by Eva Dameron
Daily Lobo
UNM has its own Bobby McFerrin, except Ramon Calderon is from Cuba.
Like the famed McFerrin, Calderon makes music with his mouth.
This Friday he is putting on a concert called "Music with the Mouth Street Style" at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
He said he will use vocal techniques to make all the instrumental and percussive sounds.
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"In Cuba, it's normal for people to make music with their mouths in the street," he said.
Along with the traditional styles of his homeland, he also covers singer McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" but gives it a Cuban twist.
He said different genres in Cuban music are determined by the percussion style.
He began learning the profession and refining his techniques in 1985 while at the University of Cuba. He was in a group of vocal performers and was the understudy for seven people. He had to learn everyone's part and be prepared for any one of them possibly not showing up.
It was extra difficult, because while all their percussive music was transcribed for reading, he was performing neo-folkloric pieces that had never been written down. He had to learn them by ear.
"Before the 1800s, all the music in Cuba was coming in from Europe," he said.
He said it was important for Cuba to have its own style of music.
"Folklore Cubano is a type of music that's been around since the 1800s, but no one had researched it, so it's just now coming out," he said.
He said in 1980, people began researching Folklore Cubano.
"It's very important in the evolution of Cuban music," he said.
He said the after the 1920s, Cuba was better developed. Speakers and amplifiers moved the music from ballrooms for wealthy people to the outside for everyone.
He said all the money he makes from the concert will go toward the completion of his doctorate in environmental engineering at UNM.
He said the audience gets a bit of education along with a musical performance, because Calderon gives the history behind every song, including the musical formats.
He will project slides onto a screen to give the atmosphere of Cuba with scenic images.
In his concert, he will be performing two styles of Cuban music. The first kind is orchestral, in which bass, piano, percussion and the other instruments are made with the mouth. He pre-records the music and sings the words over it. This way, one man sounds like an entire band.
The second style is called "Ma Jo Meno," an a cappella vocal technique in which he does all the sounds live, with no pre-recordings to back him up.
He said at the concert, audience members should come prepared to move their body.
"This is dancing music," he said.
