Conjunto literally translates as "group," and is regionally accepted in Texas as defining a genre of music (also known as Conjunto music) that was born out of south Texas at the end of the 19th Century, after German settlers introduced the button accordion. The bajo sexto has come to accompany the button accordion and is integral to the Conjunto sound. Many conjuntos are concentrated in the Southwestern portion of the United States, primarily in Texas and California. In Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 the term conjunto is associated with Norteño

Norteño (music)

Norteño , also norteña or conjunto, is a genre of Mexican music. The accordion and the bajo sexto are norteño's most characteristic instruments. The norteño genre is popular in both Mexico and the United States, especially among the Mexican community...

 and Tejano

Tejano music

Tejano music or Tex-Mex music is the name given to various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Mexican-American populations of Central and Southern Texas...

 music. Since Tejano was bred out of Norteña music originally, this association is not entirely false. However, due to various cultural and socioeconomic developments in the 1900s, Norteña musicians began trailblazing the Tejano genre as a tangent to conjunto.

Despite widely recognized as Mexican, conjunto is also used by Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

 and Cuban

Cubans

Cubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

 groups, such as the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional de Cuba and everywhere else in the Spanish speaking world. Other words used to describe musical groups are orquesta, banda, charanga, or the name may refer to the number of members in the group such as septeto for a septet, for example.

In the US and Mexico, a conjunto band is composed of four main instruments: the button accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

, the bajo sexto

Bajo sexto

A bajo sexto is a musical instrument with 12 strings in 6 double courses, used in Mexican music. It is used primarily in norteño music of northern Mexico and across the border in the music of south Texas known as "Tex-Mex", "conjunto, or "música mexicana-tejana".A similar instrument with five...

, an electric bass, and a drum kit. They are popular in Northern Mexico and Southern Texas. German and East European settlers brought their accordions, waltz

Waltz

The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...

es and polka

Polka

The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...

s to the region, which were adapted by the local population.

Fronteras" is a documentary film from the 1970's which illustrates how the music meshed into the lives of families in South Texas and Northern Mexico.

External links

• "Playing From the Heart", WBGU-PBS documentary featuring a Conjunto musician.
• "Conjunto definition"
• "Accordion Dreams", PBS documentary covering the history of Conjunto music up to the 1990's