Introduction to Mexican Music
» Conjunto Jarocho Music
Introduction to Mexican Music
Conjunto Jarocho Music
Conjunto or Son Jarocho is a regional folk musical style of Mexican Son from Veracruz, a Mexican state along the Gulf of Mexico. It evolved over the last two and a half centuries along the coastal portions of southern Tamaulipas state and Veracruz state, hence the term jarocho, a colloquial term for people or things from the port city of Veracruz.



Conjunto Jarocho Instruments

The requinto guitar has six nylon strings and is about 18% smaller than a standard guitar scale.
The arpa jarocha is a large wooden harp that is normally played while standing. It has a wooden frame, a resonator, a flat soundboard, 32-36 nylon strings (originally, gut strings), and does not have pedals. This harp is tuned diatonically over five octaves.
The jarana jarocha is a guitar-shaped fretted stringed instrument from the southern region of the state of Veracruz, Mexico. Typically strung with 8 strings in 5 courses, usually arranged in two single outer strings with three double-courses in between. The body is somewhat narrower than a guitar because of its direct lineage from the Spanish baroque guitar of the sixteenth century.

 
Where is Conjunto Jarocho music from?



Conjunto Jarocho music is native to the region of Mexico that include Veracruz, Tabasco, Yucatan, and Campeche. Since this is a region with a strong African cultural influence the Jarocho has African singing characteristics such as short choral responses to a lead singer, slurring or bending of the notes in characteristic intervals in the scale, and a sarcastic, irreverent attitude developed among a people who asserted themselves despite being outside the framework of the Indian and Spanish societies. Indian influence is evidenced in the frequent use of animals given human characteristics (the iguana, the parrot, the bull, the hawk, the dove), marked/staccato eighth-note rhythm repetitions, and some aspects of the singing style.

Famous Conjunto Jarocho Groups
  • Conjunto Hueyapan
  • Richie Valens