AIRS 3rd Annual Meeting: 2013

Title: Learning together, singing alone: musical properties of Maracutu loas in children's voices
Authors: Caroline Brendel Pacheco (Federal University of Paraiba Brazil), Daniella Gramani
(Federal University of Paraiba)

Abstract

Which are musical characteristics of children singing of Maracatu from Recife - Brazil? The
Maracatu de Baque Virado is a popular artistic manifestation, connected to Afro-Brazilian
culture, that occurs in the Pernambuco State (Brazil) during Carnival. There are many Maracatu
groups, called nações, and the present paper focuses on Nação Porto Rico. Musically speaking,
the characteristic of Maracatu is the powerful presence of percussion instruments (alfaia, caixa,
tarol, gonguê, abê, timbau). Despite the intense and stronger presence of percussion in
Maracatu songs, named loas, it is through singing that rhythmic arrangements are
accompanied. The master commands the music, he is a kind of maestro, that leads rehearsals
and performances, and he is also responsible for singing the loa. Every batuqueiro (musician)
should know how to play and to sing each loa. Nação Porto Rico members are predominantly
adults, however children and teenagers are also among the participants. To understand the
musical learning processes of children singing at Nação Porto Rico we conducted interviews,
further recording 15 loas chosen by them. For this work we selected songs collected from three
girls, aged 6, 9 and 11 years-old. The aim is to develop an analysis of the songs based on the
comparison of recording loas in fieldwork between themselves and also comparing these
materials with recording performances or CDs of Maracatu Porto Rico. Thereby, we seek to
identify musical properties of songs learned collectively that children aged 6-11 years sustain in
individual performances.