Talk:Norteño (music)

Band photograph

The bass player is playing an ordinary (probably half-size) bass violin and not a toloche as the caption states. 174.247.224.194 (talk) 13:17, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Way too much mythologizing.

Sorry, but this article seems ill informed. There are several points to be made about norteño music overaLl

Musicologist Jorge Amós Martínez Ayala offers a theory with quite a lot of solid evidence about the origin of this genre, in his essay "El Bajío in the invention of Northern Mexican music" included in the book "Arriba el Norte... ! Música de Acordeón y Bajo Sexto (INAH-Conaculta, 2013)"

"When seeing the comments of the participants of some blogs dedicated to norteño music, with its Tex-Mex and grupera derivatives, discussions about the origin of bajo sexto, the arrival of the accordion or the creation of the norteño ensemble are recurrent, which includes the saxophone, the arrival and naturalization of the main genres, such as the polka, are present but mythologized topics. The notion of its origin as a northern creation without the intervention of the center of the country, perhaps is due to the conflict. between Monterrey and Mexico City, which has worsened with the economic development of the north in recent decades, while its political dependence continues; however, it is not possible to sustain it any longer. Bajío and this has also been formed with that of the emigrants who return as northerners. The Bajío and the north are cultures in permanent dialogue, the non-current phenomenon, as we already demonstrated, has centuries of history."

As you can see, this fiction that is artificially sustained by Monterrey historians and musicologists is basically motivated by issues of political, social and economic conflicts, of regional rivalries that have nothing to do with the historical and testimonial evidence, which effectively indicates that the style we know as "Norteño" it's a recent creation, it was not until the 1920s that the accordion became popular and definitively replaced the violin in the old guitar and violin duets that were popular throughout the country. The testimonies of Antonio Tanguma, Narciso Martínez and Santiago Jiménez indicate that although the accordion already existed in the north of the country in the last two decades of the 19th century, only a few accordionists can be placed among the musicians, about five or six registered according to historical sources and the orchesta típica without accordion was the most popular ensemble of the first decades of the 20th century.

Nor is there any mention of the strong influence that the orquestas típicas , tamborileros (a duo or trio ensemble based of clarinet and percussion), military brass bands of the second half of the 19th century and organ grinders had in both style and repertoire in the creation of what is called "Norteño music". They already carried with them the European dances (polka, waltz, redowa, etc.), which arrived in Mexico and became a dance craze before Maximillian I arrived there. There's also little evidence that the French or Austrain soldiers in Maximillian's army stayed in Mexico or the Southwest USA, most of them probably went back to Europe to fight in the French-Prussian war, the latter being well documented.

Likewise, the historical evidence cited in the book "Musicians and popular music in Monterrey, 1900-1940, Alfonso Ayala Duarte, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 1998" indicates that the polka and the redova were not the most popular dances in northeastern Mexico. between 1850 and 1930, with the tradition of polka dancing for school dances being recently created. Likewise, some sources say that contact between Central Europeans and Mexicans was rather scarce and this can be seen in the recorded repertoire of northern music in the 1920s-1930s; most of the pieces are of Mexican origin (many of them created by composers from the Bajío and center of the country or by northern composers imitating the style of those composers) with a different style from that of German or Czech dances.

Also, in his book "Historia de la Música Norteña Mexicana" Luis Díaz Santana Garza cites the phrase "in Texas the Germans don't like Mexicans very much" which is quite significant and is supported by historical evidence, unlike what is said in the so-called "oral history" . Manuel H. Peña also supports this assertion on his book "The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working Class Music" where he implies that the evidence points out that White Texans (not only Anglos, but also the Czech, German and Polish) and Mexicans didn't have that much of a relationship or any kind of cultural exchange until the 1920s. So this is just for clarifying and to ask for wikipedists for more historical rigor instead of following the overly romanticized or the old wives' tales versions of history. 201.141.23.80 (talk) 21:54, 5 September 2024 (UTC)