Son jarocho from Veracruz, on Mexico's Gulf coast, is one of the most lively and popular forms of traditional music and Graciana Silva its most outstanding harpist and also a great singer. Born into a family of musicians in a small rural community some 30 miles from the port of Veracruz, she learned to play as a child and began her professional career as a young teenager. Whereas other musicians in the region have adopted a more flashy commercial style of playing, Graciana holds onto the original forms which are more sensual, more complicated and gritty than the newer styles.

Graciana tells of how the blind harpist from across the river came to teach her brother Pino to play the harp. She, as a girl, was excluded from the class but sat on the other side of the room and watched where the teacher put his fingers. As soon as he'd left, she took the harp and, in secret, practiced exactly what she'd seen. After three weeks, the teacher came to give the final lesson and, as he was eating the dinner prepared by Graciana's mother, the little girl took up the harp and began to play. The teacher immediately said that it was she, and not her brother, who would learn to be a great harpist. How he knew that Graciana was playing is a mystery because he was, as Graciana says, "blind in two eyes," and it is this mystery that makes her think that her gift is indeed something special.