When is a piano not a piano?

When it’s a prepared piano.

A prepared piano is typically a grand piano that has been either modified in some way or is being played using atypical methods.

One might prepare the piano by putting mutes, coins or bolts s into the strings. One might lay chains or paper on top of the strings, or reach inside to smack the frame with a mallet. Mallets might be used to strike the strings,  or one might use one’s finer to select the harmonics of a particular string. Sometime a metal bar is rolled along the strings to create sweeping glissandos. Even bows have been used on piano strings.

Amplification produces another sonic layer in the prepared piano world.

Putting a variety of such unusual techniques into practice on a single piano adds up to a prepared piano. And while one might go to great lengths to note the locations and types of preparations, no two are ever completely the same.

I’ve worked with a lot of sampled prepared piano libraries between the late 1980s and now, but none has completely satisfied me.

The original John Cage library issued by McGill University was a good first start. The range of sounds was excellent, and the sound quite good for its day. But you had to build your own keyboards, and there was no deep sampling of how things sounds at various gradations of touch.

A few more came along in the 16 bit era but none better than the Cage library.

The 24 bit era has seen several approaches, most recently the UVI IRCAM Prepared Piano Library. It had a wealth of intriguing sounds and a broad range of sampled sound production techniques. It also let one create custom layered sounds, But while it had some depth, it still lacked round robin triggering which could have made it substantially more versatile and believable.

Soniccouture has produced bowed and mallet pianos, and Vienna Symphonic Libraries has produced an excellent prepared piano library, albeit without round robins and requiring numerous instances to get a fuller range of sounds. And just recently a library of palm muted piano sounds came out for Kontakt from Sampleism.

Imagine my surprise at getting Native Instruments’ The Giant Kontakt sample library as part of its Komplete Ultimate package. I assumed it was an upright piano library until I started screwing around with it and discovered it had much more under the hood than mere upright piano sampled. There were strums and smacks of the soundboard, winding sounds, harmonics and much more. Long durations sounds and quick tones. Chimes and muted sounds. And it appeared that there was also a bit of round robin triggering to make sequential triggering of the same key result in something very realistic sounding.

The sample package is available as a stand-alone library for $99. It requires full Kontakt 5. But it includes far more than just prepared piano sounds. It may well be the most versatile upright piano sample library on the market.

Buckley in Meteor Crater, Arizona, 1972

I came to the University of Arizona intending to study the geology of the moon.

And I did.

But what I came away with more importantly was a profound education that would impact the way I’ve thought about everything ever since.

One of the teachers I expected the least of and who taught me the most was a geochronologist named Terah Smiley.

Geochronology is the study of figuring out the time sequence of the earth, its strata and soils. It’s complex yet simple stuff.

I remember Dr. Smiley asking us what radiocarbon dating was. And we offered our answers, most centering on some permutation of the idea that one could determine the age of some carbon-based material by measuring the ratio of two carbon isotopes.

We came at it from every direction, and Smiley kept saying, “No.” It was a measurement of the two isotopes, one of us said. “No,” he again replied, puffing on his pipe. This went on for quite a while as we racked our brains to figure out what we could possibly have wrong.

Eventually we were stumped and fell silent.

“it’s what some scientist claims to have measured,” Smiley eventually revealed. He might be wrong in his measurement, or he might out and out have lied.

“You have to be skeptical,” he insisted. “Make them prove it. You have to independently verify those results.”

I watched Smiley make some of the best minds in geology squirm like 5 year olds at the weekly geology colloquia as they delivered their research papers. Not just students but acclaimed professors from around the world. Smiley had a way of cutting the crap that was impossible to walk away from unshaken if there was any weak point in your scientific argument.

It was one of those things I’ve carried with me throughout my life. It served me well when I was a journalist, as people lied to me outright or came to believe some fairy dust notions fairly routinely.

My own business of reviewing music was likewise highly subjective, and sometimes I would find myself thinking, “What would Dr. Smiley say about this?”

My days as a geologist were an integral part of how I reviewed concerts for the Tucson Citizen. It was all about relationships. How the sound came together in a sort of continuum of time and space. A landscape, of sorts, evolving before my ears.

Were there unconformities – places where the sound just didn’t come together for whatever reason. Did something happen to the music in a broadly architectural sense that made it go awry?

Of course a lot of my writing of music was also based on style and culture, but conceptually it was always instant geology in my mind.

As a composer I still write in geologic ways.

I had another professor whose name sadly escapes me. He taught crystallography, which was something I had no interest in whatsoever until I took his course.

In one lecture he spoke about impurities in minerals and what they really were. Most of us thought they might be dirt or some debris randomly distributed. But it was anything but random.

He spoke of how in some minerals the basic crystal structure would repeat itself, sometimes hundreds of thousands of times before a single atom of the so-called “Impurity” would drop into place. And then the structure would repeat itself again precisely that same number of repetitions before another single atom would drop in place, and on and on and on. It seemed impossible to imagine but he explained that the crystal had precipitated out over an extraordinary time and that each atom had found its exactly ideal distance from the rest based on such factors as gravity, charge and relative buoyancy. It was mind blowing stuff.

He also explained how these very complex structures that seemed numerically impossible could always be reduced to a series of simpler mathematical equations acting in tandem.

It was really beyond the grasp of my imagination, but it would form the basis of one of my own guiding ideas – that the impossible could always be broken down into many possible parts.

I love that I have that geological background within me. It gives me a sense of place and wonder everywhere I travel as I try to unravel what had happened in a geological sense as I pass various rock cuts along the highway or look out over mountains, valleys, rivers and the like. There’s always something more to discover.

I suspect it is a huge part of my fascination with photographing landscapes, which also manifests itself in video time lapse photography. In time lapse, the desert seems upside down and the river runs fluidly across the sky. I am as drawn to the sky and clouds as to the desert terrain and unique plant life.

Daniel Buckley is inducted into the Mariachi Hall of Fame by the Tucson International Mariachi Conference board of directors at the 2013 Espectacular concert.

A new film is in production focusing on how mariachis and folklórico dancers have transformed Tucson, Arizona.

Former Tucson Citizen writer Daniel Buckley, who was recently inducted into the Tucson International Mariachi Conference’ Mariachi Hall of Fame, began shooting for the new documentary in late 2012 as he was wrapping up his film “Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom.”

The idea evolved with Buckley during the 22 years that he worked for the Citizen. Year after year he would see young talent becoming better and better at younger and younger ages. But he also noticed something else. When he had gone to the University of Arizona in the early 1970s, very few Mexican Americans were among his classmates. But as the years went on, at the high school graduations he attended he noticed increased numbers of the mariachis and folklórico students he’d written about among those graduating. And when he talked with them, he learned that most were college bound.

Daniel Buckley shoots Mariachi Los Arrieros, 2009

What had happened? Tucson’s first youth mariachi, Los Changuitos Feos, which in 2014 celebrates 50 years in service to Tucson youth, set a precedent. It charged for its performances, invested the money and used it to send its graduates to college. The idea caught on and was repeated by other groups. Mariachi programs in local schools started at David Bilingual, Tucson High and later Pueblo, Sunnyside, Roskruge, Desert View and many more. These programs engaged the students, connected them with their culture and their family, and gave them both the reason and the tools to succeed in school and in the real world. They learned teamwork, and to be unafraid to speak out to people they might not even know.

Think back to when the Changuitos were started in 1964. The Tucson city council was instituting the dreaded Urban Renewal program which wiped out Mexican American barrios to make way for the convention center, and bulldozed Mexican businesses in the downtown. Even the remains of the Spanish Presidio fort, which cropped out around downtown, were destroyed in what was clearly an institutionalized attempt to eradicate Mexican American culture from view. Now fast forward fifty years to a time when the symbols of our city are the saguaro cactus and the mariachi. That’s some transformation!

Linda Ronstadt

The Tucson International Mariachi Conference was part of that change too. In its early days, singer Linda Ronstadt realized she could act on her dream of putting out a recording of ranchera favorites, backed by the greatest mariachis in the world who she met and negotiated with at the conference. The success of her CDs led to even more successful mariachi and folklórico programs in Tucson schools, and an enormous boost in popularity of the art forms.

Ronstadt’s CDs were far from the only impact Tucson had on the mariachi world. As the longest continuously operating mariachi conference in the world, the Tucson conference became the model for others around the United States and eventually in Mexico. Tucson-raised mariachis found it easier to get work with groups around the country than their counterparts from other cities. And Tucson mariachi educators started becoming in great demand throughout the southwest.

One of the great success stories is Richard Carranza. As a boy, Carranza was part of the Changuitos, then left and became part of a group founded by his father. When he graduated college, he returned as a social studied teacher to Pueblo High Magnet School where he’d gone to high school. There he started the wildly successful Mariachi Aztlán, at first as an after school program. It became so popular and so transformative in keeping kids in school that it became an official part of the music curriculum.

Richard Carranza

Within a few years, Carranza was principal of Pueblo High. Then he was invited to Las Vegas to become superintendent of schools. He brought mariachis from Tucson and started mariachi programs in schools there. They succeeded as well, and today he is superintendent of schools in the San Francisco, Ca. school district. In May his program was sited by the United States government as one to model in raising the standards of underperforming schools.

These are just some of the stories that will be included in what will become the 6^th installment of Buckley’s Cine Plaza at the Fox documentary series, and his 8^th overall since the Tucson Citizen ceased publication. Buckley will interview pioneers of the music in Tucson from its earliest days, along with their parents and those who worked with them, as well as youth and professional mariachis of today, and many in between. He will uncover the numbers that prove such programs are effective in keeping kids in school, helping them achieve while there, and sending them on to college and successful careers. And he will show the impact of Tucson mariachis and folklorico dancers on the world.

He hopes to have the film completed in 2014, and to follow up with a book on the subject. He hopes the film will inspire mariachi communities around the country to explore their roots and build towards a national understanding of the importance of America’s mariachi and folklorico movements.

In the meantime he has begun a Kickstarter campaign to provide seed money to get the film started. Kickstarter is something called “crowd funding.” Rather than going to granting organizations and foundations, which he will in later stages of the production, Buckley is turning to ordinary people in the community to contribute small amounts in exchange for various rewards. These rewards range at various donation levels from specially created mariachi art buttons and t-shirts to copies of the completed film, a listing in the screen credits and more.

For more on the Kickstarter project, which ends on June 21, and on the film itself go to:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1834268733/mariachis-transform-tucson-a-documentary

or http://www.danielbuckleyarts.com/home/bios/daniel-buckley-documentary-maker/documentary-on-the-rise-of-the-mariachi-movement-in-tucson-begins/

There is a Facebook page as well (https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Rise-of-the-Mariachi-Movement-in-Tucson-documentary/141036049384584?fref=ts ) and a blog at http://www.danielbuckleyarts.com/category/mariachi-blog/

For information on Daniel Buckley go to http://www.danielbuckleyarts.com/home/bios/daniel-buckley-documentary-maker/

And if you know folks who you feel have important stories for the film, contact Buckley directly at  dbtucson@gmail.com or 520-260-4176.

It put me in touch with my community in ways I had never experienced before, and surrounded me with some of the most caring and wonderful coworkers I will ever work shoulder to shoulder with.

Though I had written about mariachis and folklórico dancers before the Citizen, it was there that my awareness of all that they do began. And it was there that I wrote about the symphony, opera, chamber music, country and world music, as well as the odd features piece, and served time on the editorial board before and while producing video content for the paper’s website.

But today I’ll write about my first and last days at the Citizen.

I joined the paper in August of 1987. They had wanted me to start in mid July but I had left my previous job at the beginning of August of 1985 and wanted to have a solid two years between jobs to prove to myself that I could survive handily if I ever lost a job again.

Now it’s been four years. Should I be looking?

On my first day I came in wearing a suit and bow tie. There was no reception area like the paper would acquire later on. Instead you walked into the newsroom and straight into a row of folks that worked for the paper. I knew I was to report to Bruce Johnston but had no idea where in this maze of desks that might be.

And so I walked up to the closest person to the door and said hello to Pat Head – a rather imposing black woman who looked up from what she was doing and cheerlessly asked, “What the fuck do you want?” Before I could answer she yelled at the sports section, “Corky! There’s some kid in a bow tie. Must be for you!”

I explained who I was and what I was doing there and she pointed behind her without glancing toward the features section of the paper. I went back and got settled in with my first editor, Bruce Johnston, who was one of the greatest people I’ve ever worked with in journalism. He made me feel completely at home, and like no question was a dumb one.

It must have been a Wednesday because the next day I was supposed to write my first hot review – of the season opener for the Tucson Symphony, with a new young conductor named Bob Bernhardt, who would become a lifelong friend. Having never written a review before without a few days to do so, and knowing that no one was going to be around late that night to guide me through, I asked how long a review should be.

Bruce told me to write it for whatever length it was worth. If it was good, write up what made it good. If it was bad, explain why. Just tell the story for what it was worth. And if it wasn’t worth writing about, give it a couple of inches and call it a day.

I guarantee you no one in newspapers today would give you that total range of freedom in writing about anything. But newspapers had space and advertisers in those days, and readers who actually appreciated what you did. It was a different world.

My last day was very different.

On May 15, 2009 I had gotten up very early and driven to a cemetery on the far east side of Tucson for a 7 a.m. ceremony. The remains of soldiers from after the civil war to the 1890s had been found downtown while construction was underway for a new courts building, and these remains were to be re-interred at Fort Huachuca later that day with full military honors. A motorcycle procession of veterans, led by congresswoman Gabby Giffords, was to accompany them to the site for reburial.

I got to the cemetary a while early with reporter Garry Duffy to do the story, which was to be the front page spread the following morning. I was shooting video. So I shot the small coffins of remains by themselves, then with details as flags were carefully draped on each.

Bishop Gerald Kicanas of the Tucson Catholic Diocese was on hand, talking with the veterans before the ceremony. Before I knew it people were gathering, and I started shooting as the bishop spoke and prayed.

About 5 minutes in my new iPhone started ringing its cheerful little marimba song. I’d just gotten it recently and had no idea how to silence it, so I left the camera running by itself and backed up as far away as I could get as quickly as possible so as not to disturb the gathering. Eventually the phone stopped ringing, and without so much as looking at it, I headed back to continue the video shoot.

Just as the bishop was finishing still photographer Rene Bracamonte arrived and whispered in my ear, “I just got the call from P.K.” P.K. was P.K. Weis – our photo editor. I assumed she was explaining why she was late for the ceremony, and just continued to shoot the people and all of the military pomp of the event.

About 5 minutes later C.J. Karamargin – Congresswoman Giffords’ communications director, and a former Citizen staffer, offered his condolences on hearing that the Citizen was closing. Again, at first I didn’t realize what he was saying and said, “Well we’ve known this was going to happen for a while. We just don’t know when yet.” He said, “It’s today. I just found out.”

I told Garry Duffy but he’d already heard from Rene, and we set about getting our last quotes for what we assumed would still be the next day’s cover story and video. We interviewed Giffords, and in asking the question, Duffy noted the irony that the remains being transferred were of soldiers who may well have been among the first readers of the Tucson Citizen when it opened in 1870. Giffords picked up the cue and worked that into her statement of how sorry she was to hear that the paper would be closing. Gabby was always a good friend to us at the paper, and she often joined us at Friday evening gatherings at the Shanty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho3FfeysJqQ

At that point I finally checked the message on my phone which was from my boss, Dylan Smith, saying to stop shooting and get on back to the paper to shoot what was going on there. So we climbed into my Jetta and hauled ass for the south side, conversing with Dylan along the way.

The newsroom was in chaos when we arrived. Dylan was busily updating the website with whatever news of the minute was coming out about our closing. People were hauling their notebooks and legal pads to giant recycling bins around the room. Staffers were reporting for work, only to learn that they had to clean out their desks. Meanwhile other reporters and editors were busily preparing what would become our final edition of the paper.

My first task was to put up a going-away video I had shot over the previous few months with staffers remembering different things about their time with the paper. As fast as that was done I had to go and shoot what was happening, interview the representative of Gannett about the closing and what might happen to our archive (another story for another time) and edit it quickly to put online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UosUfOtzm2M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jdR4ppmE60

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TLnMpLzKDE

There were surprisingly few tears. Mostly people were in shock as they went about their final newspaper chores. Lifetimes of work and expertise were being heaped into recycle bins like trash. Personal mementos were being taken down and packed in boxes. And as the afternoon wore on, the newsroom grew thinning and thinner.

I was shooting all of this, and from time to time returning to my own desk to clear things out while rendering the video I was shooting to go online. People were coming in and out of my office to say goodbye.

About 15-20 of us stayed until the final press run about 11 p.m. We watched the pages rolling above our heads to the thunderous roars of the press. We watched the pressmen check for print errors and grab a few “spoils” along the way. I walked around shooting the people and the printing press from various angles. And the slowly the press slowed down, came to a halt and all was quiet (relatively) again.

We each grabbed some extra copies of the paper. I took a few more to give to the Arizona Historical Society, where we’d hoped our archives would be housed. It is, by the way, Gannett’s fault, not AHS’ that they did not end up there.

And then I dashed back to the newsroom to process the video and put it online. One or two people came back into the newsroom, but for the most part it was eerily quiet and empty. The bulging trash and recycle bins were evidence of what had happened.

I finished editing, chatted briefly with photographer Val Canez who was dawdling trying to get the stuff out of his locker, then climbed into my car and headed home.

It was a surreal end to what had been perhaps the greatest work adventure of my life. Some of the finest creative and reporting minds I have ever known were scattered to the winds, and a newspaper that had pioneered journalism in the west, even reporting the shootout at the OK corral the day after it happened, as well as the arrival of the railroad and every other major event, was now silent.

I put the box of stuff from my desk in the back room of my house, and have never opened it since.

That chapter of my life was over.

Los Tucsonenses 40th Thursday night DVD

Over three days in April, Ballet Folklorico Los Tucsonenses de Tucson High celebrated its 40th year.

Click image to enlarge

Now performances from each of the  three days are available for sale on DVD. All major credit cards are accepted. Click here for the link.

Ballet Folklorico Los Tucsonenses alumni

Thursday night’s show featured an array of alumni of the Los Tucsonenses folklorico program, many of whom now have their own groups, which performed on the show.

The 2013 crop of Los Tucsonenses also had a set on the program, which included awards and recognitions for many who helped the program over the years.

Los Tucsonenses 40th Friday night DVD

Friday night was a showcase for the 2013 team of Ballet Folklorico Los Tucsonense, with dances from a broad range of Mexican states and regions.

Los Tucsonenses 40th Sunday DVD

On Sunday El Casino Ballroom played host to the third part of the celebration which featured the return of program founder Dr. Rafaela Santa Cruz and a variety of performances by current, past and future Los Tucsonenses dancers.

Ballet Folklorico La Paloma members with Los Tucsonenses founder Dr. Rafaela Santa Cruz.

Daniel Buckley shot and edited each of the performances in High Definition video and put each day’s video on a separate disc (the performances were too long to fit more than one day per disc).

The discs are available singly, in combinations of two days (which saves money) and bundles of all three discs (which saves even more.

To purchase the discs go to http://www.danielbuckleyarts.com/merchandise/

Participant showcase schedule

In my thirty plus years of covering mariachis, the event at the Tucson International Mariachi Conference that I most look forward to is the participant showcase.

This is where the students who have gone to the workshops all week get to show off their stuff and get some perspective of where they stand next to other groups.

It’s not a competition by any means, but in watching the other students perform the different groups get a sense of where their strengths and weaknesses express themselves, and what they need to work on. At the same time, they get to show their fans and families what they can do.

The reason it’s always been of such great interest to me over the long haul is that this single event, more than any other, is testament to how the mariachi world is progressing. Year after year I have found myself thinking things couldn’t go much further at these ages, only to be proven wrong the following year.

Las Vegas’ Mariachi Mexico Antiguo gathers to perform.

The technical level of achievement rises, as does the breadth of repertoire, the assimilation of style and the level of innovation that these young performers are now bringing to the table. It’s a remarkable thing to watch evolve over time.

This year’s showcase boasted some incredible talent from unexpected places, and some groups that are in a building phase. Like student athletes, some years you have a winning team, others you build. But the potential among those building their mariachi programs is very high, and the level they’re currently performing at now exceeds what could have been done even five years ago at the same level.

There were three particularly innovative additions to this year’s participant showcase.  One was having the members of Mariachi Sol de Mexico de Jose Hernandez judge each group and choose one excellent bunch of performers to appear at the Mariachi Espectacular concert the following night. Another was webcasting the student showcase and allowing fans around the world to vote for their favorite performers. The third was a cash award from the Elisa Gastellum Foundation for the best high school groups. It included money for program development for the top group.

Later tonight I will add my own thoughts about this year’s young performers, and show some video highlights of the showcase.

Students enter Casino Del Sol for 2013 Tucson International Mariachi Conference workshops.

This is the sight I most enjoy seeing.

Kids with instrument cases walking in to attend workshops at the Tucson International Mariachi Conference.

(Click photos to enlarge)

Masters workshops with Mariachi Sol de Mexico de Jose Hernandez.

This year over 700 mariachi and folklórico students attended the three days of workshops at the Tucson Conference, where again they learned from masters of the music and dance. Jose Hernandez’s Mariachi Sol de Mexico taught the masters students, while level I, II and III students studied with members of Susie Garcia’s Mariachi Las Colibrí and top teaching talents from various schools and groups in Tucson.

Dr, Jeff Nevin (second from right) as he looked when he was a member of Tucson’s Los Changuitos Feos.

The beginning classes used texts written by Dr. Jeff Nevin – a Tucson native and former member of Tucson’s first youth mariachi, Los Chaguitos Feos (The Ugly Little Monkeys). Nevin, who holds his doctorate in composition, created the country’s first college level accredited mariachi program, and has written outstanding instructional books.

On hand as well was one of the truly historic figures in mariachi music, trumpeter/composer/arranger Don Miguel Martinez. Martinez is to the mariachi trumpet what Louis Armstrong was to the jazz trumpet – literally the inventor of every aspect of the instrument’s sound in the genre, from solo expressions to two and three part harmony and counterpoint. Don Miguel was the first trumpet player of the group that is widely regarded as the Beatles of the mariachi world, Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán.

Don Miguel Martinez (left) with Jonathan Clark.

Martinez, now in his early 90s, is on the road with mariachi historian Jonathan Clark, telling of his days with Vargas and his times recording with some of the greatest names in mariachi music. He had copies of his autobiography – Mi vida, mis viajes, mis vivencias: Siete décades en la música del mariachi – as well as three CDs of long out of print Martinez recorded classics for sale, and graciously autographed any for those who wanted them.

Jose Hernandez and members of Sol de Mexico working with masters students.

There was so much that I enjoyed in watching these workshops. In the masters level room, Jose Hernandez set the bar high from the start. He taught the musicians to use their ears to make sure they were together, particularly the trumpets. “We’re the loudest,” he said. “If one violin is off, no one will hear it. but if one of us is off, everyone knows.”

He insisted that the student musicians get it right, and they rose to the occasion.

In other rooms where the different levels from beginners to near masters worked I saw similar attention to detail and generosity  in working with the students. I watch Las Colibri’s guitarrón player work with individual students, teaching them precisely how to lock their often skewed instrumental lines into the polyrhythmic fabric of each tune.

Members of Tucson’s Ballet Folklorico Tapatio work with young dancers.

Over in the Pascua Yaqui Wellness Center where the folklorico dancers worked with Universidad de Colima’s Juan Carlos Gaytan Rodriguez and members of Tucson’s Ballet Folklorico Tapatio, it was the same story. Patience, precision, and gentle demanding of a higher level of dancing was the hallmark of each of the teachers, and one could see the young dancers making the steps part of their muscle memory as time went on. Worth mentioning as well is the generosity of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in making this world-class facility available for the dance workshops.

On the final day of workshops, the students were broken into small groups scattered all around the inside and outside of the Casino Del Sol hotel. The teachers were mainly working on rudiments with the students. At first I thought that was odd, but upon reflection I realized how right that was. On the first day, these kids were excited and wanted to jump straight into learning new repertoire and getting tips on style. By the end of the second day they had most of that down. And so on the third morning it was a good time to focus on the habits of music making that would make them better players and singers over the long haul.

Alberto Ranjel and Andrea Gallegos worked with small groups of young violinists, teaching them proper posture, how to hold the instrument for maximum long-term comfort, and how to really apply all that the bow can do. In the hallway Jeff Nevin worked with young trumpet players on warmup skills and more, while members of Mariachi Sonido de Mexico, Mariachi Las Colibri and others taught similar skills to their small instrumental groups.

It was very impressive.

The educational component has changed a lot over the decades, and been fought over sporadically by those with different ideas of how to best serve the students. Many different groups have taught the workshops in Tucson over the years, from such big names as Mariachi Vargas, Mariachi Cobre, Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano, Mariachi Los Arrieros and Mariachi Nueva Tecalitlan to many other local instructors, and probably a few headliners that I’ve forgotten. Maestro Rafael Zamarripa similarly took the folklorico area to a high level, aided by Tucson greats from the folklorico dance fields as well. But over time a more well thought out educational process is taking hold, not just here but all around the conference scenes in America and Mexico. The different conferences emphasize the workshops to greater or lesser degrees, but it still remains a prime focus in Tucson.

And when one considers the fact that all of the members of Mariachi Las Colibri, which wowed the crowds both at the Espectacular and Garibaldi concerts, came to Tucson to study at the workshops over the years, the conference has a pretty good track record.

I will likely come back and add more to this as my memory is jarred, but I’ll leave it for now. Tomorrow I will talk about the Participant Showcase where the students in their own groups get to show off their stuff. That’s always my favorite part of the conference.

Tucson International Mariachi Conference president Alfonso Dancil inducts Daniel Buckley into the Mariachi Hall of Fame at the 2013 Espectacular Concert.

Longtime mariachi writer and videographer Daniel Buckley was inducted into the Mariachi Hall of Fame by the Tucson International Mariachi Conference at its 2013 Espectacular concert on Friday, April 26, 2013.

(Click photos to enlarge)

Buckley joins such notables as Linda Ronstadt, Lalo Guerrero, Mariachi Cobre, Mariachi Vargas and Nati Cano in receiving this honor. Click here for a full list of prior recipients.

“No honor I have or will ever receive means more to me than this,” Buckley said of the award.

For over 30 years Buckley has written about mariachi and folklórico culture in Tucson, Arizona, and for over ten of that time he has documented mariachis and folklorico dancers via video as well.

Buckley expressed his gratitude to those who helped him most at the beginning of his journey to understand mariachi and folklorico. They include Elva Flores, Raul Aguirre, Julie Gallego, Ralph Gonzalez, Richard Carranza and the families of Mariachi Cobre members Mack Ruiz and Randy and Steve Carrillo.

Documentary filmmaker Daniel Buckley.

Buckley is currently six months into production on a documentary on how mariachis and folklórico dancers transformed Tucson, to be completed in 2014.

Buckley recently began a Kickstarter project called Mariachis Transform Tucson to help get the film underway.

The Kickstarter project and his recent award have gained media attention.

You can learn more about this film as it progresses via a special Facebook page, Daniel Buckley’s blog on the topic and his homepage for the film.

For more on Daniel Buckley go to www.danielbuckleyarts.com.

Some of what people are saying on Facebook about mariachi hall of fame award and Daniel Buckley’s mariachi documentary:

Richard Carranza For someone who artistically, musically, and culturally just plain ‘ol “gets it,” this honor is more than deserved Dan. You’ve been writing and extolling the virtues and beauty of our beloved mariachi music since before it was “cool.” You were one of the earliest supporters when we fought to get the mariachi curriculum into the public school music curriculum, eviscerating the critics of the effort with your logical and well-reasoned pen. How many school kids have you seen just this week playing and loving making music, loving their culture and themselves as artists? You’ve been part of making that happen in our schools. You’ve been in many of our halls of fame for a long time – this honor is just one more! Well deserved Amigo! íFelicidades! (Superintendent of Schools, San Francisco, California, founder of Mariachi Aztlan de Pueblo High School)

Gil Sperry It has been an honor for me to know you. In spite of some dark days, you have always persevered in shining the light of truth on this incredible music through your fearless probing journalism and classic films. Felicidades, amigo!!! Tucson is blessed to have you as an integral part of their Hall of Fame. Hope we can get you to head West and South in October. (Author of Mariachis For Gringos).

John Nieto Congratulations and well deserved. You have promoted the folkloric arts and especially the Tucson Mariachi movement like no one else has. (Mariachi educator, San Antonio, Texas).

Fernando Manzano Congratulations!!! Thank you for all the support you give the mariachi community

Marisa Gallegos Congratulations Mr.Buckley! You certainly deserve it for all the heart and passion you put into all you do! (Youth Instructor, Ballet Folklorico Tapatio)

Please support Daniel Buckley’s documentary film “Mariachis Transform Tucson” Daniel Buckley is in many ways responsible for promoting the cultural richness and history of Mariachi music, of documenting, in print and video, the many contributions of 30+ years of the Tucson Mariachi Conferencer Without his personal journalist commitment many fabulous stories and many more magical moments would have languished in obscurity and perhaps completely forgotten by now! If you love the value of education and the undeniable role mariachi music plays in the lives of our diverse communities please consider making a small donation to this project. Please consider adding this to your timeline.

Jose Armando Ronstadt. (National Spanish language television newscaster, Tucson International Mariachi Conference emcee)

This past week my 2012 documentary, “Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom,” debuted at a gala fundraiser for the Mountain Empire Film Festival in Patagonia, Arizona, and at the Arizona International Film Festival in Tucson.

It has been months since I have looked at the film, which is typical for me. I was already started on my next film on how mariachis and folklórico dancers transformed Tucson while I was editing the El Casino film. And since its premiere in December, I have been working diligently on that next project.

So when a seat in the front row was offered at the Patagonia screening, I didn’t know if I should run and hide or sit there.

Like every filmmaker, at first I was focused on the little imperfections that I spotted that likely few others saw. But I very quickly found myself absorbed in the film.

I was surprised at the folks some people in that audience reacted to. But it was a delightful kind of surprise. It was wonderful seeing them be tickled by the things that tickled me when I shot them. To see them laughing at the parts that cracked me up. To see tears in their eyes at the points where I myself could barely contain my emotions when it happened a few feet from me.

And there I was, laughing and tearing up as though I’d never seen it before, and wanting to jump out of my seat to say, “Watch this. This is one of my favorite parts.”

I loved that this audience looked at Fred Martinez, Jeb Schoonover, Javier Escalante and Paul Bear as the heroes I have known them to be.

When Luis Cruz said, “El Casino doesn’t make money. It makes memories,” near the end of the film, I knew they got it, and were moved by that.

I loved watching their surprise as the credits rolled and such odd El Casino occurrences as a luchador wrestling match and Zumba aerobics rolled by to the sounds of Sergio Mendoza y la Orkesta. And their applause at the close was as genuine as it was loud.

Up until that moment, though, more often than not I was just enjoying the film with them. I knew what was coming but was occasionally surprised as well. And with a good space of time between its completion and seeing it again, the waves of emotion it evoked in me was both surprising and gratifying.

The dance floor of Tucson’s El Casino Ballroom

I feel good about how this film turned out. I feel good about how it validated the lives of a lot of people, and how it told a great story about a place not everyone knows, but all should in my community.

I have never been prouder of anything I’ve done. And yet I know this is just the prelude to the mariachi film, which I feel confident will become the best film I likely will ever make.

In the end, a good documentary starts with a good story. El Casino Ballroom was a great one. I am honored that so many shared their moving stories with me for the making of this film. And humbled to realize that I did a halfway decent job putting that story together.

Mariachi Aztlán de Pueblo High School performs at the Tucson International Mariachi Conference in 2011.

As I work on materials for a new Kickstarter campaign to fund my film on the rise of the mariachi movement in Tucson, the transformational power of mariachi culture becomes clearer and clearer to me.

At the time when Tucson’s first youth mariachi – Los Changuitos Feos – was being launched in 1964, the city of Tucson was starting up a program to deliberately destroy a large portion of the Mexican American homes and businesses in downtown, under the emblem of Urban Renewal. Even portions of the original Spanish presidio fort, which remained scattered around downtown, were destroyed in that effort to “turn Tucson into a modern city” at the expense of those least able to fight back.

Downtown Chicano neighborhoods destroyed as part of Tucson’s “Urban Renewal” program of the 1960s.

What a contrast with today when the city of Tucson now has two iconic symbols – the saguaro cactus, and the mariachi. This is directly attributable to the proliferation of mariachi groups in Tucson, the culture’s adoption as part of music and dance programs in the schools, and the success of the Tucson International Mariachi Conference.

When the Changuitos was formed, students were still being physically punished for speaking Spanish in school, and this had been the case for generations. Few of the original Changuitos spoke any Spanish. Compare that to now when so many young people are fluently bilingual. Compare as well the lower school dropout rates associated with mariachi and folklorico programs in the school, the increase in graduation rates among Mexican Americans, the number of Latino graduates going on to college, and the rise in political power of the culture.

An early version of Mariachi Los Changuitos Feos – Tucson and America’s first youth mariachi.

That is what this film is about – showing this revolution as evolution through the art form’s ability to change cultural perceptions as it changes the quality of life of its core population.

How this ongoing process came about and how it is changing both our corner of the world and the world at large is the challenge, and through interviews with those who lived it, along with archival footage and stills, this important, uplifting American story will be told.

Stay tuned for more on how you can become involved in sharing this story with the world.