Mariachi Mastery La Maestria del Mariachi
By Jeffrey Nevin
Student Versions: Book/CD
Score Version: Book/2 CD's
This comprehensive resource is exactly what you need to develop a successful mariachi program in your school! Whether you already have a mariachi program, or are just thinking of starting one, Mariachi Mastery will be an enlightening and invaluable resource.
Mariachi Mastery is designed to provide mariachi students and teachers with a formal method that has two broad purposes in mind:
- Teaching musical technique and literacy through mariachi music
- Teaching the fundamentals of mariachi music and style
Entirely bilingual, this Score & Resource Guide is packed with helpful hints and detailed explanations for all musical exercises. Also included are worksheets and answer keys, historical information, guides on teaching the individual mariachi instruments, and informative articles, such as "The National Standards of Music Education as Applied to Mariachi Music." With flexible instrumentation and careful scoring, Mariachi Mastery allows you to simultaneously teach violin, trumpet, guitarrón, armonía, viola, cello, bass and/or harp students all together in one room.
Each instrument book has exercises and performance tips specifically written for that instrument, and all of the books work together seamlessly so that you can successfully guide your students’ musical advancement while learning to perform mariachi music in the authentic style. The violin, trumpet, viola, cello, and bass books are ideal for students who have completed the first book in a comprehensive method series for their instrument. No prior experience is required for the harp, guitar/vihuela, and guitarron---the series is written in such a way as to allow beginning players on these instruments to quickly "catch up" with the others who have one year of experience already. Vocal exercises are included in all of the books since every instrumentalist is expected to also sing in mariachi.
Mariachi Mastery is divided into two sections representing two broad styles of mariachi music: Ranchera and Son. Ranchera is a type of song that features a somewhat simple and unobtrusive rhythmic accompaniment by the armonia and guitarron, with a prominent melody sung by a solo singer. Sones are much more active rhythimically and often syncopated. In most sones, the rhythmic accompaniment is just as important as the melody.
Each chapter introduces different keys, different scale patterns, melodic patterns and rhythms for the violins and trumpets, and chords, harmonic progressions, rhythms (song types) for the guitarrón, armonía and harp. All of these exercises could be used as a warm up or preparation for other songs as well. In this way a teacher could spend more time progressing through the method (introducing outside songs after every chapter), or play through the method start-to-finish and then refer back to specific exercises in order to refresh and drill important concepts (scales, keys, rhythms, etc.) as further preparation for learning other songs.
There is an accompaniment CD included with each student book and the score version. The CD is mastered so that students can either hear the armonia and melody instruments together, or seperate them out to listen more closely to their own part. The CD's are enhanced, and you will find complete recordings of the 12 songs in .mp3 file format so you can listen to them using your computer's audio program.
The 2nd CD included with the SCORE ONLY version contains standard audio versions of the .mp3 files on the student CDs playable on a standard audio CD player. The enhanced portion of this 2nd disc contains .pdf files of the Mariachi and Music Literacy Worksheets located in the score book.
