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 fundamental characteristics: they are all
homegrown, and they all speak after their own fashion to
fundamental social processes shaping Texas-Mexican society. As Pena
persuasively argues, they represent a transforming cultural economy
and its effects on Texas-Mexicans. Pena traces the history of
musica tejana from the fandangos and bailes of the nineteenth
century through the cancion ranchera and the politically informed
corrido to the most recent forms of Tejano music. In the beginning,
he argues, musicmaking was a function of "use-value"-its symbolic
power linked to the social processes of which it was an organic
part. As musica tejana was swept into the commercial market, it
added a second, less culturally grounded
dimension-"exchange-value"-whereby it came under the culturally
weakening influence of the commercial market. Since the 1940s, the
music has oscillated between the extremes of use- and
exchange-value, though it has never lost its power to speak to
issues of identity, difference, and social change. Musica Tejana
thus gives not only a detailed overview of musica tejana but also
analyzes the social and economic implications of the music. The
breadth, depth, and clarity with which Pena has treated this
subject make this a most useful text for those interested in
ethnomusicology, folklore, ethnic studies, and Mexican American
culture. Manuel Pena, who received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and
folklore from the University of Texas, has been a professor of
anthropology and music at the University of Texas at Austin and
California State University, Fresno. He is the author of The
Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music and The
Mexican American Orquesta: Music, Culture, and the Dialectic of
Conflict.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(1)
