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August 18, 2025 10 mins
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I saw a piece over at Westward, and then suddenly
I started seeing this same kind of news story at
a bunch of different Colorado websites. So one at the
Colorado Sun and so on. But the Westward one is
MSU so Metro State University MSU Denver offers Colorado's first
Mariachi degree. There's another article I was reading, Colorado's first

(00:24):
Mariachi degree is shaped by students experiences. And then Colorado
Sun Mariachi is strumming back into Colorado schools led by
a new generation of teachers. And so I think this
is all pretty fascinating, and I dig mariachi music, and
so joining us to talk about it is a horr Mendez,
she is executive director of the Colorado Youth Mariachi Program.

(00:49):
Is har thanks, thanks for doing this, good to see you,
good to have you here, and welcome to kaa way.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
So are you guys, Sorry for the there's a little delay.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Are you.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Are you part of the program with the.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
College major in addition to what you do with the
with the youth Mariachi program. I want to talk about both,
but if you don't have much to do with the
college part, we don't have to do much of that.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
We're in partnership uh in too to some extent. A
lot of our students feed into MSU Denver so, yes,
but nothing formal yet.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Okay, can for those who don't know, and Dragon, I
don't know, can you find a little mariachi music to
drop on us here? I don't know, but can just
tell us for the I think most people know, But
what is mariachi music and get into the details, like
you know, some of the intricacies of it that people
might not understand, like does it normally have X number
of guitars?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
And why number of something else? And what's it look like?

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah? Absolutely so, Madiacci music is UH is originated from Mexico.
We have the UH. The classic standard music instrumentation includes violins, trumpet,
guitars specifically the Spanish classical guitars with nylon strings, and
then the two most authentic Mexican authentic Madiaci instruments that

(02:12):
are unique to the madiachi, which are the guitar and
standard instrumentation can include six violins, three trumpets, one guitar
n one via. Usually one guitar, but you can have
more guitars based depending on the situation.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
All right, tell me again the names of those two
instruments that you said are very specific to mariachi, and
describe those instruments.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
What are they?

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yes, of course, the guitar n is the is a
acoustic string bass. It is the heart of the madiachi.
It's played in octaves and is large, round, round belly.
Looks like a guitar except for the round belly. That
is that is played against your stomach and you're They

(03:02):
have really fixed strings that you pull to to but
other than that is like an acoustic bass. The viguela
is a small version of this dita. It looks exactly
the same except miniature. Also has a round stomach. It
has five strings nylon strings, and it's played mostly like

(03:23):
the guitars. It is part of the rhythmic session section
of the mediaci. It is just how it's a higher
pitch than the guitars normally.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Is there is there any standard for how many people
in the group are singing or is it standard that
everybody in the group is singing or how does that go?

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, it is if it's a madiachi group. There's a
difference between a mediaci ensemble group and a madiachi singer.
A mediachi singer will be the ones usually like vicent
to advandez is the that's their career, right, But in
a mediachi ensemble, it is the It is the group
effort to sing all goros. Everyone should be singing gottos,

(04:01):
which are the chorus parts, and the groups, especially in
pieces where madiacis sing together. And then usually the singers
will take turns depending on the vocal quality, vocal styles
and strengths of each group member. So if we have
a person in the group that is fantastic in singing

(04:23):
like falsettos, then they should be the one singing most
of those most of those type songs, so they'll take
turns in vocal and vocal solos, but the entire group
will sing gottos together when they need to.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Very cool and folks.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
If you got any questions about mariachi music, text us
at five six, six nine zero. I don't promise to
ask every question, but if I get a good question
or two, we'll ask you as a hear of those
is a hard Mendez is executive director of Colorado Youth
Mariachi Program. So I see all these new headlines and
is there Is there a resurgence in interest in mariachi

(05:01):
or is it more that there's been, you know, a
fairly high level of interest for a while, but it's
just just kind of perked its head up by getting
a college major kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah. I think in the early in the early two thousands,
we had a lot more Madiaci's attempts at the school
in this in the school regions. Adam City High School
is where I started, and they were just starting up there
Madiachu program around two thousand and five. I started in
two thousand and eight, and that's also the time where

(05:34):
Brion Webster had started their elementary Madiaci group here here
in Colorado. But unfortunately, yeah, we haven't seen much rope
from that. I think that it was really hard to sustain,
maybe not enough funding support in these programs or just
not enough advocacy for it. So there it is coming up,

(05:56):
coming back. I think that's this thanks to the work
that my friend than I did at MSU Denver for
their student club, because that student club has turned into
it was such a grassroots organ project and it grew
with to uh to this degree. Now we have all
these people that are passionate about the work and are

(06:19):
investing their time, their talent into madiaci education, and we're
seeing this this boom in the growth for mediachi education.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
So separate from kind of the more obvious things like
playing these couple of instruments that you described that are
specific to mariachi, or singing particular tunes, singing in Spanish,
whatever that might be, what are what are technical things
about about playing mariachi music. Getting a degree in mariachi
music that would be really different from getting a degree

(06:53):
in any other kind of music.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
I think the biggest difference is the amount of listening
and involvement that one has to do or participated in
madiachi because Madish music is traditionally an oral learned orally
by by ear, and there requires a high level of
participation in just listening, listening to so much madiasch music

(07:20):
and then getting involved more into madiachi as playing with
different groups part of of maybe different types of song,
learning the types of songs, being able to hear the
different types of styles. So you really do have to
be very strong listening, have really strong oral uh listening,

(07:46):
ear dictation, and being able to listen to listen to
a lot of things madiachi related and also be able
to read music and think and understand some basic theory.
So I think that's the key feature in in being
able to to degree it to be in a degree
for Mani itchi music.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
We've got about a minute left and I got a
couple of listener questions. Is there sometimes or usually an accordion?

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, you can add accordion, you can add flute, you
can add mostly any instruments. I think the key role
is that as long as you have a guitar, ron
and a viuela, you can make anything into madiachi. So
it's very adaptable. But yes, accordion is common, is common,
It's not one of the standard instrumentations, but you can
adapt to it.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Is there a Grammy award for mariachi music?

Speaker 3 (08:35):
There are Grammy categories. I know a few groups that
do have Remmy have been awarded Grammys.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
I have a listener who was absolutely obsessed with the
Rush song Tom Sawyer, and he would like to hear
a mariachi version of the Rush song Tom Sawyer. Perhaps
you can arrange that last thing. And I have this
from multiple listeners. I want to I want to word
this carefully, but Is this a degree that somebody could
take and make a living with it?

Speaker 3 (09:04):
I believe so. I mean I starting from I went
to college to study to be a madiachi teacher, and
I was told that it might be difficult, and it
is difficult. However, there are I do see many many
pathways from a degree like this, whether it's teaching, performing

(09:25):
historian and coaching. There there's so many different ways we
can use this degree in this training to make a
living and get to make Cooper a feasible career out
of a passion. Yes, I do.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
It's a hard Mendez is executive director of the Colorado
Youth Mariachi Program.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Give me just a couple of seconds.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
If folks maybe have kids who might be interested in
getting involved in your program, how can people learn more?

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Absolutely? Yeah. We have a Facebook, Instagram or our website
at www dot co YOUTHMAEDIACI dot just look us up
Colorado Youth. MYDATI program with our season just started, but
we do have these fundraisers and a lot of events
coming up. We have a concert in November. We happy
to share more information, but follow us on Facebook is

(10:15):
where we say share most of our information.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Very good and folks, if you forget any of that,
if you just look up Colorado Youth Mariachi program, you'll
find it's a horror in her program.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Thanks for your time, Thanks for doing this is horror.
That was fun. I appreciate it.

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