When I talked my way into a mariachi band, I never expected it to be so much work!
Usually I write fiction, but here I delve into non-fiction with a musical memoir. Learning mariachi was not one bit easy! In fact, it's the hardest thing I've ever learned if you don't count Italian, back handsprings, and let's not even bother to mention cooking!
SECRETS OF A MARIACHI VIOLINIST
I would have never guessed that nostalgia for living in Mexico would lead me to join a mariachi band in Tucson, Arizona. Nor would I have guessed that learning by ear could be such a challenge! Despite rivals and flirtatious compadres, I was too stubborn to give up. Instead I used on-the-job training and late nights with a tape recorder to learn song after song. In the memoir I recount some of my favorite evenings at El Mariachi Restaurant and describe the alarming process of relearning technique. The cheerful vignettes show the ups and downs of playing in a musical group--a must-read for any music lover!
Note: The 2019 version includes 10 additional chapters.
Finalist in the Arizona/New Mexico Book Awards 2019!
Honorable Mention for the 2017 Readers' Favorite Non-Fiction-Music/Entertainment Award
Purchase in Tucson:
Mostly Books
6208 E. Speedway (Speedway and Wilmot)
Purchase online:
Amazon (ebook)
Amazon (print)
Signed Author Copy:
Contact me at drr@ dr-ransdell.com
Extras:
Reviews:
Five-Star Review by Mamta Madhavan for the Readers' Favorite Awards
Guest Blog:
On James Callan's blog,I explain about "The Hard Work of Telling the Truth." Really, I'm much more comfortable at MSU--where you get to Make Stuff Up!
Videos:
Why Write a Memoir about Mariachi Playing?
Usually I write fiction, but here I delve into non-fiction with a musical memoir. Learning mariachi was not one bit easy! In fact, it's the hardest thing I've ever learned if you don't count Italian, back handsprings, and let's not even bother to mention cooking!
SECRETS OF A MARIACHI VIOLINIST
I would have never guessed that nostalgia for living in Mexico would lead me to join a mariachi band in Tucson, Arizona. Nor would I have guessed that learning by ear could be such a challenge! Despite rivals and flirtatious compadres, I was too stubborn to give up. Instead I used on-the-job training and late nights with a tape recorder to learn song after song. In the memoir I recount some of my favorite evenings at El Mariachi Restaurant and describe the alarming process of relearning technique. The cheerful vignettes show the ups and downs of playing in a musical group--a must-read for any music lover!
Note: The 2019 version includes 10 additional chapters.
Finalist in the Arizona/New Mexico Book Awards 2019!
Honorable Mention for the 2017 Readers' Favorite Non-Fiction-Music/Entertainment Award
Purchase in Tucson:
Mostly Books
6208 E. Speedway (Speedway and Wilmot)
Purchase online:
Amazon (ebook)
Amazon (print)
Signed Author Copy:
Contact me at drr@ dr-ransdell.com
Extras:
Reviews:
Five-Star Review by Mamta Madhavan for the Readers' Favorite Awards
Guest Blog:
On James Callan's blog,I explain about "The Hard Work of Telling the Truth." Really, I'm much more comfortable at MSU--where you get to Make Stuff Up!
Videos:
Why Write a Memoir about Mariachi Playing?
Additional Videos:
Secrets of a Mariachi Violinist Playlist (Youtube)
Romance in Mazatlán: https://youtu.be/7PZ9JTWuv_M
Mi Plegaria: https://youtu.be/g9WvfupQRrk
Sneaking into a Mariachi: https://youtu.be/UCjvr5bwFuU
Songwriting asTherapy: https://youtu.be/W08OFWJw0q0
Véte a dormir: https://youtu.be/sYT6n2j8VvM
Killer Gig: https://youtu.be/4p_MCI7OJ2s
Rinconcito: https://youtu.be/ac6lNX5Rr9Y
Cookie Explains: https://youtu.be/XGcSUsoyIJY
Secrets of a Mariachi Violinist Playlist (Youtube)
Romance in Mazatlán: https://youtu.be/7PZ9JTWuv_M
Mi Plegaria: https://youtu.be/g9WvfupQRrk
Sneaking into a Mariachi: https://youtu.be/UCjvr5bwFuU
Songwriting asTherapy: https://youtu.be/W08OFWJw0q0
Véte a dormir: https://youtu.be/sYT6n2j8VvM
Killer Gig: https://youtu.be/4p_MCI7OJ2s
Rinconcito: https://youtu.be/ac6lNX5Rr9Y
Cookie Explains: https://youtu.be/XGcSUsoyIJY
Audio file for Chapter 5
In this chapter I talk about the difficulties of learning by ear--ouch!
In this chapter I talk about the difficulties of learning by ear--ouch!
Excerpt:
1: Mexico
1) What Is Midnight? Mariachi Time.
In retrospect it was cheeky of my mom to try to arrange a cake for my dad’s 33rd birthday. That summer we were boarding with a local family in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, while my dad took Spanish classes. My mother’s Spanish vocabulary consisted of pastel, “cake,” and gracias, “thank you,” so it was even cheekier of her to agree to whatever our hostess Marta was asking about. I was standing right there, but as a monolingual ten-year-old, I was even more clueless.
On June 29th we went to bed as usual. My parents had one bedroom on the top floor of a modest house. My baby brother and I had the other.
“Wake up!” my mother shouted just after midnight. “Get dressed and come downstairs.”
I might have been sleepy, but I quickly recovered. The house was filled with loud trumpet music. I threw a shirt over my pajamas and ran down the steps.
Eight men in funny black suits with silver jingles down the sides had taken over the living room. Two held trumpets. Three held violins. One held a kind of stringed instrument that he carried like a baby. Another held something like a mandolin. Yet another held a guitar.
“¡Felicidades!” they shouted. “Congratulations!” Of course! It was now June 30th, so it was high time for my dad to start celebrating his big day.
Our host, Nico, set us down on the couch in front of the musicians. My dad was the very special guest of honor. He couldn’t believe what was happening. Neither could my mother. Marta and Nico looked on, ecstatic that they’d pulled off such a big surprise.
If he’d had his druthers, my father might have politely listened to a couple of songs, made an excuse, and gone back to bed. This was not possible, for the doorbell started ringing.
Police! I thought. We must be making too much noise.
Wrong. People streamed into the house. We lived on a short block, and evidently the whole neighborhood had been invited to the surprise party for the gringo. The neighbors didn’t come to politely listen to music. They came carrying snacks and liquor. They came with their kids. They came ready to dance and party and sing. This was an occasion!
Finally my dad got into the swing of things. He hummed along to the music and clapped enthusiastically after each number. When the mariachis made gritos, which were loud shouting sounds, he imitated them.
I was fascinated by the musicians. Despite the warm night, they wore long shirts and jackets. Their bellies were so big their pants were about to burst, but they didn’t seem to notice. Their lively music made everybody feel happy. Even my dad, who prided himself on getting a good night’s sleep, danced to their lively sounds.
Eventually I was sent to bed, but the party lasted until dawn. Stunned at his own behavior, my dad went to his classes on two hours of sleep. Nico, who was teaching summer classes at the university, did the same. The other neighbors went to work as well.
That evening Dad was incredulous that he’d survived his own party. “I don’t know how they do it,” he kept saying. “They party all night but it doesn’t even faze them.”
“What did you think about the musicians?” Mom asked me.
“They’re lucky!”
“And why is that?”
“They get to stay up really, really late!”
Dad’s surprise birthday party was the highlight of the summer as far as I was concerned. As soon as we got back to Springfield, Illinois, I told my friends and grandparents all about the wild night when I got to stay up really, really late.
At the end of the summer, I started fifth grade. When several teachers visited our classroom to demonstrate instruments we might study, I was enthralled. I’d been taking piano lessons, but I was ready for an additional challenge. In the back of my mind, I must have remembered Dad’s birthday. Even though the teacher was an old bald guy who didn’t seem like much fun, I chose the violin.
5) What Is Bravado? Asking for a Job.
I might have stayed in Durango indefinitely, but I was too poor. Even though I had a school job, an orchestra job, and occasional extra jobs playing wedding masses, I was making under $400 dollars a month. At the time it cost $350 to fly home to Illinois or to visit my grandparents in Florida. At some point I was afraid I would become resentful of such low wages and challenging living conditions. Friends advised me to try Arizona, so I moved to Tucson. I arrived too late in August to find a full-time teaching job, but I started substituting in the Sunnyside Unified School District, which was largely Hispanic.
Bilingual teachers were sorely needed, so I worked nearly every day. Proudly I told the other teachers that I’d been living in Mexico. Most asked the same question: “Why would you want to do that?” The Tucsonans I met didn’t appreciate Mexico or know much about it. In the meantime I was homesick. I missed my friends and my laidback lifestyle in Durango. As a final blow, when I auditioned for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, I didn’t get in.
My first weeks in Tucson were lonely and depressing, but when I learned that a woman played in a local band named Mariachi América, my ears pricked up. In Durango only men played in mariachis. I saw this venue as a viable opportunity. If the Tucson mariachi had one woman, why not two? I started practicing along with my two mariachi cassettes. This was difficult because the pieces were fast, and the cassettes were so badly recorded that all the songs were flat. I couldn’t tune my violin to match them.
Nevertheless, after two weeks of listening to “La negra” and other sones, which were songs with a typical style and rhythm, one Thursday night I got up my nerve and went down to El Mariachi Restaurant.
The eatery was located on Drachman across from a hotel. As I drove into the parking lot, I noticed that the sign read “Parking for Stucky’s Pizza Only.” At first I wondered if I’d made a mistake, but the restaurant’s foyer was decorated with guitars and trajes (TRA-heys), which were the traditional suits I’d first seen in Jalapa. Mariachi CDs were displayed in a showcase. Behind the foyer were some tables where the musicians had left their cases. I continued to the long bar counter and found a seat that gave me a complete view.
The restaurant’s main seating area consisted of a square. In the far corner was a tri-level stage on which eight mariachi players performed for a small audience. They wore maroon trajes with Aztec calendars down the sides. The violinists consisted of a man in his sixties or so and a man and woman in their twenties. Behind them stood a guitar player and a vihuela player, who seemed to be in charge. On the top step stood a guitarrón player. Beside them, on a ledge in front of a fireplace, stood two trumpet players. Altogether the group had a full, rich sound.
I focused on the woman, who wore a skirt that stretched below her knees. When she sang a solo, she took the microphone, strode to the area before the stage, closed her eyes, tipped back her head, and commanded the spotlight with a husky voice. When she played the violin, she kept her eyes on the old guy. His fingers tripped through passages so quickly that his companions didn’t always keep up.
After a few songs the vihuela player stopped to ask if anyone in the audience was from out of town, but I kept quiet. Next he asked if anyone was celebrating a birthday. The violinists spread out among the crowd, and the group played a few more songs.
I recognized one from my cassettes. Another was “Tijuana Taxi.” The other tunes were pretty, but I didn’t know them. At the end of the set the musicians scattered like balls on a pool table. I tried to watch for the vihuela player, but he disappeared. As I sat wondering what to do, the guitar player and the guitarrón player approached the bar and took seats across from me.
“Veo que ya tienen tres violines,” I told them, “pero estoy buscando trabajo.” Both men stared at me blankly, so I repeated myself in English: “I see you already have three violinists, but I’m looking for a job.”
This didn’t help.
“¿De dónde eres?” “Where are you from?” the guitar player asked.
My Spanish is strong enough that when I travel in Spain people think I’m from Mexico, but true Mexicans always peg me as a gringa. “I’m from Illinois, but I lived in Mexico a long time.”
By then I had scared both musicians off their barstools, but the guitar player claimed he would come right back.
Stunned by my own courage, I ordered another Coke and told myself to relax.
By the time the musicians were ready to start the second set, the tables had emptied and the few remaining customers were sitting at the bar. The mariachi players lined up in front of us. While the others tuned, the vihuela player came over to me.
“I’m Gilbert. I own the restaurant. You moved here from Mexico?”
“Last month. I was down there teaching English.”
“And you played mariachi over there?”
In a nanosecond I decided that truth was overrated. “I used to tag along with my friends. I played in an orchestra as well.”
Gilbert stared at me. He was probably trying to reconcile incongruities. Not only did most of the other mariachi players in town know one another, but thanks to my brown hair I didn’t look like a Spanish speaker. He turned to the closest violinist. “Chris, loan her your violin for a minute.”
The young man seemed all too eager to hand over his instrument. Gilbert gestured for me to take Chris’s place. The woman frowned, but I ignored her. I stood next to the old man so that I could watch his left hand finger the notes. Then we started playing.
I had little trouble playing the melody for “Spanish Eyes.” I had to fake my way through some harmony riffs in the middle, but I followed along. Next we played a fast song. I couldn’t keep up, but I commanded my bow arm to stay in synch with the other players.
After that Gilbert directed Chris to come and switch with me. I went back and sat at the bar, thrilled, excited, and anxious.
Given their few customers, the musicians only played a few more songs before calling it a night. I waited expectantly—could anything come of this? Again Gilbert disappeared, and my heart sank. Before I could get up and leave, though, the handsome trumpet player came over to greet me. Ruben loved that I appreciated his culture and spoke decent Spanish. He was fascinated by my story of living with a family in Durango and practicing the language. At the very least I felt validated.
Then Gilbert came back. “We don’t need any violin players right now, but leave me your phone number and I’ll think about it. There are two qualities that are very important in this business. One is hard work. Music is hard work. The other is loyalty.”
I nodded, attentive, ready to promise nearly anything.
Then he retreated to his office. My nervousness having caught up with me, I left as quickly as I could get out the door.
I spent the next weekend, which happened to include Halloween, despondent. I’d bought candy but only a few children came to the door, so I was stuck with bags of M&M’s and a wounded soul. I called the Arellano house because it was the youngest brother’s birthday. My Mexican siblings sounded as cheerful as they usually did while I felt alone and far away.
To my great surprise, the guitar player from El Mariachi called me the following Monday. Jaime had talked Gilbert into giving me a shot at the “mariachi thing.” Jaime could loan me a maroon traje like the others had if I wanted to “give it a try.”
1: Mexico
1) What Is Midnight? Mariachi Time.
In retrospect it was cheeky of my mom to try to arrange a cake for my dad’s 33rd birthday. That summer we were boarding with a local family in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, while my dad took Spanish classes. My mother’s Spanish vocabulary consisted of pastel, “cake,” and gracias, “thank you,” so it was even cheekier of her to agree to whatever our hostess Marta was asking about. I was standing right there, but as a monolingual ten-year-old, I was even more clueless.
On June 29th we went to bed as usual. My parents had one bedroom on the top floor of a modest house. My baby brother and I had the other.
“Wake up!” my mother shouted just after midnight. “Get dressed and come downstairs.”
I might have been sleepy, but I quickly recovered. The house was filled with loud trumpet music. I threw a shirt over my pajamas and ran down the steps.
Eight men in funny black suits with silver jingles down the sides had taken over the living room. Two held trumpets. Three held violins. One held a kind of stringed instrument that he carried like a baby. Another held something like a mandolin. Yet another held a guitar.
“¡Felicidades!” they shouted. “Congratulations!” Of course! It was now June 30th, so it was high time for my dad to start celebrating his big day.
Our host, Nico, set us down on the couch in front of the musicians. My dad was the very special guest of honor. He couldn’t believe what was happening. Neither could my mother. Marta and Nico looked on, ecstatic that they’d pulled off such a big surprise.
If he’d had his druthers, my father might have politely listened to a couple of songs, made an excuse, and gone back to bed. This was not possible, for the doorbell started ringing.
Police! I thought. We must be making too much noise.
Wrong. People streamed into the house. We lived on a short block, and evidently the whole neighborhood had been invited to the surprise party for the gringo. The neighbors didn’t come to politely listen to music. They came carrying snacks and liquor. They came with their kids. They came ready to dance and party and sing. This was an occasion!
Finally my dad got into the swing of things. He hummed along to the music and clapped enthusiastically after each number. When the mariachis made gritos, which were loud shouting sounds, he imitated them.
I was fascinated by the musicians. Despite the warm night, they wore long shirts and jackets. Their bellies were so big their pants were about to burst, but they didn’t seem to notice. Their lively music made everybody feel happy. Even my dad, who prided himself on getting a good night’s sleep, danced to their lively sounds.
Eventually I was sent to bed, but the party lasted until dawn. Stunned at his own behavior, my dad went to his classes on two hours of sleep. Nico, who was teaching summer classes at the university, did the same. The other neighbors went to work as well.
That evening Dad was incredulous that he’d survived his own party. “I don’t know how they do it,” he kept saying. “They party all night but it doesn’t even faze them.”
“What did you think about the musicians?” Mom asked me.
“They’re lucky!”
“And why is that?”
“They get to stay up really, really late!”
Dad’s surprise birthday party was the highlight of the summer as far as I was concerned. As soon as we got back to Springfield, Illinois, I told my friends and grandparents all about the wild night when I got to stay up really, really late.
At the end of the summer, I started fifth grade. When several teachers visited our classroom to demonstrate instruments we might study, I was enthralled. I’d been taking piano lessons, but I was ready for an additional challenge. In the back of my mind, I must have remembered Dad’s birthday. Even though the teacher was an old bald guy who didn’t seem like much fun, I chose the violin.
5) What Is Bravado? Asking for a Job.
I might have stayed in Durango indefinitely, but I was too poor. Even though I had a school job, an orchestra job, and occasional extra jobs playing wedding masses, I was making under $400 dollars a month. At the time it cost $350 to fly home to Illinois or to visit my grandparents in Florida. At some point I was afraid I would become resentful of such low wages and challenging living conditions. Friends advised me to try Arizona, so I moved to Tucson. I arrived too late in August to find a full-time teaching job, but I started substituting in the Sunnyside Unified School District, which was largely Hispanic.
Bilingual teachers were sorely needed, so I worked nearly every day. Proudly I told the other teachers that I’d been living in Mexico. Most asked the same question: “Why would you want to do that?” The Tucsonans I met didn’t appreciate Mexico or know much about it. In the meantime I was homesick. I missed my friends and my laidback lifestyle in Durango. As a final blow, when I auditioned for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, I didn’t get in.
My first weeks in Tucson were lonely and depressing, but when I learned that a woman played in a local band named Mariachi América, my ears pricked up. In Durango only men played in mariachis. I saw this venue as a viable opportunity. If the Tucson mariachi had one woman, why not two? I started practicing along with my two mariachi cassettes. This was difficult because the pieces were fast, and the cassettes were so badly recorded that all the songs were flat. I couldn’t tune my violin to match them.
Nevertheless, after two weeks of listening to “La negra” and other sones, which were songs with a typical style and rhythm, one Thursday night I got up my nerve and went down to El Mariachi Restaurant.
The eatery was located on Drachman across from a hotel. As I drove into the parking lot, I noticed that the sign read “Parking for Stucky’s Pizza Only.” At first I wondered if I’d made a mistake, but the restaurant’s foyer was decorated with guitars and trajes (TRA-heys), which were the traditional suits I’d first seen in Jalapa. Mariachi CDs were displayed in a showcase. Behind the foyer were some tables where the musicians had left their cases. I continued to the long bar counter and found a seat that gave me a complete view.
The restaurant’s main seating area consisted of a square. In the far corner was a tri-level stage on which eight mariachi players performed for a small audience. They wore maroon trajes with Aztec calendars down the sides. The violinists consisted of a man in his sixties or so and a man and woman in their twenties. Behind them stood a guitar player and a vihuela player, who seemed to be in charge. On the top step stood a guitarrón player. Beside them, on a ledge in front of a fireplace, stood two trumpet players. Altogether the group had a full, rich sound.
I focused on the woman, who wore a skirt that stretched below her knees. When she sang a solo, she took the microphone, strode to the area before the stage, closed her eyes, tipped back her head, and commanded the spotlight with a husky voice. When she played the violin, she kept her eyes on the old guy. His fingers tripped through passages so quickly that his companions didn’t always keep up.
After a few songs the vihuela player stopped to ask if anyone in the audience was from out of town, but I kept quiet. Next he asked if anyone was celebrating a birthday. The violinists spread out among the crowd, and the group played a few more songs.
I recognized one from my cassettes. Another was “Tijuana Taxi.” The other tunes were pretty, but I didn’t know them. At the end of the set the musicians scattered like balls on a pool table. I tried to watch for the vihuela player, but he disappeared. As I sat wondering what to do, the guitar player and the guitarrón player approached the bar and took seats across from me.
“Veo que ya tienen tres violines,” I told them, “pero estoy buscando trabajo.” Both men stared at me blankly, so I repeated myself in English: “I see you already have three violinists, but I’m looking for a job.”
This didn’t help.
“¿De dónde eres?” “Where are you from?” the guitar player asked.
My Spanish is strong enough that when I travel in Spain people think I’m from Mexico, but true Mexicans always peg me as a gringa. “I’m from Illinois, but I lived in Mexico a long time.”
By then I had scared both musicians off their barstools, but the guitar player claimed he would come right back.
Stunned by my own courage, I ordered another Coke and told myself to relax.
By the time the musicians were ready to start the second set, the tables had emptied and the few remaining customers were sitting at the bar. The mariachi players lined up in front of us. While the others tuned, the vihuela player came over to me.
“I’m Gilbert. I own the restaurant. You moved here from Mexico?”
“Last month. I was down there teaching English.”
“And you played mariachi over there?”
In a nanosecond I decided that truth was overrated. “I used to tag along with my friends. I played in an orchestra as well.”
Gilbert stared at me. He was probably trying to reconcile incongruities. Not only did most of the other mariachi players in town know one another, but thanks to my brown hair I didn’t look like a Spanish speaker. He turned to the closest violinist. “Chris, loan her your violin for a minute.”
The young man seemed all too eager to hand over his instrument. Gilbert gestured for me to take Chris’s place. The woman frowned, but I ignored her. I stood next to the old man so that I could watch his left hand finger the notes. Then we started playing.
I had little trouble playing the melody for “Spanish Eyes.” I had to fake my way through some harmony riffs in the middle, but I followed along. Next we played a fast song. I couldn’t keep up, but I commanded my bow arm to stay in synch with the other players.
After that Gilbert directed Chris to come and switch with me. I went back and sat at the bar, thrilled, excited, and anxious.
Given their few customers, the musicians only played a few more songs before calling it a night. I waited expectantly—could anything come of this? Again Gilbert disappeared, and my heart sank. Before I could get up and leave, though, the handsome trumpet player came over to greet me. Ruben loved that I appreciated his culture and spoke decent Spanish. He was fascinated by my story of living with a family in Durango and practicing the language. At the very least I felt validated.
Then Gilbert came back. “We don’t need any violin players right now, but leave me your phone number and I’ll think about it. There are two qualities that are very important in this business. One is hard work. Music is hard work. The other is loyalty.”
I nodded, attentive, ready to promise nearly anything.
Then he retreated to his office. My nervousness having caught up with me, I left as quickly as I could get out the door.
I spent the next weekend, which happened to include Halloween, despondent. I’d bought candy but only a few children came to the door, so I was stuck with bags of M&M’s and a wounded soul. I called the Arellano house because it was the youngest brother’s birthday. My Mexican siblings sounded as cheerful as they usually did while I felt alone and far away.
To my great surprise, the guitar player from El Mariachi called me the following Monday. Jaime had talked Gilbert into giving me a shot at the “mariachi thing.” Jaime could loan me a maroon traje like the others had if I wanted to “give it a try.”
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