The following conclusions (some of which nescessarily duplicate those already arrived at through the study of archeological instruments) may be drawn from Spanish accounts of Aztec life:
1) Music had no independent life of its own apart from religious and cult observances;music as an art (in our sense of the word) was a concept alien to Aztec mentality.
2) A professionalized caste,similar to the Levitical guild in ancient Israel,controlled public musical life.
3) Training of an extremely rigid kind was prerequisite to a career in music; since music itself was always thought of as a necessary adjunct to ritual, absolutely perfect performances such as only the most highly trained singers and players could give,were demanded
4) Imperfectly executed rituals were thought to offend rather than appease the gods,and therefore errors in the performance of ritual music,such as missed drumbeats,carried the death penalty.
5) Singers and players,because of the important part music played in Aztec life,enjoyed considerable social prestige.
6) Despite this prestige,however,the names of the musicians are not recorded,just as the names of poets - unless the poet was a royal personage like King Nezahualcóyctl of Texococo - were not preserved.
7) Music was regarded as a form of communal rather than individual expression,and therefore concerted rather than solo music was the norm.
8) Instrumental performance and singing went together insofar as we can judge from the descriptions of Aztec musical performance bequeathed us by the Spanish chroniclers.
9) Certain instruments were thought to be of divine origin,and the teponaztli and huehuetl,for instance,were even held to be gods temporarily forced to endure earthly exile;the teponaztli and the huehuetl were therefore often treated as idols as well as musical instruments.
10)Not only were certain instruments thought to have mana in them - that is to say,mysterious supernatural powers - but also certain instruments were held to represent symbolically such emotional states as joy,delight,or sensual pleasure.
11)Aztec music communicated states of feeling that even the Spaniards,habituated in alien patterns of musical expression,could grasp and appreciate;whereas much of the Indian music of tribes who lived in the teritory now embraced by the United States meant nothing to European ears,Aztec music seems to have communicated in many instances the same emotions to Indian and European listener alike.Thus a sad song,as the Aztecs concieved it,was sad not only in the opinion of the Indians who heard it and understood the words,but also in the opinion of the Spaniards who heard it and did not understand the words.
12)Every piece of music was composed for a certain time,place and occasion,and therefore the musician needed a wide repertory if he was to satisfy the demands of the different days of the religious calendar.The religious cycle lasted 260 days,and just as the priests consulted the omens for each of the 260 days,so the players had to have appropriate songs ready for each of the days.
13)The Aztecs posessed no system of music notation - or,if they did,none that the Europeans knew anything about;therefore the Aztec musicians needed prodigious memories.
14)Musicians not only learned the old songs,but composed new ones.Creative ability was prized,especially in the households whose powerful caciques were able to employ singers to compose ballads telling of their military successes.
15)Court music,at least in the Aztec and Tarascan kingdoms,differed as much from the music of the 'maceualli',the lower classes,as court speech differed from the rude Náhuatl and the rustic Tarascan spoken by the common clay in those kingdoms.
16)Though their music lacked string tone and was predominantly percussive.the Aztecs had acute pitch sense and tuned their instruments with considerable care.
Obviously the chroniclers listened with their ears,not ours,and what they considered "predominantly percussive"might not now be so regarded.Just so with their other observations summarized above.In addition to the testimony of the chroniclers,lexicographers can be invoked as witnesses to precontact music.In his already cited 59-page article published in the Charles Seeger Festschrift (Yearbook II [1966],Inter-American Institute for Musical Research),E.Thomas Stanford draws together lexicographical evidence to sustain three generalisations.Paraphrased from the "conclusions"at pages 115-116 of "A Linguistic Analysis of Music and Dance Terms from Three Sixteenth-Century Dictionaries of Mexican Indian Languages,"Stanford's generalizations take the following turn:
1) Dance and Music linked everywhere in precontact times as inseparably as Siamese twins.
2) Brazen,assertive qualities such as loudness,clarity,and high pitch were preferred by players and singers alike.
This 'crying aloud" to their gods served their purpose even when plebians danced (as is still done in indigenous Mexico-as anyone who has danced to a modern Mariachi band can witness!) to do penance.
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