Family Interview Assignment

The person I decided to interview for this assignment, was my cousin Alessio Gonzalez. Ever since I could remember he was either playing the guitar or the keyboard. I could also remember when he got mad at me for getting his guitar without his permission. After Alessio moved out of our house, we lost contact for years, but I still had that memory of the music I listened to when I was a child. Recently, the family reconnected and consequently we would visit each other at family reunions more often. This is where I got reconnected with the music that I heard when I was little. The music my cousin played was Norteñas(named for the Northern region of Mexico)and Rancheras on the accordion. In recent years, I have had a strong interest in the music …show more content…
Further, I began to ask him how he became interested in music and when was his first exposure to live music. He told me that his earliest exposure to music was at his home towns Christmas gatherings, in a rural North Central part of Mexico. He explained that at these gatherings, our relatives were some of these musicians. He heard them play instruments that included the guitar, accordion, the tololoche(similar to stand up fretless bass), and occasionally the violin. I asked him which of these instruments did he like the most and why? My cousin responded that both the guitar and accordion were the instruments that caught his attention. The guitar, because it was the most common instrument played and the accordion because of the emotions the musician was able to evoke with the sound the accordion produced, it was like the accordion was able to display emotions. Next, I questioned him on what was his first instrument he played and who taught him how to play. He replied that his first instrument to play was naturally the guitar since it was more common to find and inexpensive one could find a guitar just about