¡Bienvenidos! Welcome to the home page of Mariachi Los Halcones, the mariachi of Desert View High School. I'm Ms. Bissett, the director. I teach orchestra and guitar here, and in the spring of 1993 four students stayed after class and asked me to start a mariachi. I said yes before I had any idea how. I was a classical violinist. I spent that whole summer learning, and we started that fall with nine students and borrowed instruments. I've spent every summer since learning alongside my students, at workshops, from records, and from every mariachi musician in Tucson who would let me ask questions. Six years later, here we are.

About Us | The Instruments | How to Join | 16 de Septiembre | Fall Performances | For Parents
Instruments of the Mariachi

Mariachi is a full-year class, sixth period every day, for fine arts credit. This year we have twenty-two students, ninth grade through twelfth:

Some of our students grew up with mariachi at every wedding, baptism and birthday in the family. Some had never heard a guitarrón before the first day of class. Some speak Spanish at home, and some learned the words to their first song one syllable at a time, then learned what they meant. In a mariachi everybody sings, and by October everybody does.

Every spring we go to the Tucson International Mariachi Conference, which has brought the best mariachi musicians in the world to our city every year since the early 1980s. Our students spend the week in workshops with professionals, and they come back to class a different group. Every year. I don't know how it works. I just know it does.

The rules are simple. Rehearsal starts at 2:45, not 2:46. Instruments go home in their cases or into the lockers, never in the back of somebody's truck. Trajes are pressed, boots are shined, and nobody chews gum in a traje. Ever. Students keep a C average in all their classes to perform. They know why. When you stand up in front of a crowd in the traje, you're carrying the name of the school and of a music that is a great deal older than any of us.

A mariachi has a melody section, the violins and trumpets, and a rhythm section the musicians call the armonía, the vihuela and guitar strumming the chords, with the guitarrón holding down the bass. Many groups also have a harp, one of the oldest instruments in the mariachi. Everybody sings. Read all about each one on our Instruments of the Mariachi page.

No experience needed. I mean that. Half of this year's group had never played an instrument when they walked in. If you can come every day, practice at home, and work hard, I can teach you the rest.

• See your counselor and ask for Mariachi, 6th period. Students can join at the semester too.
• Come see me in Room 112 (the orchestra room) before school or at lunch, and we'll find your instrument. I like to put each student where the group needs them, but I listen.
• The school owns violins, vihuelas, guitarrones and guitars to lend to students who don't have their own. Trumpet players, we have two school trumpets, so talk to me early.
• Can't fit it in your schedule this year? Come to a performance and say hello. Next year will come.

September 16 is Mexican Independence Day. On the night of the 15th, people remember the Grito de Dolores, the call to rise up that Father Miguel Hidalgo gave in the town of Dolores in the early hours of September 16, 1810, which began Mexico's war for independence. It is the first big week of every mariachi's year, and this was ours.

Wednesday night, September 15, we played the fiesta at the community center park on the south side, two sets, under the lights, in front of more people than we have ever played for. Our seven new students played their first performance in the traje. They were terrified for exactly one song.

Thursday morning, September 16, we played the all-school assembly in the gym. When the violins started El Son de la Negra, the bleachers started clapping on the beat, and when our trumpets came in, I have never heard that gym so loud, and I've been to basketball games in it. Our principal asked for an encore. We played Cielito Lindo, and the whole school sang the chorus. I don't think I'll forget that one.

Thank you to every parent who drove, pressed a traje, or brought tortas to the community center. You made it possible.

Call time is one hour before the performance unless it says otherwise. Full traje for every performance.

A mariachi program runs on parents. Ours have driven to every performance, sewn hems, pressed jackets, shined boots, cooked for a hundred, and sold more tamales than anyone thought possible. Here's how you can help this year:

• Come to the Mariachi Parents' Club, the first Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in Room 112: October 4, November 1 and December 6. Club president this year is Anita Griffin. Every family is welcome, in English or in Spanish. We speak both.
• Drive. We need cars at every off-campus performance. Instrument cases take up a lot of room, and a guitarrón takes up a whole back seat.
• The traje. When we started in 1993, we performed in white shirts and black pants with red sashes. Today every student wears a black traje de charro with silver botonadura down the legs, a moño at the collar, boots and a sombrero, and every piece was paid for by tamales, car washes and you. Trajes need hemming at the start of the year and pressing before every performance. If you sew, we need you.
• The tamale sale, Saturday, December 11, in the cafeteria, 7:00 a.m. until we sell out. Last December we sold 340 dozen at $7 a dozen, $2,380, and it all went into the traje fund. This year we'd like to make 400 dozen. Tamale-making days are December 4 and 5 in the cafeteria kitchen. Bring an apron and an afternoon.
• The harp fund. We'd love a harp. The fund is at $1,140, thanks to the quilt raffled by Annie Hinton's quilting circle. Every dollar helps.

And thank you to Jack Merino, who has played trumpet in Tucson mariachis for twenty years and comes in every Wednesday to work with our trumpet section, for nothing but our gratitude and a cup of coffee.