M俍ica Tejana: The Cultural Economy of Artistic Transformation (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780890968888)

Texas-Mexican music, or m俍ica tejana, is not one single music but several musical and musico-literary genres, ensembles, and their styles, encompassing the corrido, canci, and what author Manuel Pe calls the canci-corrido. M俍ica tejana also includes two major regional ensembles and their styles-the conjunto and the Texas-Mexican version of the orquesta. A more recent crop of synthesizer-driven ensembles and their styles, known since the mid-eighties as "Tejano," is another representative of m俍ica tejana. Despite their diversity, these various ensembles, genres, and styles share two fundamental characteristics: they are all homegrown, and they all speak after their own fashion to fundamental social processes shaping Texas-Mexican society. As Pe persuasively argues, they represent a transforming cultural economy and its effects on Texas-Mexicans. Pe traces the history of m俍ica tejana from the fandangos and bailes of the nineteenth century through the canci ranchera and the politically informed corrido to the most recent forms of Tejano music. In the beginning, he argues, musicmaking was a function of "use-value"-its symbolic power linked to the social processes of which it was an organic part. As m俍ica tejana was swept into the commercial market, it added a second, less culturally grounded dimension-"exchange-value"-whereby it came under the culturally weakening influence of the commercial market. Since the 1940s, the music has oscillated between the extremes of use- and exchange-value, though it has never lost its power to speak to issues of identity, difference, and social change. M俍ica Tejana thus gives not only a detailed overview of m俍ica tejana but also analyzes the social and economic implications of the music. The breadth, depth, and clarity with which Pe has treated this subject make this a most useful text for those interested in ethnomusicology, folklore, ethnic studies, and Mexican American culture. Manuel Pe, who received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and folklore from the University of Texas, has been a professor of anthropology and music at the University of Texas at Austin and California State University, Fresno. He is the author of The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music and The Mexican American Orquesta: Music, Culture, and the Dialectic of Conflict.

Author: Manuel H. Pena, Manuel H. Peena
ISBN-10: 0890968888
ISBN-13: 9780890968888
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/01/1999
Pages: 256
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.32h x 6.16w x 0.76d