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"I've always admired those of you who cherish the legacy mariachi
can give it's people. To believe in mariachi means having a passion
for life itself. To share this knowledge with you, a giving of my
thoughts, my feelings, my voice of how mariachi can touch each of
us is what I can express for you here.
I'll give you updates on the passion I have for mariachi as soon as
I can give them to you. Check back to understand what my latest thoughts
are on specific mariachi subjects. In fact, if you have a certain
subject you'd like me to respond to, I'll do my best to give you a
reply from my perspective on the Passion of Mariachi".
Jóse Hernàndez
Why is passion so important for you and Sol de Mexico®?
"Many mariachi students and competitors wonder about this. They may
believe that playing some mariachi songs is what keeps the tradition
of mariachi alive. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
True traditional mariachi is the soul and passion within it. To strip
passion away from mariachi would be like a painter trying to call
himself a great artist, when he's just tracing over an existing picture.
Sure, one can see something that came from and looks like art, but
there's no life to it. No originality. No depth to it.
Mariachi has to be within a person. We must live and breathe it. Then,
by how we play mariachi, we can make people feel how we play. This
is the biggest satisfaction. It's the most important—to help
people feel mariachi.
To be passionate about mariachi, I have to be critical about what's
being played by others. To me, passion is a part of the music that
can't be torn from mariachi. The two are inseparable.
To play mariachi with passion means to express from within the feeling
of the song. In this way, the song takes on a personal expression.
It's shaped and molded, not to make it sound like a broken record.
But to enhance it, beautify it, to allow it to blossom—all coming
from within.
This is true traditional mariachi. This is what enlivens and brings
soul to it.
I want to tell mariachi students how they can learn how to tell a
good mariachi teacher from a bad one:
A good mariachi teacher is a musician who can play the same introduction
or part of a mariachi song in 5 to 8 different styles of playing with
each version sounding good and without changing the song—all
the while without thinking about it.
I tell my students: "Mariachi takes time to learn. It's not just playing
a bunch of notes on a page. It takes time to learn how to develop
passion and learn how to live the life of a mariachi.
Then,
the feeling,
the depth,
the
soul,
the
very Passion of Mariachi will live.
My goal is to see that it never dies."
Jóse
You can send your mariachi subject to Jóse
Hernàndez
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