it's it's a job. You get paid to do it, you get uh paid to perform at your job, whatever your task is, and then that's it. So yeah, sometimes I I wouldn't I would have a beard, right, and gigging. I wouldn't do that on stage in a school group. I would never sit down during a concert. But again, and in the school setting, we're not gigging for, we're not playing for eight hours or five hours, six hours. We have Macs at two-hour concert, and that's with like breaks in between and like changes and other groups coming on and off. So to me, they're completely different ensembles. They they require different things. Uh I mean, sometimes clients get upset at you if you don't take their drinks or their food because they look at it as an insult.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:25

We're not gonna be drinking on stage at a school, right? We're not gonna be shouting, taking requests, or like interacting with a crowd, or like pulling somebody and stuff like that, right? And so it's just come to two completely different goals, two different ensembles like that to me. But there there still is like a I don't know, I guess a minimum standard that you have in gigging. And and it it's not uh to me, at least, I don't know, what would how Danny and Joseph look at it, but it's it's not a um tradition thing uh more with the music, it it's more of the standard of how Mariachis have now done these songs or arrangements or how to act with a client or at a gig um everywhere universally, and it was more of bringing that to you guys, to you, Lucas, Carlos, right, and Gabriel. Um, because we we could have kept doing your arrangements, and I did just like basically conform to the four of you because it was just one of me, and to have all four of you change your arrangements and and stuff like that, it would have been a lot. And you already had your clients, you already had the way that you were doing the gigs. But and I and I talked about this with Gabriel and Carlos, um it put you guys in a situation where you lived in this bubble where you perfected your craft in here. But as soon as you leave, you you cannot play with these other groups because you're doing an arrangement of scinty that nobody else does. You're you're playing La Le Monte in me and can't transpose. And then you're you're you're just um the way you handle talon, the way you you don't know how to cut songs when you're in a talon setting, like all those things are just the standard that if you want to then now go to Atlanta, right in Texas or Tampa or anywhere, you can just go do that. Like I've gone to go play in Tampa a bunch of times. Not that different from playing in Austin, playing in San Antonio, playing in the valley, playing in Atlanta, playing in Dallas. It's very minor things that are different. Um the thing with you guys is that it was major things that were different, and on top of them being different, is you guys did not know the standards of not just arrangements, but just of how things are done. So I don't I've played with plenty of groups that have their own arrangements, like filled in for bigger groups that are already well rehearsed, but for some reason be well a player, get the wrong player, can't make it. And it's a big deal when if you have a rehearsed um show or group or something, your rhythm players out and sub in. I come in, I don't know those arrangements. They know I don't know those arrangements. So instead of like um forcing me to conform to their whole all their arrangements or their songs, or be like, okay, here's uh sheet music, or like here, uh pull out your phone and just read and follow along. No, they'll just play the standard arrangement that everybody knows. So they know their their nice, fun um quizas arrangements or um scene th arrangements, but they also know the standards for situations when you don't have the people that are always with you and you gotta bring in somebody else. Instead of being like, oh, now we can't do that song because oh well, this guy's here, and then when we can't do it, why don't you as an ensemble know multiple arrangements to be able to accommodate for situations like that? And that's just kind of another level. But and also you guys never really thought that would ever happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:59

Yeah, that that's also a very big point, is that like I think at least I understood that this group, or at least the way it was, only worked when it was us four. And because we basically lived, or I guess the three of them lived together, and I would be there practically every day practicing, going over arrangements and just like trying to get things perfectly so that we could perform them. But like the whole notion of uh you know, having like standards and having people come in from out of town and like you know, playing with us, it's like the it was one that wasn't like something known to us or at least to me, but also it was like why would we do that? We already have four people and we can charge this amount, and if we bring in more people, then it's less money for us. At least how I saw it. I don't know how everyone else saw it, but it's like why would we put ourselves through that so that someone else can come and play with us? It's like you know, it purely from a selfish point, but you know, that I also understand that like I if I were I knew for a very long time that I would never be able to play very well in another group. That's my I know I'm I can rest easy knowing that, you know, but now I can't even play it in this group, which sucks, you know, but you know, I play something else in the group, but even then I probably would still have a lot of trouble playing any in any other group violin unless I have the music because again, I don't know what the standards are. There's no like list of standard songs that I can look up and be like, all right, I'm gonna learn all these songs. Or maybe there is, but I don't know what it is. You know, I don't know where these there's no like center for resources for this kind of thing either, unless again, there is, and I'm not aware of it, but it's like there is.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:59

Well, there's people's opinions on it. So everybody's gonna have their own list.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:06

It's not a written thing, it's not like a it's not tangible, it's very opinionated. It's all like, well, I think it should be this way, so it's this way if you're in my group, but if it's a different group, it's like, well, I see it this way, so it's like it's very I don't know. I might be getting a little opinionated here, but it does seem very like hypocritical because everyone thinks that they're right about everything, and then if you try to play with each other, it's just like ah well, you know, learn how to do it my way. Because at the end of the day, you could have that standard, but even that standard between groups is not the same. Because you saw when Gabriel came and played with what with us, uh huh, all the adornos that I learned from Joseph, who plays in the same city that Gabriel is playing now, even between those two groups, those adornos are not the same. You know? Yeah. So it's like, where is the standard? Is it really there? Or is it like this idea? Again, I don't know how it is in Texas because it's just a different area in general.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:06

But no, I would say that there is no universal standard. That that's true. In I don't know, I I maybe this well, I mean it is hypocritical and and it is kind of difficult to understand without having gone through it for years and years like like I did or like many people have. But it's like when we say standards, it it's like standard songs, but also standard um parts of the song. Okay. Which it is so the way I can explain it is like, let's say, so we do mananitas. Yeah. Right? But we start it, we do the whole dancing, which I don't like, but that's a whole other thing. But we do and then, and then it goes then, and then it goes um, and then happy birthday to right. That was my fault. Do the whole thing. Um if we're in the valley, majority of groups um would not do the the first and the slow intro. Majority won't do that. And then the happy birthday part, um you wouldn't do um the so the way it would be is you know that that very last verse, like very last verse, which going has me ne see float us, and they're going has me ne see floatis, yeah. They go into the two four there at the last part, and then um go on to happy birthday.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:17

You come to Austin, nobody does that. They're gonna do um the same, just the three, four conhas, then floris, and then uh, and then ends, and then um uh I forget how many it does ends, but and then um happy birthday to you, but there's not like not really any break, and there's no ba ba ba ba ba ba. It's just happy birth, it's just straight into it. Um so when we say, at least when I say cajon, it's not so much like okay, well you're doing this alorno, but they're not doing this alon. But this other group is doing this a lot or no. It's it's more of knowing the fact that, hey, we're gonna do manunitas, and then we're gonna go to happy birthday. However, that happens is gonna be up to interpretation of however the group does it. Um it's like, so we did manunitas, we did a happy birthday. Okay, right away, um entudia. Um, go into entudia, and then we would do um felicidad, so it's uh and then stop, okay, um, interact with the client, um, probably go straight into her if it's a birthday, the situation calls for it, and then kind of the gig will kind of flow from what whatever else is the the way it works, uh the way what the clients want. Um and it it's at least what from how I look at it, or what I see it, it's more of that. It's uh understanding knowing the flow of how the gig is gonna go. And the songs, even though the arrangements, the adornos are gonna be different no matter where you go, it's the fact that you know you're gonna do maniritas into birthday, into entodia, into probably some cumbia, the hermoso carinho, and then we're gonna just kind of go with the client and then end it with some cumbia pupurri, it's gonna have like four or five different cumbias. So at least to me, that's more what I mean understanding how a gig is supposed to go, or the standard on how a gig would go.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:47

I see.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:48

You guys didn't have that. You you guys just kind of like came in or said, Okay, maninitas. All right. And I was just like, what what do you mean? Keep going. Okay. Yeah. If they see the two, four, then they're happy birthday, and people start kind of getting into it. Go straight into entodia and keep dancing. And it it's more of a it's kind of more of a logistical thing, right? When you when you look at it enough of trying how to manage the gig.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:18

Yeah, I always thought it was more like a I mean, I see people get really riled up about Adornos and all those things, and like, you know, because I I always thought it was that. I didn't realize that it was you were talking more about like the uh yeah, I guess the logistical, like the flow of you know, setting up the scene, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:38

If put it in words.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:40

Yeah, and I mean there are so also the songs themselves. I want to talk about a standard in the songs. So Hema. Hema is 99% of people are gonna do the Javier Solist arrangement. Um, but up a step, because Javier Solist does an F or E. So whether it's mostly done in G. Um I think it does F sharp. I don't know, it's a weird key. And it starts pretty much the same. And uh the chord progression is pretty much it's gonna be the same, right? You do you do your scale, um, G, F, V, flat, D, then modulate to the major. The fills, the adornos that are happening. Um you know, I'm maybe being a little biased too because coming from an armonia or singing it perspective. I don't care. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:52

I didn't care either until I started playing violin.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:55

It's like it it's like the the structure of the song is that's how it's supposed to be, right? You have the main intro is still gonna be the main intro, and then the chord progression is the same. But what we mean when like do the cajon arrangement is more of that, at least to me. It's more the chord structure. There's a cajon, there's a basic chord structure that has to follow. So really it kind of falls more on the harmonia. Right. Um, because now if you're gonna be like, okay, we're gonna do um Sinose. Um but the the Luis Miguel uh chords that changes um a bit compared to José Alfredo. So the Cajon understanding would be the José Alfredo arrangement. And you would just do the chord, the chords would follow that, the chord structure is based off of that. Um and I I think I guess it's kind of more of a bigger deal in like the boleros.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:08

In rancheras. Um if you have uh volver, if you take volver where it starts uh how does the the violin intro go over? A lot of people don't do that. Okay from my experience of playing all over and there's reasons for it. Similarly with um Amor Eterno The key change we only do it when we're uh getting paid by the hour.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:52

That makes sense, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:54

Because why would we spend 10 minutes on a song at a restaurant that they you don't know what they're gonna tip because we don't charge per song, we just get tick tips. They could give a dollar, they could give zero dollars, they can give twenty. That extra thirty seconds or whatever it adds up. I know it adds up, and also it's not gonna affect how much they're gonna pay give you.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:21

It's not that well that's the thing. We figured that out at one point. I guess we kind of stopped doing that, but when we were like going hard owning, at least in Destin, those summer, that summer, like kind of had the method down to like let's you know play slung slightly faster and you know cut out parts of it that we didn't have to do, you know. And we I think we were like all in that mindset, and then I don't know what happened. I think we got more like restaurant gigs and we were like, ah, whatever, we'll just play the whole thing. Or like, you know, chemmas and it was like that was. Didn't thought on as much, and I think that whole notion of adjusting the songs for that kind of went out the window. You know, I haven't I haven't noticed us change any length of song in the last like two years, I think, or year at least. It's always been the same.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:20

Yeah. And it's also something you have to know how to do properly. Because I remember I talked to Carlos about that. I was like, why are you guys, especially when we're taloni, and strictly taloning, we're not getting planta pay, like you guys want to go out talon? Why are you playing the entire song? And he's like, Well, it's because we got called out one time and and the client said, Oh, you didn't play the entire song. And I was like, Well, what did you do? And he said, So we we played it, and then instead of going back to the second verse, we went to the bridge. And I want to hit him. I was like, no, you don't I was like, you don't cut out words, you cut out the music. Right. And I think part of that, like not wanting to do that or not seeing that is because of Carlos's mind thinks of so much like the music and the harmonies and the chords and like the violins, and it's like, oh, you gotta build up and like the client does not care about that key change.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:13

Well, I've talked to him about that too. It's like clients, or at least the the Mexican clients or the Spanish-speaking clients in general, or like they don't give a crap about what the hell the violinist is doing or in the intro, or like the fills that all they want to hear are the words, you know. That's something I I'm not used to because I I'm the opposite. I usually don't listen to the words. I'm trying to hear what the musicians are doing. So but like understanding, I guess, the target demographic in terms of like who or what people are listening for in that regard, you know, is important.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:52

Yeah, and I mean you're never gonna know because you could be playing for somebody that plays Mariachi and they will know. But also, if they're also not dicks about it, they know they do the same thing. Yeah. They're they're not gonna call you out for it, especially if you're just like the loaning. Uh, but cutting the intro to El Rey, um, that is kind of also skill and a standard, you should know. So you do like instead of doing the whole thing, you basically cut out like six measures or something, and you just go straight into trying to get to the voice as quick as possible. Right. And I guarantee you the client's not gonna come back and say, hey, I was counting, and there are six bars that we're missing from that intro. So give me a mind.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:47

So, and and then that's another kind of standard of go hunting, too. It's like if we're in a situation where we're we're also we're gigging, and we have to get to the next gig, and we're already behind, say we got there late, or the client, you know how sometimes clients get and they're like, I'll play another one, and play all this stuff. Um and sometimes we're like, no, we gotta go, but sometimes fine, we'll do it. You you go into thalon mode, and then you're like, okay, we're gonna do it, but we've got to cut it. And then so the the universal signal is is to do is to do this. So well, this is just like the thumb. Okay. Which also can mean B flat depending on where you're from, like if you're calling out a key. So the key thing too is a thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:34

Half the people are gonna cut the song off and half of them are gonna change it to modulate to b flat.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:39

Yeah. Um, or you'll just say si vemol. Yeah. All right, so then we're gonna do a C V Mol, which if we were if we're doing like La Negada and you say C Vemol, you should know do not play La Negada and B flat. But if you bring a classical violinist and they're like, okay, B flat, and he's like, Okay, it starts playing it on B flat. Whatever. Um, you have to know like how to kind of handle in that situation too, because so if we're doing her, cut the intro, um, do the words, do the whole thing the first time, we come back to it, and then we go into you know how so we normally go her, hermoso carinho, uh, um, instead of doing that, um, if we're like, hey, Stephen More be like, okay, Hermoso Carinho, que Dios ha mandado, you skip that second hermoso carinho. Now that the rhythm section has to follow you because the chord changes. Um, but you would know, like, hey, we're we're in talon mode, we gotta get to the next one. We're gonna we're gonna do it. And uh it's just something you just kind of learn. It's like you you're in in this situation so many times that none of this is written down.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:06

Or rehearsed.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:08

Yeah, or rehearsed. You we don't you don't sit down and be like, okay, let's rehearse our our talon intros and outros. Right um I don't and I don't know why, but it's just also because it's not easy. Yeah, it's not, and also if you don't know the intros and outros, um, what what are you gonna do? And you end up doing stuff like what y'all did or called it and cutting out verses instead of cutting down the music. And that that's a huge difference. Um, clients aren't gonna notice you cutting out the intro as much as you cutting out an entire verse that could be their favorite verse of the whole damn song.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:52

So all that kind of just leads into the the like the cajon that that I mean. The the standard, the standards be like, okay, well, we're gonna play a contranos, um daloning, okay. Uh so and and so with the the key signatures, you already learned all the hand signals. Yeah, you know all the hand signals.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:18

I should.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:20

And then that changes within so like I said, I played all over the US, at least Southeast and and Texas and all that. Um they vary slightly. So majority is gonna be the same where like this is dol, right? Yeah, there's c and then re and then mi and fa and sol. A la it depends where you're at.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:46

So this is la or this is la. And l or la. Um and then B, um I see B is so rare, right, to do in Mariachi that there's not really a site, but I technically there is, and some people will do this. Um then but so this gets confusing if you're from an area that to to you this is a um la. Right. But this could also be C, depending on what area you're from. Because they do la like this. So then C is this. And then B flat is that. You're subtle. So B flat. Um and then the minor keys is funny, you know how they do the minors. Oh my god. They just turn their hand down. Um in some areas, in some areas they don't. They just like we're gonna do um como quien pido nuestra, but okay, well, just say la. And it's expected the song's an A minor. You should know it's an A minor. Don't play A major. Like, yeah. And I don't know, if you um that's like going to gigs, it's like a uh different level, different expectation, all those subtleties that separate a like competent gigging musician are all those things I tell you, you will never ever learn in the school.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:37

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:38

Because why the hell do you have to know how to do uh how to cut amoreterno to save time to make money when you have two hours on stage for a show that you've been preparing for three months? You get on on in a gig, and there's plenty of people that that don't make it, that played in the school for six years plus whatever, how many, and all state, all region, or whatever, amazing at their voice or the instrument. They get to a gig, and then uh somebody just calls out like um uh you know, you just say, like, okay, we're gonna do this, and then you just go. And then the person's just like what and I just called out the entire song, the key, and who's gonna sing it? And then we didn't say anything. Like, you don't have to. That's not something that you ever come across. Some people just can't just can't do it. Or they they don't want to take time to learn, or that's just not what they expected to coming into a gig. And you all did your you did did your thing, because you combined the gigging and the school group, and it it all kind of happened together. So you would take sheet music or iPads to gigs, and then you would treat school performances like a backyard gig. In terms of like preparation or like getting the song or what songs we're gonna do, like, oh, we will we know the song, or just pull the song out real quick. And that's something that you would do at a gig. If let's say they call out a song and you don't know it, and be like, okay, well, quickly just look up the lyrics and be like, okay, we're gonna do it. Um, just to satisfy the the client. But you all would still kind of do that in the school group because you wouldn't have the music memorized, uh, you wouldn't have proper um like layout of the group, any staging or none of that. It still was very much treated like you're at a restaurant. And I was just like, man, you guys don't understand that they're they're they're different. Now, should they be different or should they be more connected? Uh maybe, but that's not what how things are structured right now. And the way that y'all kind of went about it in my opinion didn't really satisfy either side. Probably not. It worked, you guys made money, the school was like, oh look, the Mayachi were culturally inclusive or whatever. You know, FSU's trying so hard to be an HSI because they're they're 24% Hispanic right now, and you need to be like 25% Hispanic, more funding and all this stuff. Um and yeah, you guys would go to Destiny or make money, be like, oh look, you're giving us food and drinks. And it worked. Yes, it did. And it probably still would have worked if me and Daniel and Joseph and all this stuff never came and y'all continued it. Um but I think you guys would have been even a bigger shock. More Carlos and Gabriel. They decided to go to Texas and Carl and Gabriel went to Tampa, which he still did go through that shock, but at least I feel like he was a little bit more prepared. Definitely having like a year with me and Daniel here. Um and then Carlos too, he takes his time learning the songs, being able to transpose. But until you're out in the field, until you're going through it being hazed by a 60-year-old Mexican guy that um thinks that you're shit, which you probably are, uh you don't know what's like.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:49

I I can live without that. I I actually would rather just do it here and then have that memory be untainted and never have to think about it again, unfortunately. Because I I understand that that is the case if I do leave, and I I would rather have no animosity towards the culture, I guess. It does sadden me, because it's like very frustrating to think that people are so critical, you know, and very just hardened in their like this has to be this way. I'm not gonna tell you, just gotta figure it out. It's like you guys are douchebags, you guys are all like a bunch of assholes. I mean, you know, I'm speaking freely here, but it's kind of the picture that has been painted for me for outside of it, which maybe deters me from wanting to do it outside of you know, here.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:42

So it's like I I think some groups or kids have like formed um basically all student groups that like are young, sometimes some of them in high school um or recently graduate high school, and they like only play people with people within like an age range to kind of protect that situation from occurring, which is great and nice, but I feel personally, I mean I don't know long-term effects of it, but they're just kind of extending their school group.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:16

Because ultimately, eventually somebody from there or all of you are gonna break out and leave. There's no way you you guys are gonna stay as a group together statistically, maybe, but probably not, especially being 18, 19, some of you're gonna go different part of the country, or some so many things, some of you are gonna never play Mariachi again after a year or two. And eventually you're still gonna end up in that situation of being um hazed by a 16-year-old Mexican man in Mariachi. But now you're um 20, 21, instead of happening when you're 18. Um, maybe you're more mature and it helps that way better. Or maybe it's the opposite, and now, okay, well, I'm 21 already and I still don't know shit. And now I'm even further behind because I spent the last three years playing with my friends, and we just played the songs that we liked and that we knew. So now I'm three years behind somebody else that decided to go and play with um, you know, a much older crowd. And then they quit. I don't I don't know the long-term effects of doing that.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:29

Um at what point is it less or more enriching? Is it more enriching to be in that group with your friends and make the music that you want to do and then do that and then let it run its course and then never do it again? Or do you jump right into it sucking and then maybe it doesn't suck later, but you're still gonna have that hardened mindset of like you know, you have to go through it. You know, some people don't want to go through it. I don't really want to go through it. I I'm totally fine. I'll I'll do that with other genres of music. Like I I've I'm already used to it with classical music. It's like, you know, you feel like a moron sitting in in the orchestra sometimes because there's so much, there's a lot of stuff that you don't know. And you know, these people are sight reading all this music, and it's like, oh my god, I can't keep up. I'm not cut off for this, you know. I I I went through that already, you know. So it's I've I've gotten to the point where I've realized it's probably gonna be the most fun when you do it with people that you like to, at least in terms of making music. And to me, this is where it gets subjective. The point of making music is not, I mean, yeah, it's to make money sometimes, but like if you're gonna make money, you might as well enjoy doing it. You know, if I want to not enjoy myself, I could do something else and make probably more. But when it comes down to if you're gonna make music and you want to make it work, you should probably do it with people that you like. You know, you don't want to be in an office job with the six-year-old Mexican busting your ass, you know, because you could do that in an office or you could do that in Mariachi, and it's I what which one do you want to ruin it? Like which one do you want to get ruined? The music or the office job? I would say the office job, because you could find other parts in your life that are more enriching. But at the end of the day, there there is there is a medium, I think. But for some people don't think that maybe.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:33

No, I don't know. You need to be hazed.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:35

I have to be hazed, oh crap. Well, there goes that idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:39

I don't know, but I mean you also have to consider the two very different cultures. Um, even being Mexican-American, um you're dealing with so groups managed by people that these older guys born in Mexico. The whole atmosphere that songs, so even some of the arrangements, um, the clients, the the way the bookings are handled, the the pay, is all on I'd say on average, on a big scale, different from playing with somebody that's uh born in the US and manages a group. So it it's different. And and some of the sometimes you play in a mixed group. And those are interesting, um, which I did for many years. Um there's I think six of us in that group. Um let's see. Yeah, six of us in that group. Two the older guys, uh, well, the one in charge, and then another guy who was not that much older, but like ten years older than us, um, born in Mexico in San Luis. And the other three, um, so excluding myself, they were all born in the US and they didn't speak Spanish. And these guys only spoke Spanish.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:10

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:11

So me, I had to interpret for them because they was like, well, I don't know what the fuck they're saying. I was like, oh, I can say, but everybody in there was um either Mexican or Mexican descent. And their philosophy, the older guys, is a very different approach to how mariachi and stuff should be done than how new generation. So you you might find it crazy, but I am way more I don't know the best way to say it, but a liberal in my views of like how Mariachi should be compared to if you worked with us, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:56

I I you you've given me a s only a mere glimpse into what it could be like. I know I don't like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:02

Compared to, you know, so I've been through it with some of these um these groups and these guys. Um I think some of the things I did or said were were too far. Um but then there, you know, this their skill's gotta be like a standard. Um, but my standard is different than theirs. Um playing that group was funny though, because sometimes I'll misinterpret on purpose. And just say some wild things or just suddenly though, the trumpet player, the one one of them that was from San Luis, he would get super drunk and man he would get very touchy, and he would suddenly be a lot better at English. Um he he knew all he knew English in the dirty sense. Right. Uh so yeah, that that group that was a wild time. I was a third group. We're we were together for like two years. Um which in an area like that where Mariachis are constantly kind of rotating and going in and out, that that's a good run for a group, like because it was like the same members for for that long. Um half of us uh Tex A people, then the others were like older guys. Um but now we're at um I mean I have no idea what it's gonna be like in the fall. Um but the group terms here in like Mania G Tallahassee, right? And then the school group too, that's the thing that I have no idea. Um I don't even know if I'm gonna be involved or how much I will be or won't be. Um things are kind of constantly changing. And then the people in the group from the fall, I don't know, I assume it's mostly the same, but Joshua left. But it seems like Angelo's gonna come in and violins. I don't know, things are changing. And then Danny's supposed to graduate next May. So you might be coming back. Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:30

Big meat.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:30

You make a comeback on it. Just bring your electric guitar.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:40

At that point, they'll have so many violins and harmonia. They need something to spice it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:45

Maybe Jose will play alluella. Oh. That would be interesting. I have no idea what what a a year from today, maybe no more group.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:00

It's that is very possible. I have no idea. I mean, I don't know if Carlos is. Carlos is gonna stay, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:51:05

Well he's gonna do the PhD. So it's gonna take him at least I say at least three years, but maybe he does it in two, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:14

I don't know. I'm probably gonna be here another two years.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:18

At least. Um you know what we haven't even talked about? The stupid duo that we Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:28

Oh yeah, you're using this. Aren't you using that Instagram page?

SPEAKER_02 1:51:31

Yeah, so we are. So I did that because I already had five Instagrams. Yeah. So I had my personal one, I have the photography page, I have my boxing channel. Um, I had the FSU Mariachi one, I haven't logged into that in a while. And then the this one. And I'm like, am I really gonna make a six one? No. So if you type up Los Mariachi Sagas, this will pop up. But if you also type up Duela, this will pop up because I think the way I did it is the username is um Los Mariachi Sagas, but the the name of the account is Dual De Guelas. So it's good branding. Yeah, uh double dipping like crazy. And I don't know, I was like, uh it's it's it's still two people. Yeah, Mariachi related kind of. And there's a a dark-skinned Latino and a light-skinned Latino, and just you cut your hair and get some context, and you'll be mad.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:39

I do have contacts. But you had blue eyes. Oh, it was kind of contacts. Yeah. I see.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:47

I mean you gotta get a little buffer.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:49

A little buffer?

SPEAKER_02 1:52:51

Damn.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:53

I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:58

Uh yeah, so we we started the the duo last summer.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:03

And we've had some good some good weeks.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:07

Yes, we have.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:08

We're just trying to make bunches of money. Um, you know, I had this idea to do something like this back in 2016.

unknown 1:53:16

Dang.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:17

Um it never happened. I couldn't find the people again. I was also moving all over the place. Um, and then I had the idea again in 2021. Um, when I moved back to the valley again. And at this point I wanted to do like classical gigs, the classical guitar and violin, a duet, and play weddings and conferences or office parties, all that stuff. Um, and I got together with one player, a friend of mine, that we've known each other since high school. We met at one of the all-region competitions. So we practiced a little bit, but again, I ended up moving. Again. Um, and so they never took off. And then came here, and then Carlos said, Alright, I'm leaving. Even after he said he was mistaken. So, uh and I didn't really come to the idea, and then suddenly I was like, hey Michael, you play violin, right? You have a you have a performance degree in violin.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:22

I do.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:23

And I was like, I I I remember how to play guitar and I sing songs. I was like, let's just do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:30

So we spent a couple of weeks rehearsing because you had to um basically learn the trumpet parts to a lot of things.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:38

Yes. That was awful. Some of those songs, oh my god. I I was like flipping between parts. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:47

And you see, if you grew up gigging in Mariachi, you would just know everything. You don't have to.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:53

I know I'm at a disadvantage. I know. I know I've overcome such strong hurdles.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:57

You don't have to remind me how overcome being Cuban or you want your Mexican stamp of approval.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:11

Yeah, that's all I need, and then I'll I can move on with life.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:17

Uh yeah, we started the duo that guarded us, and I want to do like Wallaveras, do like dress pant thing. Which in in my mind it looked better. We look fine, but I didn't realize how many people casually dress like that. And I was like, oh. If we were walking the streets of Cuba, we would just be going to get breakfast.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:46

Yeah. And in Miami too. But I've worn I've worn the red one out because I just like it. It's a nice shirt. It's a damn nice shirt.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:56

Yeah, it is. Um yeah, so we've gotten a couple gigs. We did uh we did some restaurant tours. Um we've learned more songs. I think we've also forgotten songs that we used to play. Uh we have some shows coming up. This is gonna be out way after these, but we we are gonna play July 10th. I don't even know where yet. Oh. Um he hasn't told me which restaurant. Nice. And then again on the 31st. Um and then in August, but now I gotta figure those out because you decided to leave.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:31

I did.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:32

Which day was it again? The um 8th and the 24th of August.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:39

Oh yeah. The 24th or the 27th?

SPEAKER_02 1:56:44

27th, whatever, Friday.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:47

Yeah, 27th, because 24th is uh Yeah, Tuesday. Um gone. So now see if he's he wants one of the other dates. Yeah, as of now you're here, but you know, is Michael's a little flaky.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:03

I'm not a little flaky, I'm very flaky. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:09

One of our best days or weeks was when we went to Panama last year. I got a request for this gig. And I didn't see the email until like an hour later. And they're like, oh, can you be here at six or seven or something? I think it was six. And because of the time change, we would have to leave at five.

unknown 1:57:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:33

If we want to get there right at six. It's like 4:40. And I'm just blowing up Michael's phone, right? Just like, Michael, answer the phone. Instagram, nothing. Um, you just weren't answering the phone. And I was like, we gotta go right now. And I was also because the lady paid in full. Oh like immediately.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:56

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:57

Because I sent the quote and I was like, ah, she's not gonna book us. I sent a stupid quote, and she paid it immediately. I was like, yeah, Michael, you gotta answer. So I was like, it's probably with Kaylee. This was true. So I messaged her on the uh from the um Instagram, the Mariachi saga's Instagram, which um I don't even know if I had changed to the dual yet, but I was like, where the fuck is Michael? I don't remember what I told her, but uh she was like, oh, he's right here. I was like, tell him to answer the phone. So you answered, and I was like, Michael, you gotta get over here right now. And we ended up we ended up making it, but also like we started like 30 minutes later because they weren't even there yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:51

Yeah, yeah, we went to a convenience store and I bought I bought a box of q-tips totally unrelated. I bought a box of q-tips and I still have it in my house from last year. I don't remember you buying why did you buy a box of q tips? Because I didn't have any q-tips, and I was thinking, you know what? I'm here, I might as well buy a box of q-tips.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:08

Panama City Q-tips.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:11

Long drive, long drive. Yeah, so we played two hours. Well, we only played like an hour and something big, and then they're like, we can you play another two hours? And they're like, how much? I was like, well, I mean it's the same what we charged. And I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:32

Yeah, that one was nice. That one was very nice. Where did they go?

SPEAKER_02 1:59:37

They're from Houston. Oh. They were just visiting, vacationing. Yeah. And I think I guess the guy wanted to propose to his girlfriend.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:46

Yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:48

At that time.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:49

I think that was the first time I heard or we I had ever heard Baby the Navi though. Oh. I remember that because we played it.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:56

We did Babyanavido.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:58

I I only remember that because we were playing it like it was yesterday, right? Or was it Tuesday?

SPEAKER_02 2:00:02

Well, we did it Saturday.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:03

On Saturday. I remember that and I was like, I was watching you play, and I'm like, I have a memory connected to this, and it is Panama City Beach, what we're talking about right now.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:12

That was the first time you did Babylonavi though, and you had some weird arrangement. And I kept trying to follow it. I'm like, I can't figure out the melody you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:22

I did that for like six minutes, and I'm like, dude, I don't know what the hell I'm playing right now.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:28

At some point I just started playing whatever. They they asked for like grupo frontera, and I was like, Michael, just but I'm gonna I'm gonna play something. So I did that. We did a whole bunch of stuff. Um and we played on the beach, like on the stand.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:45

Yeah, yeah. That was nice.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:47

Yeah. Uh which we haven't had that yet. Uh had that again. We I've gotten plenty of requests, Panama City, Industin, Pensacola. But nobody wants to pay. But it's also because they're like, can you play like 15 minutes? And I'm like, okay, well, this is a quote, and it's some freaking like $400 or something. And they're like, they don't. I'm like, what do you want to say? It's two and a half hours just to get there, and they'll come back and it's a different time zone. Like, no. So most don't. But we did get one um for next week. That's in Panama City. Um serenade.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:32

Which day is that again?

SPEAKER_02 2:01:33

Uh July 13th.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:35

Uh two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:37

Yeah. Uh so yeah, we we've done. I mean, I I guess we kind of mostly do restaurants with the duo. Um, it's just harder to get gigs too. So well, I mean, we've done a couple of the the fountains and the birthdays.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:53

Yeah. Oh, yeah, we've had the the apartment gigs too. Those are fun.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:57

Oh my god, dude. I hate those so much.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:00

It's so awkward. It is so unbelievably awkward. I love them that every time we do it because we walk out with a lot more money than we should be walking out.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:09

Yeah. Uh especially because if it's like the parents or something that hire us, um the birthday person, they normally don't want us to play for like that long.

unknown 2:02:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:24

And one of the last ones we did. The this guy wanted to hire us at first for two and a half hours. Or so it was something like that. Um, and I was like, I didn't even want to send a quote because it said for like 21st birthday or something, and it was like and I was like, it's not gonna be worth it. I'm gonna charge you a ridiculous amount of money, uh, because we have to be here two and a half hours. And they're not gonna want us, don't want to hear us for two and a half hours. And we don't even really have two and a half hours of music. No, we don't. Not music that they're gonna like for two and a half hours. Uh but ultimately he's still paid for an hour. And uh, yeah, we did it. Uh yeah, but those are so interesting because those apartments are like small and like they put us like in the kitchen or whatever, and then a bunch of people just watching. I mean, so we always we gotta do like uh uh what's it Poco Loco Poco Loco, right, La Bamba, cucaracha, like all that stuff, because that's what they're gonna recognize and be like, oh, like they're real. And I don't even know what people call it. Probably most people just call this mariachis.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:40

Maybe just because of it. I think they're always expecting a trumpet. Usually.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:46

Yeah, probably. I did do a solo gig though one time.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:49

Oh yeah?

SPEAKER_02 2:03:50

This guy called our Instagram, he kept like asking us, like, hey, can you come like freaking I don't remember what it was, serenade's girlfriend, her birthday or something. She was like Cuban or something. And you weren't here. You were I don't know, you were out out of town for something. And you weren't getting back till next day or two days or something. I told him I was like, we can do it like in a few days or something. And he was like, he's like, what if you just come or like just you by yourself? And I was like, I mean, I could if you really want to. And he was like, Yeah, fine, whatever, I'll pay you, pay you whatever, the same amount. And I was like, okay. So I go and I did this gig, and it was literally, he just wanted one song. I think I played him also got any or something. And that was it. But that is the day though that my microphone broke. When I pulled it out of the speaker, it just like ripped off.

unknown 2:04:56

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:00

But yeah, we have more shows coming up. I'm I'm trying to now figure out uh if I do bring this back the podcast more regularly. I'm gonna kinda maneuver the two.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:14

Alternate days.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:16

I'm gonna switch the name every when whenever I upload an episode, switch it to Los Money and Chisagas. Whenever we have a show, I'm gonna switch it back.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:25

A bad idea.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:28

And now the people that are following Instagram have no idea what who the quote of this is because they're following the podcast. I lost so many followers from not uploading for three years. Did you know that happens? When you don't upload for three years, people stop listening to you or caring about you.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:49

Really? Yeah. I wouldn't have thought that.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:54

It's weird because you know, I don't see some of my family for three years, but then I go see them, they don't stop talking to me. Yeah. They're just not loyal.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:06

Shame.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:08

So, Michael, we got um seven minutes. What what's been your favorite memory of being um here in I don't know, Mariochi? We didn't even get to talk about Palace Rats.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:24

Um, that's another podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:26

That's that's gonna take a few days to air out all the imagine having all the Palace Rats members on the Anyway, you should do it.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:35

That'd be a good uh that'd be a good sober. I don't know if they do it. I don't know if I'd do it.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:44

Um But what yeah, what's been your favorite thing? What what are you what are you who have you hated the m or who what have you enjoyed?

SPEAKER_03 2:06:52

What I've enjoyed the most I I don't know if there was like a time period that I enjoyed the most, it was when they were living on Barber Brewerville Drive, I think. Because I would spend like every single day there. I'd drive there and I just eat shit for hours. You know, and we'd practice and do we'd do whatever, but it was a it was a nice like year of bonding, and like you know, I'd go there and we'd all drive out, but you know, the Dustin gigs were fun, they were very exhausting though, because we'd usually drive back the same night. Um but there was sorry, I'm like trying to comb through all of the bullshit that's happened. Oh yeah. Um but there was one night I think that we played uh I think it was like no, it wasn't Gepasa. It was like like one of the restaurants out in Destin or like that area, Panhandle area, and we got a hotel bought for us by the owner of the restaurant because he was like he just stayed there until after the close, and you know, like the literally while we were there, the cashier, like the one of the waitresses, the hostess was like calling him saying, Hey, we have Mayachi's here, and I think he showed up because we were there, and we were just there for hours, like playing, and you know, he was giving us a lot of tequila, and then yeah, we he he was like, No, don't don't drive back, you guys gotta stay here. We're we're gonna buy your hotel, you guys drive, and then you go back tomorrow. And we're like, okay, and then we walked over to the hotel, we left our cars in the restaurant parking lot, and then yeah, that that was a that was a pretty strong memory. And then all the other nights that we were like played at restaurants and stayed well after close and had money continued throwing through continued being thrown at us and alcohol. It was a very interesting time. I had it has never been like that since since you guys got here, I have to say. It was a very unique like relationship client uh group or mariachi relationship that we had, I think.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:11

Yeah, I'm also older and I'm like uh I don't care. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:16

We we had more light in our eyes at the time, I think. But it's it's different, yeah. We we have a bunch of jaded professionals.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:24

I came in and I said, took my belt off. You're strong. Everything you're doing is you're having too much fun.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:31

That's the problem. See, I think that's the common denominator.

unknown 2:09:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:36

This isn't supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be work. It's a job that you're supposed to hate in 10 years.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:44

You're on your way.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:46

I still think it's fun. I don't know. I wasn't very much um drinking and prodding much either, even in my younger time. Um but I mean, yeah, I still was 18 to 22 at one point and in college at Texas State. Uh, we would have our annual Halloween party, Mariachi Halloween party. Um those um travels when we go to conferences or uh workshops and stuff. Um always some stuff going on at the hotel. Um, I don't know, people getting lost, people getting drunk. There's one guy that hit was driving the van that hit a pole. Wow. Yeah. Um it's fun, it's a unique thing too, right? In Mariachi, because you don't get to experience as much, even like in a rock band, you do do that, but like, because you got like so much equipment and like the teardown and stuff, like it just takes away time, and then by that point people already left or went somewhere else. And Mariachi, I'm like, okay, bup, bup. And then okay, and then just you don't go nowhere if you don't have to.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:06

It's true.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:07

So and then it's like a more intimate, intimate experience, right, with the clients and stuff. So Mariachi will keep going. Um, you're gonna keep playing, we're gonna keep playing. We got said shows coming up, and this episode will be up in, I don't know, hopefully less than three years.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:32

I'm not counting on it.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:36

Everybody's doubting me right now, and they should. But I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna not take three years to edit and upload this.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:49

It's okay, I believe in you.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:52

No, you're a liar. Okay, we're done. Wait, anything else? Oh, what do you want to follow you? You want to follow Palace Rats? You want you wanna?

SPEAKER_03 2:11:59

Yeah, f follow Palace Rats on Instagram, Palace Rats HQ. I think it's that's the name. No space has been my thing. Just Palace. Not that Palace Rats HQ. The letters H and Q. Which would be Palace Rats HQ. Never mind.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:21

I think that's Palace Rats HQ.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:23

That's it. Letter.