For this week’s song share I have decided to write about a video of an all female mariachi band. The band goes by the name Flor De Toloache, and is based in New York City. Throughout the video the band plays three pieces entitled; “Let Down”, “Dicen”, and “Guadalajara”, but for this assignment I will be focusing on the first song “Let Down”. I came across this video as I searched for women playing mariachi on YouTube. I felt especially inclined to look into mariachi for this song share due to the short documentary we watched in class the other day. In the documentary, they specified that for a long time women were discouraged from joining mariachi bands, so I felt that it would be interesting to find a video featuring female mariachi players. I was fortunate enough to find Flor De Toloache who happened to be an all female mariachi band.
As for the music itself, I thought it was very enjoyable. One thing that I thought was interesting about the first piece was that the singing started off in English. Often when I think of mariachi music I think of the lyrics to be sung in Spanish, so I thought that the words being in English was unique for a mariachi band. The part of the music in English also had a very laid back feel and tempo, which also felt different from what I have know mariachi to sound like. From there the music then went on to a more upbeat tempo, and transitioned into the music being sung in Spanish. The faster tempo and the lyrics being in Spanish defiantly gave the music more of the recognizable mariachi feel that I did not get from the first part of the song. It was interesting at the beginning of the piece to hear mariachi in a way that I am not familiar with.
I thought overall this performance was done very well. The musicians are extremely talented not just as a group, but as individuals as well. They all looked to be so professional about their music, but seemed to be enjoying themselves as well. They also all wore beautiful outfits to match their music, which was a nice touch. After watching this video and learning about Floe De Toloache, I think it should become a more common occurrence for mariachi bands to be all female, because if these women can do it so well, why can’t others?
The Video:
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