The second week of music class for arts and sciences was full of many different places and experiences. We started the week off with a class on Monday where we learned how to use video cameras and voice recorders for the movie project that will be our final class project. On Tuesday morning, we left for a trip to the Sierra Norte to get to know the music there. We met up with Sergio’s friend, Coco Martinez, who is in a band called Sonora San Lorenzo. His band is actually doing pretty well, they’ve visited the United States to play a few times.
Coco also does a lot of work with young kids who live in pueblos in the Sierra Norte. He started a music school where kids spend 4 hours of their afternoon practicing together. We got to interview the kids, and we were surprised to hear that the girl who played the drums in the band was 10 years old and had been playing for 8 years- she started when she was 2 years old!!! Some of the kids lived very far away from the school and commuted every day because they loved it. After we heard them play a few songs, we went to visit Coco’s grandmother’s house who lived in a little house on the top if a mountain. We drove up the mountain, but this woman walked up every single day. She was in her 90s and never visited a doctor. Instead, she had a Temescal in her house that she used every week and it kept her in tip top shape. It inspiring to see how vibrant and independent she was.
Afterwards, we went to Coco’s mother’s house, who lived in Tamazulapam de Espiritu Santo. She cooked us a hearty soup and spoke a few words in Mixe for us, the language spoken in this region.
Next, we went to see another brass band of kids who were playing for a fiesta of the female goddess of the pueblo. In this pueblo, the women have a traditional outfit- white shirt with 2 red vertical stripes, a long blue skirt, and an embroidered belt. While the kids were playing, the women danced, no men! They pulled Caroline and I in to dance with them. Afterwards, we conversed with some of the little girls. I asked one of them to teach me how to play the giant bass drum. The drum was about twice the size of the girl!
That night, we slept in a music school for high school aged kids all over Oaxaca who had a special interest in music. Some lived in the town, but some were from far away and lived and ate at the school. During the meals, we had some of the best tortillas we’ve had, handmade by the lovely ladies in the kitchen.
We compared the music of the bands in Oaxaca state with our experiences with bands in Vermont. We even got to share some of our favorite VT music with them! We played “Johnny Riptide” by Squimley and the Woolens during a presentation. Everyone was watching us while it played, so we started dancing in our chairs and people were cheering, they seemed to like it. Afterwards, we gave the CD to the school and we had a quick 15 minutes of fame where we got a lot of photo requests from the students before getting back in the car to head back to the city.
On Thursday, we learned about the different varieties of sounds from handmade instruments. Then, on Friday, we got to actually make little flutes out of clay! It was a challenge because we had to keep playing around with the shape until it made sound. Bobby used to play the flute and he was really good at it, he made 4 flutes that worked well. I only made one, it worked, but then I decorated it, I turned it in to she shape of a bird. I don’t think it makes great sounds anymore, but it looks pretty! We’ll find out how it worked out in a couple weeks once they are fired and ready. We’ll let you loyal blog followers know how they turn out, I’m sure you’re dying to know.
Over and out,
Your weekly Arts & Sciences rep, Madeleine
Week 3: The Beach!
Our class packed in to a car this past Monday morning to begin our long and eventful journey to the coastal region of Oaxaca. The car was stuffed with many things: our bags, a Bájo Quinto (an 8-stringed acoustic bass guitar unique to the music of the coast of Oaxaca, people (Sergio, Reuben (bájo quinto expert), Caroline, Bobby, and Madeleine), and some coconuts that we picked up along the way. We were in for a treat: on the first night, we got to stop at San Augustinillo, a beach that was the halfway point between Oaxaca city and our destination, Pinotepa. We went for a swim and as the sun set, little speckles of bioluminescent plankton emerged in the water! As we ate a dinner of pizza, the moon, nearly full, glowed orange in the night sky.
The next day, we arrived to our hotel in Pinotepa. It was so hot, SO hot, especially for us northerners. While we were sweating out all of our liquids, Vermont was getting snow. The coastal region of Oaxaca is unique for music because there is a mix of indigenous people and Africans. Instruments and traditions from both Africa and Mexico blend together to form a music that creates an identity. Every day, we drove about an hour from the city and visited a different group of "
músicos" who each had their own songs and styles, yet there was a pattern of instruments and styles. For example, a
charasga, which is the jaw of a horse, was played as a percussion instrument with a deer antler. A
bóte is an instrument from Africa which is a dried gourd covered in deerskin with a stick made of
"chupamiel" (a type of wood) covered in beeswax. The
bóte is a key element in the
Danza de Diablos, and we were lucky enough to see a performance of one! The dance is wild and lively. It was created in Mexico in the attempt for people of African descent to keep their traditions of dancing alive.
On our trip, we got to try Iguana! Even Caroline and Madeleine who don't eat a lot of meat had a little nibble because when else in our life are we going to have the chance to try Iguana? Iguana is a common delicacy in this region. One of the songs that we heard was about hunting Iguanas. This is an example of a "corrida", a song that tells a story. In the past, corridas were used to spread news and entertain at the same time, kind of like in Homeric tradition. Now, they serve more as a way of keeping traditions alive.
On our way back from the trip we got to stop at a different beach, Mazunte, for just a couple of hours for a quick dip and lunch. We spent our last night on a ranch. In the morning, they showed us the process of making Mezcal, a traditional Oaxacan beverage made from the maguey plant. We finally arrived in the city on Sunday afternoon after a 2-day 11 hour road trip and I don't think any of us want to go in a car for a couple more weeks (unless maybe for the air conditioning, it's getting hot!)
