On April 20 famous Cumbia singer and songwriter, Bobby Pulido took part as a guest speaker for UTRGV’s Musical Form and Analysis Zoom class. Musical Form and Analysis professor, Rachel Mann says that the director of the school of music, Kurt Martinez contacted her and asked if she would like to have someone “important” and famous to talk to her class.
Mann explains how her students reacted when Pulido joined their Zoom class meeting.
A lot of them were kind of shocked and some of them were like, ‘wow!’ It was supposed to be a surprise, so that’s why I didn’t tell them who it was but, they knew they were going to have a guest. So, they knew it was going to be a special person for our class, but I don’t think they knew it was going to be someone famous.
Pulido was supposed to talk to Mann’s students for 5 to 10 minutes at most, but he ended up talking to them for 45 minutes.
Mann says that the reason she got a guest speaker for her class was to motivate and lift the spirits of her students.
Music Education Senior, Abel Rios shares his thoughts about Pulido.
He was very humble, he talked about the importance of being humble and he introduced himself. I was like, ‘man what a cool human being, what an awesome human being.’ How opened and relaxed and chilled and laid-back, then he started talking about his background and his experience when UTRGV was UTPA.
Rios says that Pulido was “awesome” because he was answering a lot of questions from his classmates. Rios felt as if they were just having a conversation with a peer.
Rios explains that Pulido made him feel that he was his friend.
He felt like he was raza, he was very accessible, and he never made us feel that no question was non-important, and he didn’t make us feel that he was on another level.
Mann adds on by sharing some advice that Pulido told to her class about songwriting.
He said, ‘in one respect if someone has written a song for you, it’s easier to take those songs when they are a ballad and then you can turn them into whatever you want.
Mann and her students are grateful to have gotten the opportunity for Pulido to join their class as a guest speaker.
As Pulido says “Por el cielo busco mi estella, a la luna quiero subir”
Reporter Hector Tamez
