The Prehispanic Time
Certainly, the history of our music should begin with the prehispanic sound art that, although missing in its form and initial appearance, it has influenced in a thousand subtle forms on the later evolution of the music in Mexico. However, little is what one can say regarding the indigenous substratum of our sound art. Although the archaeological testimony, as well as that of the columnists of the Conquest, they indicate that the music had great relevance in the indigenous world, the prehispanic music as such continues being for us an incognito terra", and probably conserve forever this character, because that we know it was not written down, the world of which was part was violently destroyed, and already centuries ago was erased by the wind.
The archaeological discoveries of indigenous musical instruments speak to each other of their acoustic nature, of their great variety and diffusion, as well as of the differences that there was among the instrumental one used by the diverse Meso-American cultures, but they are unable to tell us which the formal principles were, the composition procedures to that it was appealed to make music with such means. Also, not invain he/she has insisted the music�logo Curt Sachs on preventing us against the error -in that you/they even incur investigators as Samuel Mart� or Robert Stevenson - of confusing the potentiality of an instrument with the music that indeed has been carried out in him. That is to say, as the series of sounds obtained in an instrument it not necessarily indicates the selection of sounds, or if one prefers, the basic scale type that will choose a cultural community given to make music, the autochthonous existence of an instrumental one, for very suggestive that are their characteristics, it doesn't allow good conclusions about the music played in him in certain time. (A characteristic example of them: " Galaxies ", a work of H�ctor Quintanar, it requires an instrumental endowment that doesn't differ largely of the normal one, but it demands from the musicians orthodox and not very habitual, when not entirely new execution forms that anything has to do with the way of playing the traditionally established instruments).
On the other hand, in the case of the prehispanic music, the pabundant testimony of the exclusively verbal Spanish columnists and frequently loaded with ethnocentric prejudices and moving attitudes he/she refers basically to the Aztec music, and secondarily to the Mayan, without providing enough trial elements about the sound art of other cultures that you/they flourished in what is today the Mexican territory.
Equally, the intent of reconstructing that sound world starting from the music of the current indigenous groups has to be seriously questioned since, on one hand, the music of all them, even the most primitive and remote, it shows deep prints of the European impact and, for the other one, the groups that maintain with more purity its character and traditional habits and that, for the same thing, they have holding to be considered as representative of the indigenous world, they are located in places that in general don't correspond to what can be considered properly as Meso-American territory, or you grieve they find in the marginal areas of the same one and, also, they never reached the high cultural level that you/they had the towns of Mesoam�rica or, if they ended up having a high development degree, they have involucionado, degrading its inheritance.
However, the talent and the native's musical capacity are beyond any doubt. The surprising speed with which the European music was assimilated and dominated immediately by the natives after the arrival of the conquerors it constitutes a test fehaciente of the existence of the suitable qualities. The Indians difficultlyhad dominated the Gregorian song so soon or they would have been devoted with such an enthusiasm to the polyphonic song if has lacked a strong musical tradition. (Some of the companions of Cort�s were singers and competent instrumentalists, and the chronicles count us of what way the native ones were fascinated by the art of those musicians and how they imitated them to the possible brevity. Even, the columnists of the time narrate some amusing anecdotes that you/they speak of the cunning, the easiness and the speed with which the natives knew how to rob from their best professional secrets to their European teachers).
For it is certain that although the indigenous music could not influence in direct form on that of the conquerors what is difficult to prove or of already rebutting in view of the difficulties suitable that there is for the determination of what is truly or have been the autochthonous sound art - the indigenous sensibility tinged and it tinted the European contribution, transforming with it its initial character. This way, the indigenous element contributed to model a folclor that, although it can be raked until its Hispanic origins and even further on, overcoming its African sources or levantinas, it is distinctive and specifically our.
