Traditional Portuguese Music example essay topic

Portugal has a rich musical culture, with roots that go back to Provencal troubadours, followed by ballads and the fado, and as of late, incorporating the rhythms of Portugal's former West African colonies. Each of these elements are still alive in current Portuguese music like the French Provencal influence in the folk music played at festivals in the northern part of the country, as well as the rock and jazz most prevalent in the larger cities. An additional element is added by a wealth of singer-songwriters, most of whom spawned from the extremely political 'New Song' movement. This movement began rolling during the 1970's when the country threw off a thirty year dictatorship under Salazar, and was forced to withdraw from its colonies. In Portugese folk music, there are a wide variety of instruments. Some of the most common include bagpipes, harmonicas, accordions, flutes, drums (, bombs, , , ), and numerous percussion instruments (ferrin hos, , rec o-rec o, ).

However, Portugal is most well-known for its string instruments: violins, twelve-stringed 'Portuguese guitar', and six variations of 'viola-guitars' unknown to other European countries. Design, character, and tuning are unique to each one of the viola-guitars. The most well known is the small, four-stringed. The others have elaborate combinations of single, double, and even triple strings.

One of the common combinations of instruments is the zeus-pereira. Comprised of a large bomb, a, and a bagpipe or fife, these are often used to announce special occasions. Another tradition combination popular throughout the country is the rancho, made up of violins, guitars, clarinets, harmonicas and ferrin hos, later joined by the accordion. The singers of Portugal are excellent. In every town there is an amateur choir.

It is customary for someone to begin an following a good meal, and others at the the table will join in. It not at all unusual, if you go to a fado performance, to find the entre staff of the establishment taking part, from the owner to the person working the coatroom. To listen to a vocal ensemble of three women from Manhouce, or a male choir from Alentejo is to hear genuinely popular roots music. Alentejo is home to the said as well, sung by women as they play the. Since Portugal is mostly a rural society, and is largely unaffected by industrialisation, there are a number of songs the reflect the cycles of nature, such as natal, reins and jane iras. These are often lullabies, or tilling, sowing, and harvest songs.

They also have singing contests where competitors improvise on a theme in turn, or the fandango, a dance where two men match their dancing skill. Other traditional dances in clue modes, des piques, c hulas, rus gas, , virus, waltzes, and the ritual steps of the (stick-dancers) of Miranda in the Douro region. The fado is Portugal's most famous type of music. It is lyrical and very sentimental, and likely to have stems from African slave songs, though Portugal's own maritime and colonial past is equally noticeable.

After the revolution in 1974, when the empire was dispelled, the fado went through what could be called a crisis. Today, it has come to be identified with an overall sense of frustration. There are two versions of the fado. The first of which is style of the Al fama and Moura ria districts of Lisbon which is played mostly in the Bairro Alto clubs. It is highly personal and full of feeling. The Coimbra style is much more academic, played mostly by students, and reflects the ancient university traditions of the city.

In either style, fado songs are usually about love, though there have been songs written on other subjects. By far, the most famous of the fado singers, and arguable its greatest performer, is Amalia Rodrigues. She can be seen a prestige clubs and concerts in Lisbon, though in recent years, she has strayed into other genres. Other big tradition names include Florencio Carvalho, Alberto Prado, and Castro Rodrigo. Recent performers have adapted the form to a more modern rhythm, including manuel Osorio and Carlos do Cargo. The 'singer-songwriters', have also looked towards the fado Following the lead of Jose Afonso, nearly all the stars have produced one or two of their own interpretations of the original form.

The modern Portuguese ballad was the result of an attempt to update the Coimbra and it gave way to the 'New Song' in the last years of the dictatorship. This, from the revolution of April 25, 1974 and on, became a genuine political song movement, broadening in recent years to a movement know as Musica Popular. In essence, Musica Popular is contemporary folk music, composed and performed by something of an all-star team of 'singer-songwriters'. The lyric generated by this movement have always been as significant as the music backing them. many artists used modern poetry that dealt with contemporary social and cultural issues.

They also drew on music rooted in popular tradition, including rural and urban, that showed various - colonial, French, English or Spanish - but fortunately avoided the trite and hackneyed rhythms of commercial pop music. One of the forerunners of the genre was the 1956 LP Cancoes Heroic as - Cancoes Region ais Portugues as (Her ioc Songs - Portuguese Regional Songs), arranged by Fernando Lopes Graca and performed by he Choir of the Amateur Musicaians' Academy. Although the are a long way from New Song, two basic elements are present: committed lyrics and respect for genuine regional music. Another LP, Fado of Coimbra by Jose Afonso and Luis Goes, was released in May of that same year. Unfrotunately for them, the fado was out of favor and have become just another branch of 'national song', with overtones of vulgar soap-opera. Over time, Jose Afonso abandoned the Portuguese guitar for the Spanish, which allows for more freedom in the accompaniment.

His first solo records came out in 1960, including Balad a do Out ono (Autumn Ballad) which gave its name to the new genre and won listener's respect for it. He was soon joined by Adriano Correia de Oliveira and the poets Manuel Alegre, Ary dos Santos and Manuel Correia, whose work the lyrics for numerous songs. After the colonial wars began, censorship began to take its toll. Mani no do Bairro Negroe (Black Slum Kid) and Os Vampires (The Vampires), both by Jose Afonso, were taken off the market and only instrumental versions of the songs could be sold. Some singers went into exile. Luis Cilia released several records in paris under the general title of A Poesia Portuguesa de Home e de Sempre (Portuguese Poetry of Today and All Times), on which he sung his own arrangements of poems by Camoes, Pessoa, Sara mago and others.

The release in 1968 of Jose Afonso's Can tares do Andarilho (Songs of the Road) marked the coming of age of the ballad. By this time, Adriano was making his first LPs, as were Manuel Freire, Father Fanhais, Jose Mario Branco, Jose Jorge Let ria, and on their heels were Fausto, Pedro Barroso and the Angolan Rui Ming as. Simultaneously, the social climate was getting hotter and hotter. These singers were banned from TV and hardly every heard on the radio.

With very few venues at which to perform, and the fact the permits were very difficult to obtain, these talented artists had to find an alternate source of income. Jose Afonso's Cantigas de Maio (Songs of May), Jose Mario Branco's Mudam-se os Tempos, Mudam-se as Vont ades (Changing Times, Changing Wishes), and Adriano Correia de Oliveira's Gente d'Aqui e de Agora (People Here and Now) show a large improvement. The lyrics delved deeper in their reflection on living condition and they were more open in their protest. The music explored new forms, rhythms and means of expression. Jose Mario Branco made a key contribution as an arranger and producer. P reproduction censorship however, continued to be strictly imposed and some singers stopped recording to avoid it.

Others, like Jose Afonso, resorted to even more cryptic lyrics. This was how things stood on the night of April 24, 1974. At 10: 55 pm Joao Paulo Din is of the 'Associates of Lisbon " radio show played E Depo is do A deus (After the Goodbyes), Paulo de Caravalho's Eurovision Song Contest entry for the year. At midnight came the final signal Leite Vanconcelos played Granola Vila More on Radio Renascenca's 'Limite's how. The army captains went into action and on the following day the dream was a reality; Portugal was returning to democracy. Thereafter began a period in which is was difficult to determine who was in power.

Singers like Sergio Godin ho, Luis Cilia, Jose Mario Branco and Father Fanhais returned from exile. Now that censorship had become a thing of the past, New Song gave way to political song. Every had slogans, analyses and solutions to offer in the process of clarification which followed. Singers were suddenly in constant demand for the political and cultural events being improvised with a minimum of technical resources all over the country, giving performances in factories, cooperatives, squatters's ettlements, and more. Groups were formed according to their political standpoints: Free Song, the October Group, and the Group for Cultural Action - Voices for the Cause.

The latter, in mixing traditional songs with political ones, set an unconscious pattern for future progress. Other artists slowly branched out into working with one of the many theatre groups of the time and on soundtracks for movies. As time passed and things returned to normal, traditional music was resurrected, bringing with it the first commercial folk groups. In the 1960's, Fernando Lopes Graca and Michel Giacometti produced a five volume anthony of regional Portugese Music. During the 1980's, Almanaque from Lisbon followed in their footsteps, producing a series of records from the oral tradition, as well as reworking the traditional themes in a slightly more modern form. At the same time, Trova nte, formed in 1975, were highly acclaimed in Portugal for their contemporary and ambitious folk music.

They worked closely with Jose Afonso and Fausto as well. Its work is full of uneven swayings and sudden changes of direction. More recent folk music has come be known as Musica Popular, which owes its renewed popularity mainly to the singer-songwriters who dedicated themselves to it and musicians who have made records devoted to these unique folk instruments. Among instrumentalists, perhaps the greatest guitarist Carlos Paredes. he explores bot the folk and classical sides of the Portuguese guitar, with surprising results. Another excellent instrumentalist is Julio Pereira, who began as a songwriter but became interested in traditional stringed instruments and has recently experimented to great effect in combining them with synthesizers, rhythm boxes and samplers in compositions inspired by folk tra dion. As examined here, it is clear that Portugal's history and music had great influences on one another, particularly during the transition period that occurred when Portugal became a democracy, and discarded a thirty year dictatorship.

It is also important to take note that traditional Portuguese music still lives on in contemporary Portuguese music.