“The first instrument is the voice. The best instrument is the body. Percussion is a symbol of life. Because if there is no percussion, heart beating, there is no life, there is no music.”
Naná Vasconcellos32
ONE-WOMAN BAND
One of the key pillars of my research was triggered by Badi Assad’s33 recording of “Asa Branca”34. This is actually a version of the original song composed in 1947 and recorded in 1952 by Luiz Gonzaga and Humberto Teixeira, with the typical baião ensemble, composed of voice, accordion (“sanfona”), triangle, wood block (“agogô de madeira”) and the zabumba drum.35 In her reinterpretation, Badi uses only her voice and her guitar to play different parts of the arrangement, using non-conventional techniques to emulate other instruments. Simultaneously, she sings the melody line with her vocal folds, plays percussion with mouth and tongue movements, get overtone sounds from the guitar strings using only the right hand and executes the bass line on the guitar’s neck using only the left hand. The result is an impressive one-woman band arrangement with so much independence between the sounds that it is hard to believe she is doing everything by herself.
Learning Badi Assad's reinterpretation of Asa Branca was one of my first goals in the beginning of the first term. I worked on the independence of my left and right hands, and also on the independence between my upper vocal tract and my vocal folds, being able to produce a melody in my throat and resonate it on my face while my mouth, tongue and palate were occupied doing percussive sounds. Despite the challenges and imperfections, I eventually succeeded in performing the piece at my first mid-term examination. With Anders Hagberg’s mentorship I expanded this material to a more improvisational context in the semester concert. I also used this song as an inspiration to compose another song, “Meu Lugar”, that I also played in both performances. The elements I chose to work with in this case were the use of the open 6th string tuned to D, the musical genre (baião) and the replacement of “Asa Branca” as an introduction part for my own song.
My growing interest in further exploring percussive sounds using the mouth and the body led me to the decision to look for specialized guidance in order to support the process. That was when I came across the work of Charles Raszl, a Brazilian musician and body music teacher currently living and working in Italy. He was a member of the group Barbatuques36, which became known worldwide for its musical work, totally based on voices and body percussion. Via online classes we worked at first with producing percussive sounds using the hands, the body, the mouth and the tongue. However, it soon became clear to me that the classes would not be solely focused on technical aspects; rather, they would offer a deeper immersion into Brazilian musical and dance traditions. We explored some Brazilian rhythms such as baião, ijexá, samba-reggae, caboclinho and samba.
Body percussion is a musical instrument itself, which I have explored in many performance situations. However, for me, it had a broader meaning: working with it was also a way of highlighting the rhythmical layers of different musical genres, making it easier to explore them in other instruments and arrangements. My conversations with Charles were also decisive in consciously situating myself in the music scenario as a Brazilian artist, with all the historical and identity implications that this fact brings. We had really powerful discussions on the role of Black and Indigenous people in Brazilian music and about our responsibility to bring this contribution and the history behind it to light after centuries of erasure and violence against these populations.
BRAZILIAN RHYTHMS AND MUSIC IN AFRO-BRAZILIAN RELIGIONS
Studying body percussion with a focus on Brazilian rhythms has given me a new understanding of Brazilian music and of my performance as an artist. Even though most of the rhythms explored with my teacher, Charles Raszl, were not new to me, approaching them from the perspective of the percussion and the body - rather than through guitar or voice, as I conventionally would - enabled a more profound connection with the importance and the strength of percussion in Brazilian musical genres. At times, the lessons went beyond music and included dance, since many of the rhythms we studied originated from Brazilian cultural expressions in which dance is an inseparable element. Charles also made a point of providing historical context for these genres, addressing the social, economic, racial, and political aspects surrounding them. I (re)engaged with these musical traditions not only through my musical curiosity but also with a broader perspective on culture, identity, and resistance.
Popular music in Brazil has always been a space of resistance. In a country where the deep scars of slavery have profoundly impacted a significant portion of society, cultural and religious expressions have served as essential means of preserving ancestral roots, establishing connections with the sacred, maintaining communal bonds, and fostering spaces for leisure and celebration. Capoeira37 circles and the religious ceremonies and celebrations of Candomblé and Umbanda have historically functioned, and continue to function, as vital sites where music and traditions of African origin have not only been preserved but also uniquely developed, adapting and evolving within the Brazilian cultural landscape.
(...) the songs associated with the ritual of capoeira circles precisely express the struggle of our Afro-descendants for the recognition of an ancestral culture, whose strength has been responsible for breaking the social amnesia imposed on the history of Black people in Brazil.38
In the terreiros39 of Candomblé and Umbanda, two religions with African roots developed in Brazil40, music has a fundamental role. Present in every moment of religious ceremonies and public celebrations, music serves as a privileged channel of communication with the orixás, deities associated with aspects of nature and human values. The music is a constitutive element of worship, with specific rhythms and songs dedicated to each orixá, each of whom also has characteristic dances.
The presence of the rhythm in the ceremonial hall seems to be associated with dance, which recalls the mythical attributes of the deities. In this way, a warrior god like Ogum establishes a choreography in which the movements are agile, fast and vigorous, matching the rhythm played, unlike the slow, fluid and undulating steps of Oxum, a goddess of the waters.41
Regarding instrumentation, the music is mainly played by a trio of drums, called atabaques. There may be variations, since in some traditions, for example, people use sticks – called aguidavis – to play the atabaques, while in others they play with their hands. The agogô is also a key instrument, since it is responsible for setting the tempo and defining the claves42 of different rhythms. It is important to say that the musicians in Candomblé and Umbanda have a special status inside the religion. They are called ogãs and are highly respected by the other members. They have a special initiation, which requires years of training. The instruments are also considered sacred, having special rituals and sacrifices in worship of them.
It is important to note, however, that although several Brazilian musical genres originate from Afro-Brazilian religions, many of these genres have expanded beyond the religious sphere, becoming the music of the parties, of the leisure moments and of the everyday life of Brazilian people. Samba is the clearest example of this. Therefore, exploring Afro-Brazilian rhythms is not merely a return to the origins but also a celebration of all the developments that this music has had, and continues to have, in Brazilian cultural life.
VOICE AND ACOUSTIC GUITARS
One of the pillars of my research method consisted of performing with different kinds of ensembles. One of these ensembles was a voice and acoustic guitars duo with Croatian guitarist Luka Elez, who has a background in jazz and classical guitar, and is also passionate about Brazilian music. As I mentioned in the introduction, the voice and the acoustic guitar are in the core of Brazilian popular music, especially if you consider the cantautores tradition. But more than that, these instruments constitute a musical setting that is indissociable in some contexts, becoming almost a unique entity. The author Luiz Tatit brings this idea when analyzing João Gilberto’s performance:
[…] by the very own nature of this instrument [the acoustic guitar], the volume of the harmony emission is significantly low. An acoustic guitar cannot compete, in terms of sound volume, with any of the orchestra instruments and not even with the piano. Its natural intensity is only and symptomatically compatible with the voice […].In João Gilberto’s diction, voice and guitar constitute a single sound source captured by the microphones and amplified according to the momentaneous needs without altering the proportion between their volumes.43
I could experience the power of this natural balance of volume between guitar and voice during my second mid-term examination, when I played without amplification. Both in the song I played alone and in the two songs I played in duo with Luka, the absence of microphones naturally brought the audience’s attention to us and we could hear every little nuance of sound. The feedback from the audience was very positive, and some of the colleagues pointed out how the acoustic sound made the performance much more interesting, bringing the audience’s attention to the music in a very strong way. In the following video, you can see some excerpts from the performance mentioned:
The intricate connection between voice and guitar has been showing up in different situations during my practice and research. During my guitar classes with my teacher, Ulf Bandgren44, I was encouraged to sing the melodic lines I improvised on the guitar. As a result, my solos sounded much better, the melodic lines became more interesting and natural, and I felt the music more embodied. The opposite was also true, with the guitar studies of fingering, scales and arpeggios also positively influencing my singing, bringing new ideas that I would not have without the instrument.
BIG BAND
In the second semester I had the opportunity to write an arrangement and play with the Swedish big band Bohuslän Big Band45. I decided to choose a song I had already played in my first semester concert with the pianist Danilo Andrade. My intention was to experiment how my vocal and guitar performance would behave in two completely distinct musical environments but also to see how the song itself would sound in these different contexts. The whole process and the result were very enriching to me not only because of the arrangement techniques I had to put into practice but also because I felt I was learning much more about my own song. I even had a really fruitful conversation with a long-time friend and percussionist (Michel Nascimento) that used to play this song with me back in Brazil. In this conversation he made me realize that I actually wrote a samba46 in 7/8 and that the rhythm I was playing on the guitar was the rhythmic cell of the tamborim47 moved from its traditional place.48 I laughed because when I wrote this song, I was not aware of these facts and in my head, I was composing some kind of jazz tune with a distant African atmosphere, but certainly not a samba.
This conversation made me pause to reflect on how often we are unaware of the extent to which our musical identity is expressed in the way we compose and play. Moreover, what we believe we are communicating through our music is not always what the listeners will actually perceive. The final musical result of my arrangement with the performance of the musicians from Bohuslän Big Band was amazing to me, especially because it sounded different (and much more interesting) than I thought it would sound at the beginning of the process. The samba character was highlighted and I could perceive a whole new set of layers in my own song. I was also able to preserve the original character of the guitar, thanks to a good amplification system and by highlighting it in key sections of the arrangement - such as measures 12–15 and again in the final measure (152). Below you can find the score and the video of the performance:
CABOCLINHO
During the third semester I continued exploring Brazilian rhythms through body percussion. My teacher Charles Raszl introduced me to a rhythm called “Perré”. This rhythm comes from a broader folkloric manifestation called “Caboclinho”. It is typical of Pernambuco, a region in the Northeast of Brazil. Rosane Almeida describes it briefly:
“[Caboclinho is] a popular manifestation with a strong indigenous influence. Its participants wear exclusively indigenous clothing such as headdresses (cocares), wrist and ankle straps (atacas) and a bow and arrow called ‘preaca’. Usually they perform to the public in the Carnival days, in celebration dates and at parties held by friendly associations. […] It is a dance that, like the music, demands a great agility from the person who will perform it. The music that accompanies the rich choreography is played by a tarol, a caixa, a surdo, two caracaxás, a type of rattle, and an inúbia, a very high-pitched wind instrument. […] The artistic element that characterizes Caboclinho is the dance, executed in rhythms: Perré, Baiano, Guerra. Each of them with a specific speed and beat, resonating in different steps, rigorously following the cadence of each rhythm.”49
Lenine, a renowned contemporary Brazilian cantautor, has written a song called “Miragem do Porto” for his album “Olho de Peixe”.50 It is a beautiful song based on the “Perré” rhythm and performed with guitar, voice and percussion. I was really inspired by this song and used it as a source of ideas for composing a new song called “Levando as horas”. I took two elements to use in my song: the groove and the tuning of the guitar with an open 6th string tuned to D. I created an introduction on the guitar using some lydian phrases (modalism is also very common in the music of the Northeast part of Brazil) and quartal chords that I had been practicing with Ulf Bandgren in my guitar classes. Then I wrote lyrics related to this experience of being a foreigner, which for obvious reasons has been a recurring theme in my songs. I also wrote some verses about environmental concerns, which have also been very present in my recent compositions. In my semester concert I presented the song together with Jakob Kain on the drums, Alexandros Koutsogiannis on the bass clarinet and Luka Elez on the guitar. The drums played a percussive role, without using the snare. The bass clarinet played, together with the guitar’s open 6th string, a bass role most of the time – but also a melodic and improvising role in other parts – and the electric guitar played more of a pad role, creating an atmosphere and taking the song slightly beyond its roots. The performance is shown in the video below:
INSTRUMENTATION FOR EXAM CONCERT
Continuing the experiments with instrumentation I had been doing in my mid-term examinations and semester concerts, I decided that for my Exam Concert I would have a core band consisting of my acoustic guitar, voice, and body percussion, Luka Elez’s electric guitar, a small percussion ensemble played by Fred Warnby and Jakob Kain, and the bass clarinet and tenor saxophone, played by Alexandros Koutsogiannis. Since my creative process is rooted mainly in the guitar and the voice, I wanted to give them prominence while enriching the sound with instruments that would add new layers of tone and texture. I deliberately avoided the traditional pop or jazz band setup of bass, drums, and piano, which I have performed with frequently throughout my career.
In this setup, the acoustic guitar is both the harmonic and rhythmic center of the band, serving as the seed from which the musical developments of the other instruments unfold. At various moments, the bass clarinet doubles the bass lines played by the guitar, with both instruments occupying the low-frequency range and providing the foundation of the songs. The electric guitar, with its wide range of techniques and timbral possibilities through the use of pedals, creates ambient textures using drones and pads, while also playing a melodic role in counterpoints and solos. The presence of the electric guitar also allows me, at times, to be more free on the acoustic guitar to play with melodies, voicings, and extended techniques, such as tapping on the guitar’s body or strumming muted strings to produce percussive sounds. The more psychedelic and spacey timbres also helped move the repertoire away from a traditional place, building bridges between roots and experimentation.
The percussion, in turn, plays a fundamental leading role in the band, far beyond simply 'filling in the gaps' or serving as a 'complement,' as it often does in pop music. Inspired by percussion orchestras like Olodum and samba schools, as well as by the role of percussion in Candomblé ceremonies, I wanted to bring a diversity of timbres and rhythmic layers that could reflect the complexity of Brazilian musical genres. We used the following instruments: a trio of conga drums, a trio of surdo drums, agogô, blocks, bells, zabumba (a Brazilian bass drum typically used in baião), pandeiro, caxixis and various special effects percussion instruments. We also used a drum kit at certain moments, while trying to maintain a percussive approach by, for instance, avoiding excessive use of cymbals and snare sounds.
In the following video, you can watch the instrumentation featured in the last song of my Exam Concert, "Canto pra Oyá":