{"id":4759,"date":"2019-11-11T19:52:24","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T01:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=4759"},"modified":"2019-11-11T19:52:24","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T01:52:24","slug":"el-son-mexicano-y-la-cancion-mexicana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2019\/11\/11\/el-son-mexicano-y-la-cancion-mexicana\/","title":{"rendered":"El Son Mexicano y La Canci\u00f3n Mexicana"},"content":{"rendered":"

El Son Mexicano, or the Mexican song, is a type of folk music derived from classical music styles of the baroque in terms of rhythms and harmonies, but incorporated into a style of folk performances with guitar and singers.\u00a0 E Thomas Stanford wrote a good article on the characteristics of the style, and the history of the term and style.\u00a0 Stanford emphasizes the importance of dance in the style, although there is a vocabulary difference.\u00a0 A Danza<\/em>, which is often used as a synonym for Son<\/em>, denotes a more “primitive” or “raw” version of the word Baile<\/em>, which is reserved for formal dances.\u00a0 Stanford also finds that there are elements of Baroque dance performance styles that had been lost or forgotten in other mediums, but rediscovered through the Son<\/em>.\u00a0 It is likened to the way Madrigals have been treated in England.\u00a0 The\u00a0Son<\/em> is closer to an authentic madrigal performance than a choir singing from a stage, as both forms are intended primarily as dances.<\/p>\n

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Contrasting with this is\u00a0La Canci\u00f3n Mexicana<\/em>, another form of mexican folk music.\u00a0 This form is more popular in the area now known as the American Southwest and Borderlands and originated some time in the mid 19th century.\u00a0 Peter J Garcia wrote an encyclopedic entry for the Latino American Experience<\/em>, an online database of articles related to Latino American subjects.\u00a0 Garcia characterizes the\u00a0Canci\u00f3n\u00a0<\/em>as more emotionally driven than story driven, expressing feelings of intense sorrow, joy, grief, and gaiety.\u00a0 Garcia claims that the\u00a0Canci\u00f3n<\/em> reached maturity in the 1850s, causing a “golden age of mexican song.”\u00a0 The\u00a0Canci\u00f3n<\/em> takes its influences from Italian dramatic operas of the 18th and 19th century, using emotion as a drive rather than character motivation or storytelling.\u00a0 This most cleanly fits into what Americans think of as Mariachi music, although it is not mariachi.\u00a0 Mariachi is a distinct musical tradition with a set of specific instruments, although the two styles share some similarities.<\/p>\n

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Now that a brief history of both terms has been established, we can get into the purpose of this blog post, which is listening to some performers of both styles and contrasting them to see if there is as clear a definition as Garc\u00eda and Stanford would have us believe.<\/p>\n

Our first musical example comes from the Naxos audio library, and is an album called\u00a0Son de Mi Tierra<\/em> (song of my earth\/land) by a group from Veracruz named\u00a0Son de Madera<\/em>.\u00a0 The tracks on this album are described by the group as a blending of old and new styles of\u00a0Son<\/em>, with a reverence for the traditions but an eye on the future.\u00a0 Listening to the album, which can be done here<\/a>, shows some link to Baroque senses of tonality, with the solo guitar line often mixing major and minor modes in a way reminiscent of Monteverdi and Allegri. The rhythmic nature of the lines, with clear beats in the bass line, also lends itself well to dancing.\u00a0 The percussion (perhaps a guitar being hit, perhaps some form of drum) provides quite a bit of ornamentation around those beats, indicating a potential for some dancing ornamentation (think salsa dancing styles, with lots of hands and wardrobe accents on their dancing).\u00a0 The themes of this music, being a clearer story and plot driving the narrative, also indicate that this would fit into the category of a\u00a0Son<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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If we have found a\u00a0Son<\/em>, what then makes a\u00a0Canc\u00edon<\/em>.\u00a0 The album “Con su Permisos, Se\u00f1ores” by Los Centzontles serves as our example here (found here<\/a>).\u00a0 The primary difference found here is the instrumental emphasis.\u00a0 While the\u00a0Son<\/em> revolved around the stringed instruments, using the voices in conjunction, these\u00a0Canc\u00edones<\/em> make heavier use of the voice.\u00a0 This is to such an extent that the first track begins with an acapella chorus, beginning the themes of more emotionally driven music than plot.\u00a0 In these pieces, an understanding can be gleaned without knowing Spanish or reading a translation.<\/p>\n

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Works Cited<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda, Peter J. “Canci\u00f3n.”\u00a0The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience<\/i>, ABC-CLIO, 2019, latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com\/Search\/Display\/1329518. Accessed 11 Nov. 2019.<\/p>\n

Stanford, E. Thomas. “The Mexican Son.”\u00a0Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council<\/i>\u00a04 (1972): 66-86. doi:10.2307\/767674.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

El Son Mexicano, or the Mexican song, is a type of folk music derived from classical music styles of the baroque in terms of rhythms and harmonies, but incorporated into a style of folk performances with guitar and singers.\u00a0 E … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-1eL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4760,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4759\/revisions\/4760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}