Kultur 1 - Conjoined Music.

Being a music major myself, I am often interested in the blending of styles of music. I find the multicultural exchange between Texas' Spanish Music and German music very exciting. This kind of music, know as "Tejano" music is broken into a couple of sub-genres. The leading genre today is known as "conjunto." This music builds on the Mexican ballad form called "corrido" ( wikipedia entry ) and is then influenced by the the music of German immigrants, specifically the polka and introduces new instruments such as the button accordion.

This is not a small movement. There is an annual Tejan Conjunto Festival in San Antonio Texas that brings on a lively crowd. Nowadays its pretty hard to find a corrido without the use of the accordion as it has been synonymous with the musical flavor. You can find many kinds of Tejano music on youtube. A video snippet of the 27th year of the festival can be found here :

At the festival there were many live performances. Some of the music has even been spiced up to be more recognizable by modern music lovers. Last years festival was held in May. and even included classes on how to play the accordion and take care of the instrument. (Last years Schedule) - I am thinking that as a class we should probably all learn to play the accordion!

Upon further research I found that the "Father" of Conjunto Music is said to be Narcisco Marinez - (Find more about him : here)
In efforts to keep up with his accordion skills, many young Texans learned how to play the accordion from the German Immigrants. One such man was Flaco Jimenez, who has put out many CDs in this style of music. He even won a grammy with a Tejano that his father had written!

This music definitely gets you moving, and is a perfect example of how when cultures are accepting of one other, "beautiful music" can be made. Cheesy but true!