Ihu: Todos os sons

Ihu: All the sounds - Marlui Miranda

Terra Editora - 1995

ISBN 85.85136-04-9

 

Brazilian music: two words which define an infinite number of tendencies, melodies, harmonies and manyfold rhythms which manifest one of the greatest cultural expressions in our country.

It characterizes itself by the fusion of disparate influences - the European, the African, the American, and the Latin - our music has become something of its own and evinces in its assorted menu a sonority which mirrors the Brazilian ethnic and cultural amalgam.

Multifaceted as it is, our (Brazilian) music possesses a spectrum of colors and textures so hefty, that the very richness of its diversity does not authorize a precise definition of what it really is.

We wonder: why has the music by the native peoples of Brazil never been inserted in such context?

Maybe due to the historical circumstances of the colonization of Brazil, or maybe, who knows, owing to the great capacity Brazilian people have to transform expressions from any part of the world into their own; all this seems to have meant that the native music of Brazil would be dispensable.

The difficulty in understanding (the very phonetics of the tongues of) such Brazilian groups, possessing, at the same time, language and customes so distinct from ours - also Brazilians - may have contributed toward such context.

Our cultural market may not have had any interest in consuming a still very primite musical expression, a one without the sophisticated power the former has imposed to our music.

Yet, these and other possible reasons do not account for that enormous lacuna which exists, still today, concerning the music of our peoples.

The equation is now another: how are we to introduce the universe of the Brazilian indigenous music in a world ever turned toward the consumption of products related among themselves, through a net turned toward the technology of communication and toward the mechanism of art? In other words, how to make people listen to such music, at once minimal, simple and complex, so as to perceive the importance of its existence? Or better, how to make Brazilian indigenouos music interesting to a larger consumer market? These questions have disappeared along the creative process of the Ihu: All the Sounds.

The gigantic work of research, data collection, and reinterpretation which Marlui Miranda has carried to completion, as well as her enormous talent as interpreter, made the vision of the work ever more crystal clear.

Furthermore: Marlui's solidity when faced with the phonetic and musical diversity which is present in the work, and her capacity to penetrate the universe of improvised music, propitiated a musical discourse which unites, in an unprecedented manner, two visions in one: the native music under its own point of view - with all its nuances - and our point of view; a renewed one which we, Brazilian musicians, and musicians from other countries will have, when in touch with this original material.

The result is the most comprehensive mapping of the Brazilian indigenous music ever executed; it places, at once, Brazilian indigenous music within an audience level which shall awaken the regard not only of ethnomusicologists but also of the public in general, thus making Brazilian native music a consumer product for all kinds of listeners.

The publication of the chores and explanatory texts of the work, shall make the music of our peoples and the work of Marlui expand and thus make it possible for musicians and people who may be interested, get in direct touch with our varied cultures so as to start understanding, as we do, that the disclosure of this material in book form and Cd is fundamental for our extremely wealthy fountainhead of music to become even more diversified.

That it may be utilized by conductors, choirs, musicians, artist and schools is what we sincerely hope.

We also hope that Ihu may become the first project among many which are necessary so the gap may be more and more bridged and so we can integrate in a definitive manner in our repertoire, the beauty and creativity of our peoples, through one of its most important contributions: music.

 

Rodolfo Stroeter

abril 1995