Free Flute Sheet Music

Tune of the Day: Mexican Hat Dance

This musical piece, actually a medley of Mexican folk music, was composed in the 19th century by a professor of music in Guadalajara, J.G. Rubio.

In its standardized form, the song was first choreographed by the Mexican Felipa Lopez in the early twentieth century to celebrate a government-sponsored fiesta that commemorated the successful end of the Mexican Revolution. Since then it has become a folk dance popular throughout Mexico and the Southwestern United States as a symbol of the national pride and honor of the Mexican people.

n 1924, Secretary of Education José Vasconcelos proclaimed the “Jarabe tapatio” to be Mexico’s national dance and decreed that it would be taught throughout the Mexican public school system as a symbol of Mexican identity, designed to supersede any local dance traditions and bind together the ethnically diverse.