Mariachi Music Thesis

Natividad Cano had a passion for mariachi music that drove his desire to change the stereotypical social relations associated with mariachi music. However, many traditionalists accused Cano for breaking away from traditional elements and commercializing mariachi music as a meaningless choreographed form that would appeal to western audiences (Shay, 2006, p. 77). I see the positive results of Cano’s strive to take mariachi music out of the stereotypical local cantinas and onto the stages of national concert halls, where the artistic value of mariachi music can be truly appreciated by a widespread audience.

It was no surprise that Cano chose music as a career. He grew up in a family of day workers who played mariachi music at various cantinas (restaurants) on the side to earn additional money. Growing up listening to his grandfather playing the guittaron and his father professionally playing every instrument of the mariachi, Cano embraced mariachi traditions as a part of his own identity early on. By the age of six, he learned to

One of the songs from the album, Noches Tenebrosas (Gloomy Nights) was widely popular for its incorporation of a well-known mariachi style called musica ranchera, which represented Mexico’s soulful “country music”. The lyrics of the song retell a story about to the emotional pain felt by someone that was deceived by their lover. (Sheesy, 2008, p. 10) Listening to the song, it opens with a harp solo and then the track gradually introduced the mariachi sound created by a string of instruments that was in tune with the vocal ranges expressed in the soulful voice of the vocalist. The instruments that were used in creating the mariachi sound were violins, trumpets, guitars, as well as the guitarron and vihuela—all common in traditional mariachi music. (Sheesy, 2008, p.