If I were to summarize my journey during my master’s research in a few words, I would say that my focus shifted from a musicological approach centered on the 'song' format and the work of other composers and performers to a broader and more practical perspective that incorporated experimental practices into my musical work and placed my artistic development at the forefront.
Looking back at my time as a bachelor’s student at UNIRIO and as a CNPq-funded research fellow65 in a collective research project led by Professor Luiz Otávio Braga, my understanding of research was entirely rooted in objective data collection and writing. At that point, I was not very familiar with artistic research, and writing subjectively - while still within an academic framework - was not a skill I had developed. Over the past two years, I gradually came to understand how to use the space the master's program offered me as a laboratory, a place to experiment with new ideas and approaches I had never had the opportunity to try before. I also learned to continuously document the process and to reflect critically on my artistic practice.
REFLECTION ON MY RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1) How will my musical identity develop during my studies?
I believe there is no better way to reflect on your own identity than stepping away from your familiar cultural references and place of origin. This view led me to choose to leave Brazil in order to look from another angle to my musical background, question my artistic choices and challenge myself into new fields. It was only after moving to Sweden and gaining a certain distance from my home country that I dared to stretch the limits of the song format and try new and more experimental approaches in my music. Being in a new and completely different setting brought me a sensation of freedom and non-judgment that helped me risking more. The friendly environment and the approach used in our feedback sessions66 after the mid-term examinations and semester concerts, usually led by teacher Jonas Simonsson, helped building this safe and motivating creative space.
There is also something about the external gaze that makes you notice things that used to go unnoticed when you were living in your home country. Not until I left Brazil did I realized, for example, that Bossa Nova is still Brazil’s main musical export product, and that knowledge of other Brazilian musical genres is minimal, just like the understanding of our colonial history and of the vital contributions of Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous heritage to the formation of our popular music. This awareness ultimately shifted the course of my research, leading me to systematically incorporate Afro-Brazilian rhythms and percussion orchestration into my composition and performance process.
The challenge of communicating with an audience that does not speak my mother tongue also led me to develop a range of solutions, such as creating a program with translated lyrics, incorporating English-language poems into my concerts, and emphasizing the importance of speaking to the audience between songs. In addition, I explored ways of engaging the audience that could break down language barriers, involving them directly in the musical creation process, for instance, through the use of circle singing in my performances.
Incorporating new techniques and musical languages into my composition and performance processes was also a way of reshaping my musical identity. Composing and performing the piece Autumn, for instance, was something entirely new for me. The composition process began on the piano (unlike my usual approach, which starts with the guitar) and included the use of a wider range of sounds in all the instruments involved (voice, guitar, tenor saxophone, electric guitar, drums and percussion), tempo and key changes, improvisation, sprechstimme, chromaticism, and a Nordic theme in the lyrics, depicting a typically Swedish autumn landscape. Still, I realize that it is possible to recognize traces of my musical personality in this piece. I believe that the very choices that challenge and reshape one's musical identity can also reinforce it, opening up new paths and languages through which this identity can be expressed even more strongly.
Establishing partnerships with musicians from different musical backgrounds was also an enriching way to build bridges and discover new ways of looking at music. For the first time, for example, I incorporated the bouzouki67 into an ensemble, played by the Cypriot musician Andreas Krambias. I had never heard or played with this instrument before, and it was fascinating to find parallels between it and the Brazilian bandolim (Brazilian mandolin), which is so common in choro, a Brazilian instrumental genre. It was also interesting to play with the Italian clarinetist Lucio Spera, from the Symphonic Orchestra Performance master’s program, and to notice during rehearsals the different approaches to music taken by classical and popular musicians. Likewise, participating in the semester concert of my colleague, saxophonist Alexandros Koutsogiannis, was a unique experience, singing a highly open, improvised type of instrumental music with no lyrics and far away from the song format I am so familiar with.
2) What tools can I develop to broaden my expressive possibilities as a cantautora in both composition and performance?
As I described in the introduction section, I grew up and developed as an artist within a specific tradition, Brazilian popular music, primarily assuming the roles of singer, guitarist, and composer. After these two years of master’s studies, I still see myself as a Brazilian cantautora, but now with a much more open mind and greater ability to adapt and find my place in new musical contexts.
Although solo voice and guitar performances have been a constant throughout my career, during the master's program I was able to expand my expressive possibilities, developing the following skills:
- Vocal and guitar improvisation
- Freedom to change the song’s forms on the spot
- Body percussion
- Extended techniques on the guitar (e.g., percussion on the guitar’s body, strumming muted strings in order to make them sound more percussive; playing natural harmonics; playing the strings between the tuning pegs and the nut)
- Extended techniques on the voice (speech-voice; simultaneously producing a melody line with the vocal folds and percussive sounds with the mouth and the tongue; vocal fry; using the sound of the breathing as an expressive tool; using different types of funny or non-conventional sounds)
These tools helped me expressively to develop in three aspects: composition, performance and arrangement. I feel that I truly expanded my possibilities, gaining access to a much wider range of sounds and musical ideas that enriched my creative process. I also learned a lot about arranging writing for different kinds of ensembles, from solo performances to a piece for big band.
The practice of circle singing has also greatly contributed to the development of my improvisation skills, while proving to be a powerful tool for engaging audiences in concerts, as well as groups in various contexts.
3) How can I express my artistic intentions and political concerns through music?
In my view, we are currently living in a particularly challenging historical period, which some experts have referred to as a 'permacrisis', a condition of enduring and overlapping global crises. Climate changes, natural disasters, pandemics, increasingly growth of income concentration and the consequent impoverishment of 99% of the world population, wars, the advent of far-right governments worldwide and many other serious issues, have made many of us believe that maybe there will be no future for us or for the next generations. Many of the movies or series that we are used to watch show a dystopic and close future where ignorance, destruction and death become the norm. We have been failing in imagining possible futures for the human race and for other species. The answers that technology and modern rationality have given us have proven to be not enough anymore. Instead, they are most of the time helping to get things worse. Many people, especially young people, are experiencing feelings of fear, anxiety and depression towards the climate changes and becoming hopeless about the future.
However, I hold the opinion that, as citizens and artists, we do not have the right to simply give up and allow mainstream narratives and answers to dictate our future. “We can’t afford to be climate doomers”, as American writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit writes in a striking article for The Guardian.68 Our current model of production and consumption is no longer sustainable - if it ever was. We need to rethink our relationship with nature, recognizing that it is not something separate from us, but something we are inherently a part of. As I sing in my song “Chant for Oyá”: “Ah, when will they understand/That for humankind to last/There must be water to drink/And air to breathe”. Indigenous peoples across the globe have carried this knowledge for generations. Even in the face of both past and ongoing attempts at erasure and marginalization, they continue to lead the efforts to safeguard forests and the environment as a whole
Art is a powerful tool in the building of these surrounding futures by expanding our horizons, by communicating directly to our feelings, by accessing our unconscious, by shaking the power structures, by developing people’s sensibility and empathy, and by thinking beyond mainstream narratives. I feel that art is now more essential than ever, and that we, as artists, cannot escape our responsibility. One of our main roles now is, as the indigenous activist, psychologist and writer Geni Núñez says, is to “reforest the imagination”, stepping out of the “monocultural way” of thinking and living and stepping in the rich, abundant and diverse environment of the forest, not only concretely but also – and mainly – symbolically.69
This being said, one of the insights I gained throughout my research was that these themes started to occupy an increasingly larger space in my work, as well as issues related to colonialism and racism. The visit to the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, named 'Surrounding Futures,'70 to Ingrid Pollard’s exhibition at the Hasselblad Foundation71, and to the exhibition 'The Shadow of Lustre'72 by Indian artist Amol K. Patil in Röda Sten Konsthall, were impactful and inspiring for me, reinforcing the perception that artists - especially those like me from countries on the periphery of capitalism - need to take a political stance on such crucial issues of our time. It does not have to be a literal or propagandistic approach, but we must find our own ways to engage in the process of raising awareness and envisioning concrete actions for change.
In my case, this engagement reflected on the lyrics and poems I wrote during these two years, on my choice of instrumentation and repertoire and also on my interactions with the audience during the concerts. Collaborating with artists from other countries and backgrounds also helped me refine my sense of openness and empathy, understanding that each person carries their own cultural background and that everyone should be respected and listened to in their individuality. The experience of being part of an international community, not only within the university but also in the city of Gothenburg itself (where approximately 25% of the population are immigrants), made me a more sensitive human being and artist, more willing to stand up against any form of oppression.
At the same time, being immersed in such cultural diversity allowed me to recognize the deep connections that unite us and helped me discover channels of communication through music. Body percussion and the practice of circle singing proved to be very effective resources for interaction and collective musical creation, reaching the inner child within each of us and reconnecting music to its playful aspect - that magical quality that captivates and draws us to it in childhood.
I realized that awareness, connection, and community are fundamental concepts in my music. While they have always been present, they have become increasingly central intentions guiding my artistic practice.
4) What tools and preparations can enhance my experience of freedom, joy and openness when performing?
As I previously described, from the very first lessons with my supervisor Anders Hagberg, I realized that in order to feel freer and more fulfilled in my playing, I needed to develop a strategy that went beyond the purely technical aspects of my instruments and embraced the emotional and spiritual dimensions as well.
Reading the book Free Play was immensely helpful in understanding the roots of many of the blocks that prevented me from feeling capable of, for example, improvising. Through this reading, I began to reconnect with the more playful and communal aspects of making music, realizing that the true joy of music lies in the fun and in sharing. When we are focused only on showing off our skills, we are not truly connected to the music or to one another. Technical skills are important and should be developed to serve both our needs and the music, but they should never come first. After all, this mindset can lead us to constantly feel insecure or insufficient, since there will always be some skill we have not yet mastered.
One of the routines I incorporated into my practice sessions, and that I intend to keep using, is taking a moment to briefly meditate before picking up the guitar or beginning to sing. It can be very simple: just closing my eyes, taking a few deep breaths, disconnecting from external worries, and entering a new space where creativity can flow without judgement. Starting my sessions by using cello drones to warm up my voice and fingers through free playing was also a practice that brought me great benefits. In fact, it was during these moments that new ideas for compositions and arrangements often emerged.
Regular group improvisation practice also helped me a lot in dealing with my blocks. As mentioned earlier, participating in the Open Improvisation group and practicing circle singing were especially valuable in helping me let go, explore new ways of playing my instruments, and connect with the sounds around me, always aiming to stay open and ready to respond to the musical input of others.
I also believe that working with freer forms in my songs, opening up spaces for improvisation and the unexpected, helped me connect more deeply with the music and my fellow musicians, sharpening my listening and making my presence more engaged. Not having everything pre-defined from the start was a great liberation for a singer-songwriter who was still very attached to the three-minute-song format.