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Hello and welcome back everyone.
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Today, we're going to take a look at one of the most prolific and beautiful musical traditions around the world.
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I was asked by one of you to.
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Look at the Brazilian music and which I'm very fond of. I've always been since I started departing from classical European music. I discovered some of the greatest tradition of.
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Of music and the Brazilian is one of the richest. It is actually quite difficult to point at one Brazilian tradition, certainly.
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There are three mains for sure. We can point at the Samba Bossa Nova and a third one, perhaps less known, but as important called the Choro, and in the last 150
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years these traditions have overlapped quite a lot. It's.
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Today more than ever is trick is challenging to separate them clearly and as usual, music is one of those things that doesn't really stay in a fixed close category. It transforms and.
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The.
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Develops quite easily into something else, so Choro I thought it was a good.
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The starting point, at least for one of the goals of this podcast, which is to somehow introduce in words some of the important qualities of music and the.
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Choro being possibly the least worldly known of Brazilian among Brazilian styles, has already had its origins, the characteristics, and.
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The main features of the other two, Bossa Nova and Samba. What it is, what is it and why would that be? Choro is A is a very traditional style of Brazilian music.
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And it has a traditional construct. We can probably say.
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There are simpler elements, both on the melodic side and on the rhythmical side. Considering Bossa Nova is very refined and elegant, with very particular rhythms and extremely researched.
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Melodies. Samba is generally faster, meaning it's harder to perform. The rhythms are more a bit more complicated. Choro, which is comes from Portuguese, which means.
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Cry lament.
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Also popularly called Chorino, meaning little cry or little lament, is an instrumental Brazilian popular music jar, and it originated in the 19th century. Rio de Janeiro actually.
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Despite its name, the music has almost always fast and happy. Rhythm is pretty joyful.
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One of the characteristics is virtuosity, improvisation and quite refined chromatic modulation. Certainly there's plenty of syncopations going on as there is in Samba and there is in bossa Nova, possibly.
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The one most famous tune that comes from it that has travelled the world for I don't know how many years is this one.
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So.
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This is the Tico Tico, of course, and this has been played by.
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An infinite amount an infinite number of musician, even in the modern jazz area. As you can tell, it's joyful, is virtuosic and.
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It somehow it sounds like sounds like a very fast improvisation.
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So Choro is considered the first characteristically Brazilian genre of urban popular music. The the Serenaders who played choros are known as Choreos.
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I think I hope I am.
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Pronouncing that correctly, and where does that come from? Where, where? Where? That this music come from? It it's a mixture of several music genres. We can spot the polka from Poland, the Scottish from Scotland, the waltz.
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From.
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From from Vienna and and Germany and mazurka, also from Poland and habanera from Cuba. So the musician from Rio de Janeiro who were already.
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Strongly influenced by African rhythms. Put it all together and we witness in short, something that happened similarly to other jars like direct time in the United States or Tango in Argentina.
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Or the habanera itself.
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In Cuba, which are musical styles that spring up as a result of influences of musical styles and rhythms coming from Europe and Africa, so it is the result of cultural.
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Melting pot.
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The famous composer Heitor Villalobos, defines choro as the true incarnation of Brazilian soul, which, if anything, is is at least very promising. I'm going to play and talk a little bit about.
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Tune from Choro and to show how in my.
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The some of the characteristic of this music then somehow infiltrated and also helped both both some of and some. But to develop this is attuned by Pixinguinha, which is possibly the most well known.
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Most celebrated composer of Brazilian choro and the piece is called Carinhoso.
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So this is.
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Delightful little.
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Melody.
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It already has.
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Betrayed folk origin. And we can find this out because there there is quite a bit of repetition. The rhythm seems quite regular and it's very singable, very catchy. Probably as well. If we take a quick look.
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That the lyrics, of course, is about love. The translation is my heart. I don't know why, but it's happily when it sees you and my eyes keep smiling.
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And by the streets following you. But Even so, you flee from me. Oh, if you only knew how amorous I am and how I want you so much. And how honest is my love? I know you would no longer flee from me. Then. Come, come, come. Come to feel the heat of my lips searching for yours.
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Time to kill this patient that devours my heart and only this way. Then I'll be happy. Really happy. You can tell also how.
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It's a sensuous love. It's not the abstract romantic ideal that we are used to in some all the European poetry. This is very much down to earth type of.
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Love essential physical desire is emerging transpiring from these lyrics and I'm pointing this out because.
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However.
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Let's say folkish or popular or even linear. We think these melodies we perceive this melody as the the trait that mostly comes out is the rhythm. Is this vibrant consistent?
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Moving forward, rhythm, as a matter of fact, you could totally dense on this music. You can tell that there is something about the bossa Nova already.
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However, it's it's a. It's a rhythm that doesn't speak of Bosanova.
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This can be similar to some European dances, a little Scottish, or even even something related to the polka. So this is to say that.
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The rhythm is inherent part of the style of music, and while in in maybe in more European context you will find that melancholic romantic poem will be set to music in a.
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Just a lyrical setting where perhaps harmony would carry a great part of the expressivity. Here is the.
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And this might be a topic for deeper investigation, maybe a different episode, but I'm underlying rhythm as the.
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An element that carries more expression than we think. Also because rhythm is not something that comes out as easily as melody and chords, we have to kind of stop and identify.
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I read them one at a time and you heard already the song in its entirety, but perhaps you didn't notice that it is all based. I'm thinking about the melody. It's all based on the same rhythmical idea.
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4 notes.
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And the same accent like a short note and the long, short, long, short long.
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What is this? Isn't it just repetition? Tata, Tata, Tata. Tata. Tata.
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Just Tata, Tata, Tata, Tata could be. Could be a very basic composition from a first year student. Just repeat the repeat. The idea. Change the notes by repeat the idea.
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So I'm bringing this up as as an example of rhythmical expressivity, because the consistency of the rhythm carries the tension forward and see now we can link it to the.
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To the to the vibrancy of the love message that the lyrics give so Corazon.
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Right simplicity is the recipe for elegance. Perhaps not every single time, but most of the time this elegance that we find is challenged by the B section.
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The rhythm changes briefly we have.
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Etcetera. So the moment of actual interruption doesn't last very long because as soon as we go.
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As soon as you arrive here, then the rhythm comes back.
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Notice here we remember the four note.
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Data.
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So once again the, as we found already a few times during our musical journey journeys in this podcast, the invention is not about creating something from.
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From nothing from complete 0 from scratch is actually a invention very often comes as a way of combining and be playful with the small ideas that are already there. There is.
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Relationship that I want to bring up from from this piece. This is just one example of the many chores available. If you search for written with the next.
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6 engine perhaps I can can post the link with some listening by him. You have a sense of how various is this this musical genre? But earlier I mentioned.
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The link between this and the bossa Nova and Sambas well, if we, let's say, assume that my presentation has something, let's say, correct about it, which is the rhythmical nature of.
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The style then we realised that the rhythm is the one that distinguishes bossa Nova from samba and from.
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Any other musical genres around the world? In this case, we found two rhythms. I'm pointing. I'm thinking about one which is the rhythm of the group, the compliment that goes like this.
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Pretty regular, right? Perfect for.
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Some serenade, some singing, but then both synovia one can. One can find other types of rhythm, for example on the on maybe on a similar similar harmony.
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And this is probably quite fast bosanova with maybe 10 or 20 BPMS faster. It will probably be confused to a samba.
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You, but you you probably can hear the the relationship. There is something very regular, which is this ground beat.
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And there is also something regular, but not quite as regular, which is my right hand that does in the most additional settings is the rhythm usually played by the guitar.
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So this should be something starting. Let's start resembling A samba. Let's go back from where we wanted to start, which is the bosanova. Let's take it a little bit.
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Lawyer and see what the rhythm can become.
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OK, now we probably already hear what what's the point, maybe speed or musically called tempo can be?
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Already a factor that determines these strong distinctions between musical genres when we talk about medium to medium, slow tempo, then we are probably look looking at both sanova and if you think about it.
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Bossa Nova, in the say general in common knowledge, is considered very, very romantic, very subtle, very nuanced.
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A place where singers and musicians can express their, let's say, most personal, perhaps intimate feelings. If you think about the beautiful tunes by Tom Carlos Rubin, those are some of the most romantic most.
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Expressive melodies ever written, and it is it is possible to express all these nuances when the music does not move forward too much when allows some space.
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You you can probably hear a nice melody coming up. These are this is a typical introduction to to a bossa to bossa Nova in this example.
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Let me follow in this trajectory I might.
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Play a couple of bossa novas, a couple of favourites that I have, this one that I found recently, which I studied many years ago, and then I for some reason I forgot. This is exactly 1 by tongue beam is not among the most.
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Well known of him, this is called Falando de Amor, which translates as speaking about love and in the collection that I have think about in the collection that I have is let's say categorised as a shallow.
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Let's see.
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It's quite it's quite a beautiful, quite quite a composition, right. I'm going to certainly after this I'm going to plan an episode.
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Dedicated to Tom Jobim.
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His output, his musical output. So does travel through so many musical genres. It touches on variety of styles, but it's so lyrical. It's so rich, so it does deserve an episode on that.
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Umm.
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After having looked at Love song called Carinosa, I wanted to perhaps conclude this podcast this episode with another show coincidentally written again by Tom Jobim, but an original.
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Because most probably 99% of Brazilian music is on a binary rhythm, meaning is either in 2-4 or four.
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Four, and this one is written in 3-4 like Waltz, and when I found it well, fell in love with it. It's called Louisa, and it's certainly odd to hear Brazilian waltz, but.
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Here we go.
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To be honest with you, I.
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Play this melody in loop for hours and hours and hours. I was really a while ago. I was really obsessed about this. Melody is so so delightful, but you can tell how. Once again, it's not this low lyrical.
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Walls that we might encounter sometime in in Shippen or in Shubert. This is a quite a quite a fast pace.
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Melody and once again is the rhythm of it that keeps coming back. You have longer notes and then the response.
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And again.
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And the response.
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And again.
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There is. There is some sense of vortex, of love you can imagine.
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A little, perhaps sorrowful, painful memory. About past law. I don't know. Whatever. Whatever it is that this melody make you think but.
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If you spend too much time lingering on those on those memory, perhaps you enter a sort of.
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Very.
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Of obsession. A cycle of obsession and this melody that goes up and down.
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It it seems like really never stopping. It does have some sort of evokes some sort of possibly obsessive thinking about someone.
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I hope this little introduction to Brazilian rhythms has inspired you to look to look further in it.
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I also when I was planning this I realised that the topic of rhythm is.
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Requires deserves wider investigation and I am certainly thinking of dedicating an entire episode on the natural rhythm, particularly thinking that most of the music of, let's say, the Western.
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Canon.
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Western perhaps more?
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Limited or let's say, referred to the European Western Canon has a strange relationship with rhythm. I think most of it, most of the Western European can emerge from a relationship with vocal and.
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Harmonic musical models while.
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If we look at the other part of the Western musical Canon, we find that the the American and Latin American tradition is strongly influenced by the rhythms of of Africa and.
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And other traditions too. So the origins of a musical style might might come from, let's say.
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From a source that does not belong, certainly to my musical heritage, and therefore might pose some some challenges to figure out and to and to understand, I wanted to discuss Brazilian music from the standpoint of rhythm.
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Because rhythm is exactly.
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That musical element, the musical dimension that can be expressive, can be used for creative purposes, and I think not only should but also can be, must be appreciated as part of the human creativity. So.
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I'm going to put some links to.
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The music that we played today and let me know what you think and if you you have ideas on what you would like me to cover for a future episode. Lovely to be with all of you and I'll see you next time.