Richard Elliott
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Richard Elliott is Lecturer in Popular Music at the University of Sussex. His research interests are in the roles played by loss, memory, nostalgia and revolution in popular music. His work in these areas is heavily influenced by theories of place and spatiality and the ways in which music creates or evokes ‘memory places’ that take on significance for individuals and communities. He has published articles on Portuguese fado, Latin American nueva canción, music and consciousness and Bob Dylan’s poetics of place. He is the author of the books Fado and the Place of Longing: Loss, Memory and the City (Ashgate, 2010) and Nina Simone (Equinox, 2013).
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Exposition: The learning process in fado through artistic research (01/01/2012) by Brita Lemmens
The exposition is of interest in that I am not aware of other work in English that explores the learning of fado from an artistic research perspective. The closest parallel would probably be Lila Ellen Gray’s work, though Gray is coming from a more ethnomusicological perspective. Lemmens also uses ethnomusicological methods but combines them with artistic research and auto-ethnographic methodologies to create a more personal, less theoretical perspective than Gray’s. The chapters describing the learning of fado will be read with interest by those involved in fado practice and also by those intrigued by the question of whether seemingly intrinsic cultural practices can be learned by those coming from outside the culture. The questioning of romantic, nationalist myths surrounding fado history and practice is important. It is questionable, however, whether this work evaluates these issues as critically as it might.
The submission’s greatest strengths lie, it seems to me, in its exposition of the learning of fado. The field notes and the more considered reflections work very well together and paint a fascinating portrait, along with the audiovisual files, of how the researcher entered the fado milieu and adapted herself to its demands and possibilities. Anyone with a love of fado and an interest in the mysteries of what makes a fadista will find these sections thrilling. They certainly provide new knowledge and could potentially provide material for others to build upon.