music at events

 One of my favorite aspects of music is its relationship with ceremonies and exquisite events. The piece is critical when setting the tone of an event or a tradition, along with encapsulating the mood of the evening. On a more focused scale, the importance of Music in Media, such as movies and TV shows, whenever there is an important event or a vital scene, we can usually identify the tone of the mood based on the music score. I am discussing one of my personal experiences with music about a significant ceremony. My older sister has always been an inspiration and the pathbreaker to many experiences in my life. She's always been there to guide me and the first to deal with many of the issues you find yourself in when you grow up. She is my half-sister, but I never addressed that because we've consistently grown up together. There was never a point in my life where she wasn't by my side. On the half that we're not related, she is Hispanic, so for her 15th birthday, she had a Quinceanera. The experience as a whole was exhilarating, and  I understood that there were a lot of culturally significant things that we had to plan for that most people did not get to experience, so I found the preparation very exciting. A quinceanera has a lot of significance because it is held at a Time in a girl's life when she's maturing and reaching adulthood. Besides, the event was rather large because we had as many people as you would have at a wedding.

Not only did this mean that we had to book a large venue, but we also had to have the proper musical accompaniment for the ensuing ceremony. Not only did we hire a DJ, but we also hired a mariachi band to play for my sister. We also had a solo guitarist in charge of many musical arrangements because he was a family friend. The DJ would play the music for the usual dancing and have background noise. Still, the mariachi band would perform for significant pieces my sister picked out because she wanted them to be played at her quinceanera. She specifically picked the mariachi band to play these pieces because she wanted a traditional feel for the special dances that she would have at the height of the ceremony. The mariachi band covered the song Vals de la Ultima Muneca and a few others. 

This is one of the more popular pieces played; the piece helps set the themes of the dances performed in a quinceanera.

The last half of the quinceanera was an arrangement of dances where the growth to adulthood is symbolized, and there is a passing from childhood to maturity as the dance ends. The music provides a tone and changes as the movement from childhood to adulthood occurs. One of the aspects that was different for my sister was that there was a separate waltz done to represent both parts of her life, so she chose a more traditional European waltz. 

I think music plays a vital role in setting the mood and establishing the tone of whatever is happening. I have yet to discuss many music uses in ceremonies, such as the wedding march and the bride's birth. Music reflects our culture and self in a way that words can't fully encapsulate. Music also serves as the medium for connecting people in difficult times or when different people come together to form something new.