Originally from
Ciudad Guzmán, Mexico, she was the youngest of five daughters. Her father was an army officer and poet who died when she was young. At four years old she started to demonstrate a good ear and an aptitude for music, and at barely six years old she began studying music and piano at the Academia de Música Serratos in
Guadalajara, Mexico. After several years of study, when she was 11, she moved to Mexico City, where she continued her studies and obtained a degree in teaching music and concert piano at the
National Conservatory of Music. Her first public concert was held in the
Palacio de Bellas Artes in the capital, and soon after she began working as a composer of popular music. As a concert pianist, she was a soloist of
Mexico's National Symphony Orchestra and of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the
National Autonomous University of Mexico. As performing on the radio for a young woman of a wealthy family was risky, she used a male pseudonym in her first years. Mariano Rivera Conde, who was the
artistic director of the station, pushed her to admit she was the author of the songs. Velázquez married him six years later. == Composer ==