Brazilian Folk Music

Subject: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 09 Apr 99 - 11:47 AM

Ok, I'm sorry if this is stepping on anyone's toes but I'm trawling for business here. A friend and I have recently begun to set up a production company ( lots of work and as yet no return) and one of our projects is to take a local Forró band on a months tour of the UK. Forró, for those that don't know, is an accordian led dance music that is specific to the northeast of Brazil. The band consists of an accordian player, a drummer ( He plays a drum called a zabumba) and a triangle player. Now I'm fairly sure I can set up a tour for them in the UK, using some of my old contacts there, though of course if there are any UK club/festival organisers reading this please get in touch with me through my message centre here. I decided that I would expand the idea and, extend the tour to the USA as well. Unfortunately I don't know any club/festival organisers in the U.S. so if anybody who is one or can give me contact addresses I would be eternally grateful. The eventual plan is to create an exchange programme between traditional musicians from the english speaking world and traditional musicians from here as there is a rich fount of folk music here that people know very little or nothing about ( apart from samba and bossa nova.

The dates we were thinking of where either the end of this year or very early next year. Thank you....end of shill.

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Bert
Date: 09 Apr 99 - 12:15 PM

Alistair,
You must come to our area, try here they might give you a booking.

Philadephia folk song society

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 09 Apr 99 - 12:17 PM

thanks bert :o)

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 09 Apr 99 - 04:01 PM

Up the top I go

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Apr 99 - 04:19 PM

Alistair...an accordion .. drum .. triangle ??? So tell me, who's the skilled musician here??? Ya know, if you hung the accordion and the drum from the triangle, there would be better air flow to support combustion.

Bert...are you OK?

Alistair my boy, I wish you all the best, I sincerely do, but keep looking for a day job.

catspaw

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Bert
Date: 09 Apr 99 - 05:14 PM

I dunno, but it sounded better than some of the stuff I've been hearing locally.

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Sam Pirt
Date: 09 Apr 99 - 05:44 PM

AlistarUK It sounds a good band and being an accordion player myself I'm interested. I also have a couple of contacts in the UK festival scene. When are they touring the UK?

Bye, Sam

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 10 Apr 99 - 09:26 AM

Sam: I am trying to get the project together at the moment, I am thinking towards the end of the year the beginning of next year. The year 2000 marks the 500th centenary of the discovery of Brazil so it would be nice to make that an item.

'paw: You cletus and the 3 reg's just send me yer ol' snail mail address and I shall send yuh some o'the best music ta daince tuh you heared in a blamed long time. Do not knock it til yuh heard it bwoy. :o)

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Apr 99 - 09:38 AM

Alistair,

As I said, I do wish you my best, so tell me about the act. I know the accordion player knows "Lady of Spain", but what other tune does he know? Generally they know two and one is "lady of Spain"......the other isn't. The triangle player does "One Note Samba" and then sings along with himself on "Subterranean Homesick Blues" ...right???The drummer can probably just sit around and "beat it."

catspaw

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 10 Apr 99 - 09:54 AM

okay, well the beat for forró is I am told (not being an accordian player) a double polka, the triangle and the zabumba player keep the beat. So no Lady of Spain does not come into it.

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 10 Apr 99 - 03:33 PM

Refresh...please

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 10 Apr 99 - 04:05 PM

Now look here Alistair, I don't know about Cletus and his idiot brothers, but I'M the one related to Reg, Reg, and Reg, and I haven't made one comment on your music OR your accordian, so don't go lumpin me in with those Southern boys. On the other hand if you want some Canadian airplay on my show (trusting sort aren't I?) send me an e-mail at [e-mail] and we'll talk.

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Apr 99 - 01:10 AM

Geez Rick, you are a trusting soul. I think it's good to help Alistair, but let's help the boy find a day job. Or we could come up with more tunes for his Triangle player...I mean we have to work all the angles here, so to speak. His drummer seems quite adept at beating it, now all we have to do is convince him to use a drum. Possibly a messy situation. The accordion thing is beyond all hope, but perhaps we can get the dude a tiple.

BTW---Reg, Reg, & Reg have applied for work at our new condom factory here and say they'll be back as soon as they can...something about their wives and Cletus and rosebushes. Well, you can read all about it in a day or two when their saga, along with Paw and Cletus is continued, I finally tracked down the details of their wanderings and guess I should update everyone.

catspaw

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 12 Apr 99 - 05:39 AM

'Paw, believe it or not this would be helping mew in my day job. If I can organise this tour I stand to get a heavty sum from the Brazilian tourist board to sheperd these lads through the miasmic worls that constitutes The UK and The US. And I bet they could show Cletus and co. a few things about bareback possum hunting. Rick I'll be in touch sometime today.

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Tucker
Date: 12 Apr 99 - 05:56 AM

Catspaw, I read the description from Alistar too and came to the same conclusion. Having an aunt who played accordian, a son who plays drums and being a veteran triangle player from first grade I can't imagine a more gawd awful combination on this planet. Better to meet on a creek bed and pound rocks together to the beat of "Leader of the Pack". Best of Luck Alistar, you may do well here in Portsmouth. We once paid $20,000 for a piece of sculpture that was in reality a piece of sheet metal cut up by a drunken tinsmith. But hey, it was federal money..........

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Allan C.
Date: 12 Apr 99 - 07:27 AM

Having lived in Brazil myself, I have heard such groups as Alistair describes. The amount of music such groups are able to wrench out of only a few paltry instruments is amazing. Usually it is the vocals which make all the difference. Add a cavaquino (haven't figured out how to put a tilde over the n!) and another guitar and you have quite a sound indeed!

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Allan C.
Date: 12 Apr 99 - 08:05 AM

There goes the memory again! Trying to substitute Spanish for Portuguese. The word is "cavaquinho" (no tilde required). For the uninitiated, this is a stringed instrument which is quite a bit smaller than a cuatro. Some guitarists tune it like the first four strings of a guitar, but I don't know what happens with the tension of the strings in this case. The original tuning is: D, B, G, D. It came from Portugal and is known too as "viola de Braga" or "braguinha". It is very popular, and is an obligatory instrument in the performance of sambas, and especially at the "chorinho" sessions. I will try to find a picture to post.

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 12 Apr 99 - 08:11 AM

its used mostly used in pagode which is the bastard child of samba. there are different kinds of sambe...the stuff you get at carnival in Rio and São Paolo, there is the ballad type stuff that is really beautiful and jazzy and then there is Pagode which is a kind of Pop/dance music that normally have songs that full of sexual inuendo and all sound the damn same. Unfortunately they have been doing this to Forró as well and the popular forró is a homogenised bunch of crap...thankfully the real stuff is being kept alive and played out in the small towns and villages. There is also another music..indigineous to the north east called Maracatu that is considered the only music really brazilian (not based on african or european rythms[sic]). If you live in the UK look for a scots group called Bloco Vomit they do a high speed version of Maracatu and rock music.

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Allan C.
Date: 12 Apr 99 - 08:39 AM

Click here to see a cavaquinho Unfortunately there is nothing in the picture to show scale. It is approximately the size of the smaller "backpack" guitars.

You are quite right. Much of the more traditional music from the campas has been abused and mistreated to the point of being almost unrecognizable. In Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile the folk music renaissance is similarly having the sad effect of opening the door to the same sort of bastardization of the traditional music. The result sounds about as traditional as Led Zeppelin might have sounded doing the ballad of the Green Mountain Boys.

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Allan C.
Date: 12 Apr 99 - 08:48 AM

Oops!

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 12 Apr 99 - 04:11 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Wotcha
Date: 12 Apr 99 - 07:37 PM

Alistair: How about the middle east; people are starving for music (the Bedouins get the scariest sounds out of some kind of one string violin made in India)... try the SAS Hotel (the airline vice the door kicking variety) in Kuwait City, they might book you! There is a small singing group out here too ... just wait till I get there full time tho. Cheers, Brian

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 14 Apr 99 - 05:12 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Arkie
Date: 14 Apr 99 - 10:03 PM

No tipple?

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Ian Stephenson
Date: 15 Apr 99 - 07:45 AM

Let me know when they're planning to tour -I'll get in touch with some people who will be very interested in the north of england. Cheers, Ian

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: AlistairUK
Date: 17 Apr 99 - 11:15 AM

Refresh...and Ian..thanks

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Oct 10 - 10:36 AM

Hmmm...from the depths of Mudcat...AllanC reminded me of this thread as I just started one the other day about FORRO-BRAZILIAN TAKE ON EUROPEAN MUSIC.

Thanks, Allan, this really was early on...great memory!

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 20 Oct 10 - 11:14 AM

"Brazilian" folk music? Would that be music that's shaved down to a bare minimum....so little left that it's hardly there at all???


I'll get me coat..............

Subject: RE: Brazilian Folk Music
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 20 Oct 10 - 04:18 PM

I've just wrote a load of stuff on a separate thread "Forro" posted today. Just to add the the cavaquino on this thread, I was led to believe on my visits to Brazil this instrument was orginally manufactured from a turtle back and they added the wooden front and the neck. It all sounded plausible - the Portuguese have been ther since the 1500's so I don't suppose your friendly music shop was around then !!.
Cheers
Betsy