More than two dozen men and boys stand at tables practicing on hand-held drum heads inside a big red barn.
They’ve come to this dusty ranch in Midlothian just south of Dallas, to learn from music legends.
The students range in age from 11 to 46. They’ve come from Arkansas, Colorado and North Carolina. And they’re all here to get better at conjunto-style drumming.
Conjunto literally translates to “a group.”
As for the music genre, conjunto, it’s an OOM-PAH sound. It was born in Texas along the border and sounds a little like traditional norteño music from northern Mexico, with a splash of Tejano, from South Texas.
It’s bouncier than the Tejano cumbia that Selena made familiar.
Beto Morales organized this camp. He’s a drummer and podcaster based in Colorado.
He runs a network of drummers called Baqueteros Macizos.
Morales said the camp’s hands-on experience goes deeper than social media tutorials. And it gives students a path to musical growth.
“This whole main point was to get in-depth with the students and give them a brighter future,” he said. “Give them the pathway a little easier than what [their instructors] had to go through.
Instructors are among the most popular conjunto and norteño music drummers.
They are Texan and Mexican drummers from award-winning bands known nationally and internationally, who’ve racked up tens of millions of listeners and followers across music-streaming and social media platforms.
"Instead of having to learn in five, 10 years you're compacting 30 years of experience into two days, which is a lot,” said Morales. “But you get one-on-ones with these people. You're literally a foot away from these people learning and I think it's just something that people needed.”
Camper Emiliano Rodriguez is a junior at Skyline High School in Dallas.
He’s been in school marching bands and attended those band camps. This is different, he said.
“I feel like, especially for drummers that are famous and are actually experiencing very big tours, Grammy winners, I feel they're able to help us see more into that.”
Emiliano is in a local band called La Sede Norteña.
He prefers norteño to conjunto. It’s got a faster tempo with traditional folk storytelling.
That’s what he wanted to learn more about at camp.
But he got much more.
“They also tried to inspire us to listen to more genres, not just norteño, because for somebody to play the drums they’ve got to love music in general not just their one genre,” he said.
“It did open my eyes a little bit and especially since I like experimenting when it comes to music. But I always had second thoughts thinking like, ‘Should I risk it?’ But these guys really opened my eyes to risk it more.”
He points to Grupo Frontera, who started as strictly norteño.
Over the years they added corridos – Mexican legends told in ballads.
They experimented with rap and tribal, he said. And collaborated on a song with Bad Bunny.
“Risking basically creating a new style of music, yeah, there's going to be people that might say like, ‘Oh, it sounds trash because it's not Norteño no more.’ But it can also get a lot of success because it's unique. It's something that has never been done before.”
Camp instructor Pablo Martinez was a heavy metal drummer before joining Irving-based conjunto group Adverzo.
Producer Gama Diaz wears a Billie Eilish “Hit Me Hard and Soft” t-shirt.
He’s also the drummer for Keith Nieto, a North Texas conjunto musician who owns the ranch that hosted the camp.
Diaz runs the newly renovated recording studio at the ranch, DFW Music Studio. He spoke to the drum students.
Professional drummers who taught at the camp also included Sergio “Sheko” Olguin from Los Cuates de Sinaloa and La Fiera de Ojinaga’s Ozcar Zuñiga.
Latin Grammy winner Adrian Regalado was another camp instructor.
He’s drummed for Conjunto Primavera for 20 years. Regalado and the San Antonio band are norteño legends.
“I had a little kid yesterday, he's like, ‘Adrian, I want you to teach me how to do this,’ ” Regalado said. “I said ‘You're nervous right?’ He goes ‘Of course you're here.’ I said don't be nervous man. We’re family we're brothers. We're here to help each other… I said, try it again. Ta-da-pow! I was like, ‘There it is. Confidence. Solid.’ ”
Regalado also took a risk. He recently broke tradition, switching from DW to Yamaha drums.
“I might have a lot of fans that aren’t going to be happy with this because there might be a lot of big DW fans that know I use DW,” Regalado said. “Like, ‘Oh my idol’s going from DW to Yamaha.’ But I'm not selling out. Yamaha wants to help me and I want to help them.”
Drum Workshop is the brand most conjunto and norteño drummers use. Yamaha is a bigger company, but their drum kits are not used as much in the Latin music scene. They are trying to expand their international reach, also recently signing San Antonio norteño drummer Joey Jimenez, who tours with country music star Koe Wetzel.
The rivalry between the drum companies is big enough news that campers talked about it.
“When I first heard about Adrian moving from Yamaha to DW, I was like, dang, he's a traitor,” said Emiliano said.
But, he admits that he did just learn to appreciate trying new things.
Yamaha worked with camp organizers to rent a drum kit for drummers to study the difference from DW kits that instructors brought to the camp.
David de la Cruz, 15, from Waco won a snare drum Yamaha gifted as a surprise raffle.
“I might have a lot of fans that aren’t going to be happy with this because there might be a lot of big DW fans that know I use DW,” he said. “Like, ‘Oh my idol’s going from DW to Yamaha.’ But I'm not selling out. Yamaha wants to help me and I want to help them.”
Regalado, who started as a rock drummer, is glad the students are learning about traditional music, but also branching out.
"Every time I play behind my drum set, I see that as like my partner, my love. because my drums is my life,” said Regalado. “That's my domain. That is where I live. That is where I’m from. You want to share that with everybody else. And that's why we're here trying to teach these other kids and hope everybody that goes home happy with this camp takes some experience and opportunities.”
He promised organizers that he would return for next year’s camp, which the Baqueteros announced will be in Denver.
"Norteño is never gonna go away," Morales said. "Even with mariachi. It's one of those things in our culture and lo que es regional Mexicano. It's just never gonna die because people still like it."
Got a tip? Email Marina Trahan Martinez at mmartinez@kera.org. You can follow Marina at @HisGirlHildy.
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