In this series 'Images of Brazil', I would like to offer some description of the nature of the music of Brazil and explain some points of technique concerning the guitar and its use, both as a solo instrument and in combination with other instruments and voice. Furthermore, I shall endeavour to convey to the reader some of the enjoyment and insight that I have gained from being involved with Brazil, its music and its people.

During the series, I shall introduce examples of music and suggest ways of studying and of becoming familiar with the Brazilian idiom and also discuss some composers and outline the conditions under which they lived and worked.

I would like this first article to serve as an introduction to the whole series and in it, present one or two general ideas and observations for background material when we look at particulars later on.

As a starting point, when we hear music from Brazil, we are hearing a music that is the result of the fusion of several different cultures; in the main, a mixture of Indian, African and European — remembering that at the time of the discoveries of the South Americas, the Spanish and Portuguese peoples were themselves a fusion of European and Arab (in much the same way that the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish are mixed in the UK). An awareness of this allows us to understand more easily the intentions of the composers and players when we study their music and hear them play.

It is worth noting that, when one studies a national music or a particular composer, one is studying a language, the vocabulary of which is built up from selected chordal structures and melodic and rhythmic patterns. If the student analyses these patterns he will much more speedily acquire an understanding of the music and be able to memorise it more easily.

To explain, here is an example of a basic samba rhythm pattern which is often played by the guitar.

Arranging this rhythm onto the guitar it looks like this

With a chord structure superimposed, it looks like this

If the student, in analysing a piece of music, will take the above sequence 1, 2, 3 and run it in reverse order 3, 2, 1, he will see the rhythm patterns emerge from that music.

Thinking of music as a language recalls my first real meeting with Brazilian musicians, and takes us to Paris. This city is probably the most popular meeting place for Brazilian musicians in Europe. One can listen to Brazilians playing their music in clubs, restaurants and in concert pretty much throughout the whole year and it was from a contact here that, a few months later in Japan, I was introduced to a group of Brazilian musicians who were studying there.

I maintain to this day that the seemingly never ending supply of hot sake that we were drinking at our first get-together in no way predisposed me to like what I was hearing, but I will admit that the delightful memories of that music are still clothed in what might be more comprehendingly described as an aura of alcoholic rice! I was listening to the music of Edu Lobo, Vinicius de Moraes, Chico Buarque, Tom Jobim, Baden Powell and more. The style of playing of Baden Powell and his use of the guitar with other instruments fascinated me. It seemed that the guitar was being used in that music as the piano is used in European music, that the whole range of the instrument was being explored — it was a solo voice, an accompanying voice and in combining with other instruments it was orchestral.

In addition, I noted that the human voice in the music seemed to be used instrumentally, as a texture, and compared this with some European music where the voice is markedly accompanied by other instruments. It was explained to me that the words of the songs portrayed ideas and directed the mind to particular sentiments, but that the singer would be aware of the rhythm of those words and how that rhythm combined with the rest of the music.
There was insistence that some knowledge of the Portuguese language was essential for the understanding of the phrasing of the music. The Portuguese of Brazil is full of 'non-stopped’ sounds which allow the words to be shortened or lengthened by the dictates of the music without the sense being destroyed and it is this continual tension and release within the melody that gives the music much of its interest. The more one can 'tune in' to the language, the greater will be one's appreciation of the music. The cross rhythm sense of the melody results directly from the rhythm of the words of the song and if one can speak or chant those words the musical phrasing will quickly make itself apparent.

It was thus that I left Japan, armed with a case full of cassettes and a Portuguese tutor book. I was to be in Australia for three months and my intention was to study Portuguese by translating the words of the music that I had on tape. In Melbourne, I looked up a guitarist that I had known from England, Bill Desailly, and through him, was introduced to a German who had been living in Argentina (the music grape-vine is nothing if not international) and who maintained contacts there for supplies of music and recordings from all over Latin America. He produced records of Paulinho Nogueira, considered one of the founders of modern Brazilian guitar playing.

Listening to the music of Nogueira I began to realise that there is a difference between the music that is written for the guitar and that which is written from it. The music of Villa Lobos is a classic example of the latter. It is characteristically guitar music and one feels that had the composer been writing with another instrument he would have written something else entirely.

I had already begun to make some arrangements of the music and although they were correct they were not idiomatic. I was the tourist at the railway station with a phrase book, asking the way to the hotel. I realised that I had to build a new working vocabulary if I wanted to play this music, and also spend time with the people who were generating it.

I feel that I should now round off this introduction and in the next article detail how one might make some preparation for the study of the music of Brazil.