Week 8: MILPA / MAIZ -- MAGUEY / PULQUE -- SON‏ / Continuar y llenar

Mayan glyphs, Madrid Codex

That was a wonderful evening, last night. No se me ocurrió antes que ustedes pueden guiar/dirigir las canciones para el grupo entero--y comó no?? Quedó perfecto...y lo hacemos más.

There were a number of missing teeth. Some of you wrote me ahead of time, others not. In any case, I'm of course sympathetic to the demands of your course load--but we meet just once a week, and there's no way outside of class to make up for what happens in Room 170. You need to be there. Enough said?

CHANGE IN PLAN. After sleeping on it, I think it's really important that we continue with the current Week 7 theme: MAIZ/MILPA -- MAGUEY/PULQUE -- SON.  For one thing, you all need more time to engage yourselves with the full range of material I sent you.
I want you to consider more thoroughly the distinction between "country" songs (sones, del campo) and the popular songs that reflect the move to the city--and the loss of rural tradition--which in fact is the subject of those later popular songs! (Cuatro milpas is a good example, likewise El destrerrado....and of course Mi chaparrita and La borrachita...) You can also think about the elements that come from Europe--vs. the elements that are autochthonous--that is, mesoamericano...and how these can be seen/heard/undrestood in the songs themselves.
So, listen to the new DOWNLOADS (Cuarteto Coculense 1908-09 and the contemporary versions by Los Cenzontes).

Also, I want everyone to view the 4 YouTube videos that Valdemar found for us. They're on his Notebook site, with Valdemar's insightful introduction. They present the view "from the country" (quite beautifully): 

http://lasquerencias.blogspot.com/?m=0 (Go to Marzo 2013,"About maíz and milpa")

  
from Gnu'u nuni / Las palabras del maíz 

And I want you to work on that "difficult" song--Cuatro Milpas. I will forward you the lyrics separately (in the Davíd Zaizar version) so that you can listen and learn the timing. It's not really that hard--just listen patiently and sing each line. And pay attention to the intonation (where the notes hit in the scale). DAVID ZAIZAR CUATRO MILPAS - YouTube

Also, let's learn "El Desterrado" Hnos. Zaizar - YouTube. Les voy a mandar la letra para esta también... It's a great GROUP song. You'll see...

So, your "assignment" is to do some (more) beautiful work on the theme we began in Week 7. To carry it further!!!

___

Note that March 21, next week, will be the last class before Spring Break. We'll wait till next Thursday to take up la canción romantica--I'll introduce Guty Cardenas and Trova yucateca en la proxima!

Les agradezco a todos por su buen espíritu!  Tony