El Mariachi

The movies Desperado, and the El Mariachi played in it, got me interested in finding out what the connection was. Read on for a short brief on El Mariachi.

Mariachi seems to mean Music, Musician, Guitar Player depending on its use. No one seems to know the exact origin of the word. Most believe it may have come from the french word for marriage. Some others believe that it may have come from a dialect used by the Aztecs. This seems to be highly unlikely. Other speculation is that it might have originated from the name of the wood used to make the platform Musicians used to perform on, in Mexico.

El Mariachi, the movie was about a hitman named "El Mariachi", in this case El Mariachi would mean - The Musician or more appropriately "The Guitar Player" (who's the hitman in the movie.)

There were movies with the "El Mariachi" tag, namely El Mariachi, Desperado and Once upon a time in Mexico where the lead character of the movie is "El Mariachi" (The Guitar Player). The latter two movies are also listed as "El Mariachi 2" and "El Mariachi 3" respectively.

Their obsession with this character seems to continue even today (a low budget james bond eh!) that they are into making "El Mariachi after 10 years". It's notable that the first El Mariachi movie cost USD7000 to make. (talk about low budget).

Mariachi, today refers to an ensemble - a specific type of guitar ensembles played by musicians. Any enchanting music or more specifically the most enchanting music is to be referred to as Mariachi.