Page - 23 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 2/2016

Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 2 2o16 Alejandro Miranda | Journeying with a musical practice 23 to form a group – that had already happened at fandangos. Rather, son jarocho groups became recognisable entities in the process of performing at festivals and being identified by a group’s name. Their efforts at organising festivals and the creation of groups revolved around the recu- peration of the traditional ways of making music by performing on stage. This seemingly con- tradictory situation was completely acceptable among practitioners for two main reasons. First, making son jarocho is a meaningful activity to the majority of practitioners; this practice means more than a mere pastime. Still, they do not make music for a living. The distinction between amateur and professional cannot be sharply made in this context because among practitioners there are no clear standards for determining what it means ‘professionally’ to make son jarocho. The more-or-less consistent understanding of what is ‘proper’ performance – that is, the stan- dards of excellence of an enactment (MacIntyre 2007, 190) – is established in the case of son jarocho by the continuous reinforcement of basic conditions of participation. These rules and routines are made manifest during fandangos, workshops and on stage performances. There- fore, playing in a group was associated with being part of a tradition, while sustaining an ambi- guous relationship with the idea of performing to make profit. The second and closely related reason is that practitioners regularly differentiate between those interested in cultivating the tradition and those who have a marked interest in profiting from the practice. This difference is established through the term ‘charolero’, which in its literal form refers to a person who uses a tray (charola). The term pejoratively alludes to the image of folklorised musicians using a tray to collect money while serenading customers at a restaurant. Yet the word is frequently applied in a figurative way, that is, in reference to a group of musi- cians who dismiss the community of practitioners from which they emerged after brief com- mercial success. There are some practitioners for whom constructing and selling instruments, teaching at workshops and performing on stage have become a way of life. Although many of their activities involve work ‘for the community’ (which is unpaid work), there is an ambiguous overlap between disinterested promotion of a cultural practice and the possibility of making a living out of it. This issue is a peculiar consequence of the process of recuperation of traditional son jarocho. Despite the emergence of a modest grass-roots market of instruments, workshops, professional recordings and performances, interpreting the activities of the enthusiasts of this tradition in terms of economic instrumentality would be misleading. Being a full-time son jar- ocho performer is not a profitable activity for the vast majority, and it has more to do with an ascetic life of self-sacrifice than the comfortable status of glamorous folk musicians. In which category do groups such as Pedro’s fall? Understood in this way, traditional son jarocho musicians performing on stage would not be categorised as ‘charoleros’ as long as they also participate in the tradition by taking part in fandangos. Pedro and the other members of the group developed their craft by participating in festivals and fandangos, teaching at workshops and building instruments. They were legitimate members of a community of practitioners and played an important role in it. But they also were one of the small number of groups that deve- loped a noticeable sophistication in their musical arrangements and, simultaneously, became part of networks of relationships that opened opportunities for recording and performing in various locations. In our conversation at the taquería, Pedro commented on this success by referring to the first time that he travelled with the group to California: ‘the tour started in