Revival of a Sound

Berklee College of Music Revival of a Sound Analysis, Production, and Innovation of Latin Rock by Roberto Hermosillo Candidate to Master of Music in Contemporary Performance July 3, 2015 Valencia, Spain Contents Introduction…………………………………………….………………………..…1 Overview………………………………………………...…………………………2 Brief History of Latin Rock……………………………..………………………….3 The Analysis Process……………………………………………………………….5 The Results……………………………………………………..…………………11 Production……………………………………………………………..…………..13 Focus Group…………………………………………………………..…………..15 Conclusion……………………………………………………………..………….18 Follow-ups…………………………………………………………..…………….19 Bibliography……………………………………………………………..………..21 Hermosillo 1 Introduction Latin Rock? Why? Having grown up in Northern Mexico I was fortunate enough to be in the midst of two great cultural currents. From the north, I received all the great American Rock, Blues, Pop, and Hip-Hop, which were being heard during the 90’s. On the other hand, I heard lots of Folk, Latin, and popular music that was coming from the South of the border. It was more than natural for me to become so much in love with a musical style that mixes the two currents that surrounded me while growing up. While I was still young, my ears were introduced to the sounds of great bands like Maná, Caifanes, and Los Enanitos verdes. This music was everything I was: a combination of Rock and Latin American rhythms. The beautiful romantic lyrics and folkloric elements that resembled the music of my parents and grandparents were combined with overdriven guitars and heavy drum beats. It was simply beautiful. From an early age I became fond of this kind of music. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a period of time where it was extremely popular both in Latin America and Spain. So, when the question of writing a thesis came about, there was no question that Latin Rock had to be part of it. This is, then, the fruit of months of work towards understanding, learning, and innovating a style of music that I hold very close to my heart. In the next few pages I explain how I followed a method to learn how to write, produce, and innovate Latin Rock. This method could also be used to absorb and learn the same skills in any musical style if adapted to it. However, this is oriented to one of my favorite types of music, and I believe that I successfully discovered a formula to create Latin Rock songs. Enjoy. Hermosillo 2 Overview My intent with this thesis project was to enhance certain musical skills through the study of this style of music. I mainly wanted to improve my songwriting and production skills. So, with the help of one of my advisors, Gael Hedding, I put together a method to accomplish such goals. The idea was that if jazz musicians learn to improvise by listening, analyzing, and transcribing the solos of their heroes, I could do the same for songwriting and production. So, the process would begin with analyzing a big portion of the main songs of Latin Rock. After doing a deep analysis of production, emotion, harmony, and lyrics, I should find a formula that I could use to write music in that style. The next part of the method would consist of writing songs using that formula, and arranging them in three different versions. The first version would be done in the style of the Golden Age of Latin Rock, the next one in New Latin Rock, and the last one would be a personal version. The personal version would be an innovation within the style. Then, with a focus group I would determine which of those versions is more likely to be successful. However, before we get in the specifics of this method, I must specify what I mean by “Latin Rock.” In order to do this let’s look at the roots of this musical style. Hermosillo 3 Brief History of Latin Rock. Latin Rock, Rock en español or Rock en tu idioma, was a current of music that started in the 60’s in Latin America. The first cases of Hispanic rock musicians come from Mexico and Cuba. Songs like “La Plaga” and “Popotitos” by Los Teen Tops from Mexico gained great popularity in Latin America, but they were simply Spanish-language versions of American rock and roll tunes (Mora 2013). During the same decade, in Argentina, bands like Los Gatos and Almendra became extremely popular. This was the beginning of it. During the 70’s, rock music in Latin America became a sign of rebellion. It was especially difficult for rock artists in Argentina who were going through a military dictatorship. Bands like Sui Géneris and Serú Girán were still very popular in their country. In Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia rock bands were banned at this time. This would not stop their popularity, nonetheless (Hernandez 2004). During this time, the sounds of rock bands in Latin America and Spain were still highly imitative of the bands from England and the United States. This was to change; nonetheless, during the next two decades. The 80’s and 90’s brought new blood to the scene, and globalized the sounds of Latin Rock. Bands like Soda Stereo and Fito Páez in Argentina, Maná, Café Tacvba, and Caifanes in Mexico, and Heroes del Silencio in Spain became extremely popular throughout the Spanish- speaking world. A clear example of that is the Mexican band Molotov, which sold over one million records globally (Pareles 2000). It is then easy to see that during this period of time Latin Rock bands became extremely popular. In the late 90’s and 2000’s the scene changed again. A new revolution of alternative bands like Los Fabulosos Cadilacs, Los Babasonicos, and Café Tacvba , brought a sound that was closer to Latin American music than the previous period. All of these bands sounded much Hermosillo 4 like a very strong mixture of folkloric music of Latin America and Rock. The popularity of these bands was huge at the time, and Latin Rock was the leading musical style of this generation. This was then a true moment of authenticity in the Latin Rock scene. The sounds were finally unique to Latin America, and not just a mere imitation of what was going on in England and the United States (Lechner 2006). Unfortunately, in the past 10 years or so, the genre has become less popular than the previous decades. While there are still bands that are playing internationally like Zoé and Maná, the genre is not as popular as it used to be. However, there’s still an audience for it, especially for the big numbers like Maná, Juanes, Café Tacvba, and Caifanes. This is the current state of the genre. Hermosillo 5 Analysis Process The analysis I realized for this project was divided in periods of time: Golden Age of Latin Rock and New Latin Rock. For my research I have assigned the name of Golden Age of Latin Rock for the period of the mid 80s to the 90s because this was when it became extremely popular. In this period, the style was internationalized, and a market opened for both Spain and all of Latin America. The biggest artists of this period, like Maná, Heroes del Silencio, and Soda Stereo had a very particular sound. They all had standard rock beats in the drums, overdriven guitar riffs (but not too distorted), a mild use of pads, romantic and freedom-instigating lyrics, standard rock bass lines, and simple triadic harmonies. The second period would be the rock in Spanish language created after the year 2000. The aesthetics in this period of the style differ a little from the previous one. The style became closer to indie rock. It was, in general, slower than the previous period, it used more tensions in the harmonies, it incorporated a greater use of pads and other electronic elements, and it usually had a more dramatic chorus. The analysis, then, started with an in-depth analysis of 30 songs of the Golden Age of Latin Rock. For weeks, I actively listened many times to a selection of the most representative songs from that period of time. The list was the following: Title Artist En El Muelle de San Blas Maná Rayando el sol Maná Clavado en un Bar Maná De Música ligera Soda Stereo La flaca Jarabe de Palo Entre dos Tierras Héroes del Silencio La Chispa Adecuada Héroes del Silencio Matador Los Fabulosos Cadillacs Gimme tha Power Molotov Hermosillo 6 Eres Café Tacvba Bolero Falaz Aterciopelados Afuera Caifanes Ingrata Café Tacvba Eres Café Tacvba Triste Canción El Tri El Duelo La Ley La celula que explota Caifanes La guitarra Los Auténticos Pachuco La Maldita Vecindad Mariposa Tecknicolor Fito Páez Lamento Boliviano Los Enanitos Verdes La Muralla Verde Los Enanitos Verdes Cuando Seas Grande Miguel Mateos No Dejes que… Caifanes En Algun Lugar Duncan Dhu Devuelveme a mi Chica Los Hombres G Baracunatana Aterciopelados Salir Extremoduro Me Vale Maná EL Son del Dolor La Cuca I then created an emotional timeline for each of them while also making notes on the production of the songs. The emotional time contained important information such as the amounts of emotional peaks that each song had, the location of the climax, the dynamic movement in each piece, the form of the song, the number of bars for each section, the elapsed time, the instrumentation, as well as the key, tempo, and harmonic areas for main sections. Here is an example of an emotional time created for this project: Hermosillo 7 “Clavado en un Bar” By Maná Sueños Liquidos, 1997 Climax Emotion Dynamics Form INT V1 PC1 C1 INT1 V2 PC2 C2 BRD S BK V3 C3 OUT END Elapsed Time 0:00 0:12 0:38 0:58 1:24 1:30 1:56 2:16 2:56 3:20 3:46 4:00 4:25 4:51 5:10 Bars 8 16 12 16 4 16 12 24 16 16 8 16 16 9 Arr.

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