Bandas de viento de México

Bandas de viento are the traditional community wind bands of Mexico: ensembles of trumpets, clarinets, saxophones, trombones, tuba and percussion, staffed largely by village musicians trained by local bandmasters, that provide the music for religious feasts, processions, civic ceremonies, bullfights and carnival dances such as the chinelos of Morelos. Their repertoire divides between marches and waltzes, hymns and funeral marches, and regional dance suites of sones and jarabes, much of it preserved in written arrangements handed down within families. Documented extensively by the #Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia# since the 1960s, the tradition spans regions from the Mixe highlands of Oaxaca to the Isthmus, Michoacán and the Bajío.