About

Notes on Son is an experiment on Mexican son jarocho music that expands traditional derecho and cruzado categories to determine meter and predict jarana strumming patterns, challenging conventional 6/8 editions while allowing for respectful but creative recreation of the style.

This site hosts a database of transcriptions, available free of charge for further analysis or to be used as a learning tool.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.

Technical

Tuning

Original (captioned as learned from) transcriptions use mayor (major) tuning, but a few of the many extant tuning possibilities are shown here for illustrative purposes.

Notes are presented from fifth to first course, overlooking register as it is heavily influenced by individual instruments.

Corde scordate are cumulative and new changes are marked with white noteheads for clarity.

Diagrams are provided for tonic, subdominant, dominant, and some of the most common passing chords.

Analysis of extended harmony falls beyond the scope of this work.

More tunings will be added as required.

Tone generator

Scordature from mayor tuning (semitones)*:
Cent adjustment*:
Courses:

*Calculations based on 12-TET.

Tunings

Mayor tuning, also called por cuatro (by four) or universal, closely resembling Renaissance guitar’s temple nuevo (new temper), ukulele’s gCEA, and other tiple-type instrument tunings.
Menor (minor) tuning, also called por dos (by two).
Chinanteco or Chinalteco (demonym that means people of the floating gardens) mayor tuning.
Chinanteco menor tuning
Cruzado (crossed) tuning
Bandola (bandurria, pandura, 3-stringed lute) tuning, also called menor obligado (forced minor).

Consider that mayor and menor refer to fingering patterns rather than harmonic modes, and that cruzado tuning is unrelated to the cruzado rhythmic categories discussed later.

Strumming

Transcriptions remove ornaments and split music in bars of 6 notes starting with the singing line, making strumming up or down the only options.

The set of all possible strumming patterns or permutations is ordered in the fashion of a 6-bit binary system, and numbered from 1 to 64.

Permutations

Only a total of 10 permutations are likely to be useful for playing son: #18, #21, #26, and #30 for 2+2+2 or derecho (straight) bars; #10, #19, #23, #27, and #28 for 3+3 or cruzado bars; and #22 for both classes.

Derecho permutations
Cruzado permutations

Based on preliminary observations, it appears that permutations of the same class may be used interchangeably, with rapid chord changes favoring #22, as in the case of mixed cruzado sones (e.g. Buscapiés), and with #10 being typical in pure cruzado (e.g. Zapateado) or mixed derecho sones (e.g. Siquisirí).

Use of permutations will be tracked for later statistical examination.

Meter

Compound meter sones will be divided into four categories: pure derecho, with only derecho permutations (2+2+2); pure cruzado, with only cruzado permutations (3+3); mixed derecho, alternating between derecho permutations and cruzado permutations #10, #27, or #28; and mixed cruzado, alternating between derecho permutations and cruzado permutation #19.

Limitations

Sones in simple meter (e.g. Bamba) are not consistent with permutations, and will be marked as such.

Mixed sones offer two reasonable, overlapping transcription choices: #22 (2+2+2) + #19 (3+3) or #10 (3+3) + #22 (2+2+2). The choice that best matches chord progressions and singing lines will be selected.

Mixed son permutations overlapping.

Pure derecho sones are often ornamented with cruzado strumming patterns, but not with enough consistency to be categorized as mixed derecho (e.g. Morena). As with all ornaments, these variations will be ignored.

Finally, there are several regional variations that will be indicated whenever relevant: mixed derecho sones can be played as pure derecho; mixed cruzado sones can be played as pure cruzado; and pure cruzado sones are sometimes played as pure derecho.

Results

To be published as data is processed.

Recommended reading

For more information on tuning, see Argüello’s The voices of the jarana, a comprehensive work on popular and rare tunings including the beautifully-named alta prima (high first, most excelent), inventada (made-up), la trampa (the trickery), and mañosidad (unorthodox dexterity).

To know more about the intersections between son jarocho and the historically informed performance movement, see Rzajev’s Entre lloronas e ympossibles (in Spanish).

For a verse repository, visit Morán’s ongoing work Jarochance (in Spanish).

Software info

Graphics made using Inkscape and Dorico Pro, all project files hosted on GitHub.

Updates

January 14th, 2025: Added Arrieros.

November 11th, 2024: Added Culebra, Sapo; revised menor tuning chords.

December 31st, 2023: Added Cupido.

September 4th, 2023: Added pure derecho version with justicia in bandola tuning to Fandanguito.