Banda music

Banda is a subgenre of regional Mexican music and type of ensemble in which wind (mostly brass) and percussion instruments are performed.

The history of banda music in Mexico dates from the middle of the 19th century with the arrival of piston brass instruments, when community musicians tried to imitate military bands.

Many types of bandas exist in different territories and villages, playing traditional or modern music, organized privately or municipally.

The repertoire of the bands of Morelos, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Michoacán covered gustos, sones, vinuetes, funeral pieces, marches, danzones, valses, corridos, paso dobles, polkas, rancheras, alabanzas, and foxes.

One of the oldest bands recorded in history is the Banda de Tlayacapan of the state of Morelos, founded approximately in 1870 and being one of the first to play la danza del Chinelo.

Brass bandas play a wide variety of song styles including rancheras, corridos, cumbias, charangas, ballads, boleros, salsas, bachatas, sones, chilenas, jarabes, mambos, danzones, tangos, sambas, bossa novas, pasodobles, marches, polkas, waltzes, mazurkas, chotís, and swing.

[1] Banda music in Mexico dates from the middle of the 19th century, and more specifically the Second Mexican Empire with the arrival of piston metal instruments, when the communities tried to imitate the military bands.

At the time, many German Mexicans lived in the states of Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Yucatan, Jalisco and Nuevo León.

Jenni Rivera, the highest-earning solo banda singer of all time, has been credited with bringing a female perspective to what had historically been a male-dominated genre.

The most notable instrument is the tambora, a type of bass drum with a head made from animal hide, with a cymbal on top.

The percussion section also includes the tarola, which is a snare with timbales resembling the tom-toms on a regular drum set, cowbells, and cymbals.

Typically when a banda plays a cumbia, the alto horn players switch to Latin percussion instruments such as timbales, maracas, cowbell, congas, bongos and guiro.

In the late 1980s, another style of Regional Mexican music was developed in the state of Michoacan called Tierra Caliente.

It first became prominent in Chicago, Illinois and surged to widespread popularity during the mid to late 2000s among the Mexican and Mexican-American community at large in the United States, as well as in many parts of Mexico.

The three subgenres simultaneously produce rancheras, corridos, cumbias, charangas, ballads, boleros, sones, chilenas, polkas and waltzes.