Pandemic motivates young man’s quest for music
(Seguin) – A 16-year-old’s love for music has already come full circle with the release of his very first album.
Utilizing a multitude of talents, Seguin High School junior Eric Sebastian Gonzalez and trumpet player with Mariachi Matador, has composed and produced the Spanish album, “Introduciendo.”
The album inspired during his time of quarantine has helped Gonzalez dive deeper into his passion for the Latin music radio format of Regional Mexicano – one of the most popular radio formats targeting Mexican Americans in the United States. The musical genre highlights the sounds from various parts of rural Mexico and the Southwestern parts of the United States. Such genres include but are not limited to banda, mariachi, Norteno and Tejano.
Not only did surviving throughout the COVID-19 pandemic help Gonzalez obtain one of his dreams but he did it all while also learning to play a 12-string guitar and discovering a talent for writing music.
“I’ve always liked writing so when it came to music, it made it easier for me because it’s two things that I liked and so probably my freshman year – I just kind of went for it. I was like these are two things that I like, I might as well go for it and see what happens,” said Gonzalez.
Gonzalez says he is proud of each of the songs found in the nine song album but gravitates toward two of them in particular.
“My favorites that I have written are ‘Un Baile.’ It’s kind of like a storytelling about just being at a dance and kind of seeing and feeling good. You are at a dance, and you see someone that you really like, and you just go for it and from there, you have your feelings take over. My other favorite is probably going to have to be ‘Tata.’ It’s a corrido (song style) that I made for my grandpa. It is his life story and that one means a lot to me knowing that I wrote it for him. I got to sit down with him and had a lot of conversations with him and him just tell me a lot about himself,” said Gonzalez.
Gonzalez says lucky for him, music was introduced to him as a child. Over that time, he has continued to be inspired by those around him including those in the current Mariachi program.
“I’ve always kind of been inspired by music. I’ve always liked it. Ever since I was small, I would listen to a bunch of music. When I was younger, my dad — he would be in a banda — Banda Sinaloense (Banda Viento de Oro) and we would go see him play and I’ve always liked seeing him on the stage and I always wanted to see what that felt like and so ever since then – this was back in California and then around my seventh grade year, we moved out here to Texas and that’s when I joined Mariachi and from there, I fell in love with just playing music and that’s when I started learning how to sing,” said Gonzalez.
Rafael Alarcon, mariachi director for the Seguin ISD, says he’s not surprised at all by Gonzalez’s success in creating his own personal album. Alarcon says the young man continues to amaze him and is grateful to have him as part of the SHS mariachi family.
“I first met Eric when he was coming in at six grade and when I used to teach at all three of the campuses and he came in from California. I really did not know him that well, but his cousin kept saying, ‘oh my cousin is coming. He plays trumpet’ so we were very excited when he joined us and he’s a very talented trumpet player, amazingly talented trumpet player and an amazingly talented singer but applying that to what he does in his creative outlet with writing his own music is really cool,” said Alarcon.
Alarcon, however, does admit that the notion of producing an album at the very beginning did seem a bit unusual.
“When he was at home, he just started doing music projects at home so he started recording himself and was like ‘oh, Mr. Alarcon, I’m working on an album or I’m working on songs, and I was like ‘oh okay, cool…that might be cute’ but then later, they started playing and I was like ‘wow, that’s pretty good. His songs are very catchy, so a lot of the kids locally started singing his songs you know just here on campus, and we were like ‘man, that song is really catchy, we like it,” said Alarcon.
Alarcon says despite having lessons in music, he credits the 16-year-old for utilizing his natural talents in accomplishing his goals.
“He’s very talented lyrically with his words and his expressions. You know sometimes you don’t know what these kids are feeling especially at their age and what’s he’s able to write and express, it’s pretty deep sometimes. So that’s impressive for me. His music arrangement stuff – a lot of times he goes by his ear, and I did have him in my music composition class last year and he learned some things about music structure and music theory that he applies to his stuff but still, I think he leans a lot on his natural talent he is cultivating that natural talent on his own with the skills that we gave him here. So, that’s really cool,” said Alarcon.
Gonzalez says there’s no other feeling like when he’s in his element – where writing, singing and playing an instrument are at the forefront.
“No matter what, I always will want to make music. It’s something that I really like doing. I find myself being in a happy place while I write or record. It’s just something I really like but, in the future, I would want to hopefully be able to perform my music out in bigger crowds and obviously go to college and study more music,” said Gonzalez.
Gonzalez’s album is currently available on all digital platforms such as Spotify and iTunes. His music can also be found on YouTube.