Folk music of Mexico
featuring content from the Smithsonian Institution
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Traditional Mexican music is a vibrant blend of sounds, instruments, and cultures from all over the world, mixed with native dances and instruments to produce a multicultural hybrid experience.
This visualization takes a look at some of the popular mixed genres which were created across Mexico as foriegners began migrating to the country.
Did you know Mexican music has many genres? Scroll to reveal genres of regional Mexican music. The genres are listed in general time-period order (though some periods overlap).
Click on the play buttons 
by each song
to hear sample from that genre/time period.
NATIVE &
Very early in the morning "about four o'clock" the Christmas fiesta is announced to the village by the playing of the chirimia and drum. Here we see traditional instruments and customs applied to imported religious ceremonies.
The music of the Yaquis has retained some original Indian aspects while adopting some Spanish factors; but this hybrid has become integrated through having been picked up by ear over a period of several hundered years.
The violins now used by the Tarahumar Indians in Chihuahua are nearly perfect replicas oí their European prototypes oí the sixteenth century.
This diversity which existed in the case of flutes existed also in the cases of whistle jars, trurapets of clay, sea shell instruments, gongs, drums, rasps, rattles etc .
La Llorona is a mythical figure of Mexican folklore who comes out at night, clad in white, sobbing and shrieking as she looks for her children. As anyone who looks at her dies, her appearance is considered to be a bad omen.
I will give a detail of what has happened to me, who have taken me prisoner, being a rooster so played.
On the 28th of January, I wish I could forget, Don Felix Alba came to arrest Jesus Leal.
I will sing a corrido, Of a friend from my village, Whose name was Valentin and who was shot and judged.
I'm going to tell you, gentlemen, (2X) all about my sufferings. Since I left my country, (2X) to come to this nation.
There goes the foreman So drunk he is staggering. There goes the foreman So drunk he is staggering.
Sorrow oppresses my heart, and you my love are the cause, for being so sweet
What to do I fly away What to do I fly away Well I like joy With shame I'm singing
The Rio Blanco Singers play the original instruments of Veracruz: the harp, the jarana la small guitar), the requinto (a four-string guitar) and a regular Spanish guitar.
While mosl sones feature a lead singer in close alternation with one or more singers who respond by repeating or answering lhe leader's phrase, "Coco" is one of the l'ew that ineludes a short. repeated response, hinting at African origins. "They say that coconut is good cooked in fine spices. but I say no. that chicken is better.
Whole families rose at dawn, drove to the fields, and worked in backbreaking labor until dusk. In spring there would still be frost on the ground, and in summer temperatures could reach 1 00 degrees.
They tell me not to cry for her that she left because she wanted to and I tell you folks that crying is an urgent thing
The translated title of this piece means lightening bolt and that describes the quick, driving rhythm that propels this piece.
Alludes to the military genre, but soon turns into a highly danceable tune. As often with marches, a lyric trio alternates with the march proper. The genre was much in vogue among rural audiences, and local banderos continued to compose marches well into the twentieth century
The Polka is one of a very large number of dance forms in Nortena music influenced European migrant culture.
The unique accordion music of south Texas and northern Mexico (known as nortefzo on the Mexican side and simply as conjunto on the US side) was little known and even less recognized outside its home turf. Since then, however, this danceable, joyful, lilting music from the vast and isolated border region has developed into perhaps the most widely known of all Mexican regional sryles.
I fell in love with a woman thinking that she loved me; I was disillusioned by her ways. And she mocked my love.
Sung in the falsetto style typical of some Mexican songs, this exciting song says "what beautiful eyes you have . . . how I wish they would look at me . . . Even though I am poor I offer you all my love.
Full-blown type performance born of fierce big-city competition between bands
"Jalisco, don't back down", the tilte of this song has long been a rallying cry for all Tapatios.