Texas-Mexican music, or musica tejana, is not one single music but several musical and musico-literary genres, ensembles, and their styles, encompassing the corrido, cancion, and what author Manuel Pena calls the cancion-corrido. Musica tejana also includes two major regional ensembles and their styles-the conjunto and the Texas-Mexican version of the orquesta. A more recent crop of synthesizer-driven ensembles and their styles, known since the mid-eighties as "Tejano," is another representative of musica tejana. Despite their diversity, these various ensembles, genres, and styles share two...
Texas-Mexican music, or musica tejana, is not one single music but several musical and musico-literary genres, ensembles, and their styles, encompassi...
The Mexican American orquesta is neither a Mexican nor an American music. Relying on both the Mexican orquesta and the American dance band for repertorial and stylistic cues, it forges a synthesis of the two. The ensemble emerges historically as a powerful artistic vehicle for the expression of what Manuel Pena calls the "dialectic of conflict." Grounded in ethnic and class conflict, this dialectic compels the orquesta and its upwardly mobile advocates to waver between acculturation and ethnic resistance. The musical result: a complex mesh of cultural elements--Mexican and American,...
The Mexican American orquesta is neither a Mexican nor an American music. Relying on both the Mexican orquesta and the American dance band for repe...
