For the past two weeks, third period beginning mariachi has been competing with each other bringing in guest judges from Chavez to determine the best of the best across our campus. Luis Talamantes introduced one of his past activities where his class breaks off into different groups and compete with one another each week in front of judges that Tito, the mariachi teacher, provides. The activity consist of teams which are chosen by the captains.

Each week Tito chose a song from the binders that students would have to play no matter what and then one other song based on the teams choosing. Which ever team wins for that week the captain gets to choose who they are kicking out of their team and who they are stealing from another team. Each team gets to practice for the whole week and then on Friday each team performs in a competition. As for the judges, they consist of Tito, Angelica (his assistant), and guest judges that Tito invites from across Chavez’s campus.

Since the class was so big there were three captains which were all the Guitarron players. They all were able to choose teams evenly where each team got violins, guitars, vihuelas, and trumpets. The three captains are Rolando, Alejandro, and Viviana who all picked the teams. The teams have already been performing for the past two weeks and in the first week Viviana’s team won with the judges being Tito, Angelica, and one of his advanced students. It was a really close tie as Viviana’s team won by only one point over Rolando’s team.

Week two of the competition went to Alejandro’s team with the guest judge this time being Ms. Victoria. Last Friday was the last performances each group had to make, so we had to practice two more songs and a bonus one just in case it came out as another tie. There was a big chance of that because Viviana’s group won the first week, Alejandro’s group won the second week, so if Rolando’s group won the last one we would go into sudden death.

And of course Rolando’s team won the round getting 35 points for there performance and Alejandro’s team got 34 points, so it was a really close score. The competition then went into sudden death, each playing one more song of their choosing. Each group performed and the judges took five minutes to regroup and tally up their points and ultimately decide who won the competition as the best of the best. Rolando’s group came back and won the whole competition.