El Caballito

My first assignment is write about the song "El Caballito" by Los Camperos de Valles. Immediately after pressing play, I began dancing in my chair. The song is very upbeat right off of the bat, and opens with a lively riff on the fiddle which is soon accompanied by fast paced guitar strumming. In the background, there is a repetitive clapping noise that reminded me of the clopping made by a horse's hooves when it runs. The vocalist (there may have been multiple) in the song sang very passionately, and at some points it even sounded as if he was sort of howling. While listening to El Caballito, I imagined it being played, live, at some sort of party or celebration in front of a large group of people. In my mind I saw many people, of all ages, dancing traditional Mexican dances together. Just by listening to this song, I feel that both the performers and the listeners/dancers play important roles in the musicking of this piece. 

I googled the meaning of the word "huapango", which turned out to be a musical dance and music style. I found it really interesting that I automatically attributed the upbeat tempo of this song to a certain style of dance, without knowing anything about it. I'm consistently amazed with the way music is able to convey meaning to listeners, even when there are no lyrics, or the message within the lyrics is lost. The hoofbeat like noise in the song comes from a wooden platform on which a dancer makes "zapateado" (traditional Mexican) dance steps. I read that the dance is traditionally done by men and women partners, and it made me wonder whether it would be unusual for same sex partners to dance the huapango together at a gathering. I imagine that men probably traditionally play this style of music (think of mariachi bands), and I was also interested to know if the person who dances zapateado on the wooden platform is typically male or female, because in Mexican cultures it seems to me that traditionally, it is typical for men to be musicians and women to be dancers. 

After doing some research on the band, Los Camperos de Valles, I found that they are a trio of men. It seemed that they did most of their work in the mid to late nineties, but also released an album about ten years ago. The type of music they play, Huasteca, is a region in Mexico located along the Gulf of Mexico. I discovered that the guitar played in the song is called a jarana huasteca and is an intrument that is traditional in that region. There is also an eight-string bass guitar that is typically played. Two trade marks to this style of music is that the violin is improvised based on the melody and the songs are sung in a high falsetto. The guitarists take turns singing coplas (short poetry stanzas) back and forth, alternating verses. 

I really enjoyed this song and thought it was a fun way to start off this assignment. Although, I will say that it was hard to sit still and complete this entire blog post, because after listening to it the first time I just really wanted to dance. Thanks for reading!