When people think of music genres, many refer to the categories that the national Billboard Charts use. Restricting the various types of music to these categories proves extremely difficult though; because, everyone has a different opinion under which umbrella a particular type of music should fall. In addition, the categories themselves often seem ambiguous and their names sometimes have dual meanings. For instance, people will often refer to the same genre of music by a totally different name, such as substituting the R & B category for rap. The discrepancies of music genres become even more clouded with confusion when dealing with ethnic music. Tejano, Conjunto Norteño, and Cojunto music often blend into the same genre in the minds of critics; however, these genres have individual definitions despite the fact that they all evolved from the Mexican corrido tradition.

The word “conjunto” literally translates to mean group or an assembly. Thus, when a person talks about music and refers to a conjunto; they may not only refer to a music group, but possibly to a group that plays music from the conjunto genre as well. It seems that the same type of duality exists for the word “norteño”. The music form of norteño could pertain to either music from northern Mexico or to music from the conjunto genre. Also, people from outside of Texas sometimes refer to conjunto music as norteño. When alluding to this border music, people interchangeably use conjunto, norteño and conjunto norteño to describe this same genre of music.

The research of George H. Lewis, a professor of sociology at the University of the Pacific in Stockton California, has found that many ethnomusicologists agree that three origins for Mexican-American music exist. These origins include: the Indian civilizations of Mexico (the Aztecs, Olmecs and the Mayas), the European musical traditions which arrived with the Spanish, and the West African traditions of the slaves brought to Mexico by the Spanish. Lewis believes that norteño proves a blend of the traditional Mexican combinations of Spanish, Indian and West African forms with the daily issues of those living along the Mexican-American border. This blend demonstrates the variety of song types that the norteño genre encompasses, including polkas, huapangos, redovas, schottisches, and the corrido.

Manuel Peña, an anthropologist from the University of Texas at Austin, agrees with Lewis and understands that the norteño or conjunto offered a way for immigrants from Mexico to stay rooted in their traditions. Peña points out that European settlers introduced the accordion, the fundamental instrument of the conjunto to the genre. For many years the accordion was used as a solo instrument. As immigrants began moving they took their music with them and the accordion was easily transported. He also mentions that Narciso Martínez and Pedro Ayala commonly used the one-row button accordion at dances in the 1920s. Later on Martinez then added the bajo sexto, which served as the base line for the norteño sound. With this addition, and the fact that he was one of the first to commercially record the conjunto music, Narciso Martínez is often referred to as the “father of conjunto music”. Santiago Jimenez, only slightly less popular then Martínez, made an important contribution to the norteño sound, the incorporation of the tololoche. People began to really take notice of the conjunto during the early 1950s. According to those Peña interviewed, conjunto music was everywhere, over the airwaves and at the Saturday night dances. The conjunto even inspired a dance called the tacuachito (the little opossum). Peña proposes, “that conjunto music has historically represented the response of the Texas-Mexican proletarian worker to the antagonism, not only of an Anglo America which threatened from outside an ethnic boundary, but of the emerging Chicano middle class.”