Pedacinhos do violão brasileiro
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sessenta e oito clássicas
O violão brasileiro
The pieces contained in this volume are edits from previously published sources. They represent neither original transcriptions nor arrangements on my part. Effort has been made in almost all cases to be meticulously accurate to the music in the original sources as cited for each piece. The question might arise as to why the effort to do this was made, especially in view of the fact that it violates the spirit if not the letter of the law against those who may hold copyrights on the source editions.
One reason for producing such a volume is the classic “fake book” motivation – that of a “traveler’s encyclopedia” of musical ideas that can be transported compactly. More important, however, is that while the music in all the original sources at first seems to contain relatively few errors and to indicate reasonably accurately how a virtuoso might play it, it often seemed difficult to read and, in many cases, to play. Fingering and, in many cases, even basic notation soon appeared to be major problems. Errors in the latter ranged from pieces written using the wrong key signatures through innumerable errors in marking
accidentals.
An area of much editorial discretion is in the notation of repeats. One commonly finds repeats in music such as this to be physically reprinted at the point of the repeat. I think this is a bad idea for several reasons, among which are that it unnecessarily complicates the music and obscures its form. I have tried to avoid that. The result, however, occasionally has led to fairly complicated repeat instructions, particularly in some of the music of Baden Powell, whose German editions were an inspiration to me in this.
Another lies in indications of note duration and voicing. These can be, and often are, written very arbitrarily. My approach usually is to try to represent duration accurately in cases such as when fingering does not permit an otherwise desirable sustain.
The guitar, on the other hand, lends itself to sustains both intentional and otherwise. These can be confusing to read and tedious to play if they are notated explicitly. For this reason I sometimes show rests in voices which continue to sound, especially at the beginnings of measures. It is common to notate such passages by writing a note in a different voice sounded at the beginning of the measure as also appearing, simultaneously but usually with a different duration, in the “rested” or sustained voice. This, I feel, is an undesirable “shorthand” notation introducing a certain cognitive dissonance when, for example, a sustained bass note is written as also appearing as a 32nd in a syncopated treble line. I think it often better simply to
show a rest in the syncopated line even if the effect may be that of a note sustained from a previous stroke. In many cases the attempt to represent note duration, especially in the case of notes not falling on a beat (e.g., a quarter note falling on an eighth interval between beats), can lead to elaborate sequences of notes tied to notes tied to notes. This can obscure reading, especially where multiple voices include notes to be newly fingered along with tied notes. In most cases I have taken the approach of writing notes for their full values regardless of their rhythmic placement, using rests as necessary to clarify timing.
The ultimate objective of this volume has been to re-produce the music in a form more readable than that of its sources. Somewhat related to this is usage of language. I have attempted, apparently unlike the editors of some of the source volumes, to spell and, where appropriate, translate Portuguese names and titles correctly. My reference for this has been my understanding of contemporary Brazilian usage as reflected in the Novo Aurélio Século XXI dictionary and, especially for the spellings of names and titles, the excellent biography of Baden Powell by Dominque Dreyfus, O Violão Vadio de Baden Powell. In one vexing case, the excellent dictionary conflicts with almost all other sources, including this book. That is in the spelling of the name of Vinícius de Moraes (or Morais).
As for musical instructions, rather than propagate the conventional Italian (“Dal Segno al Fine,” etc.), occasional English or rather elaborate German of the repeat instructions in the Tonos Darmstadt editions of Baden Powell, I have chosen to use the Portuguese native to the original sources of most of this music.
Fingering, where shown, uses the convention of indicating fingers of the right hand by the first letters of their names – diminuto, anular, médio, índice and polegar. The little finger, commonly referred to in Portuguese as the “pequeno,” and rarely used in this music, is designated by “d,” for “diminuto,” to
distinguish it from the thumb, polegar, denoted by “p.” Left hand fingering, as usual, employs the numbers one though four to denote the index through little fingers. String numbers are shown enclosed in circles.
Barred strings are indicated with a “C” followed by the roman numeral of the fret at which they are to be held. A partial bar is indicated by a vertical slash through the “C.”
“Natural” (unfretted) harmonics are played by lightly stopping a string at a given fret and are indicated by diamond shaped note heads at the resultant true pitch (e. g., one octave above the open string at the twelfth fret or a fifth above the octave at the seventh) and an “h” followed by the fret number.
Fretted harmonics are a refinement occasionally appearing in this music. They are represented as are natural harmonics with additional fingering instructions as necessary. They usually are played by fretting a string as necessary with the left hand and lightly stopping the string over an indicated fret with the right index finger while sounding the resulting harmonic with the thumb.
Accidentals are applied in this music under the usual convention that they affect only the pitch for which they are written (i.e., not octaves) and that they are cancelled at the end of the measure in which they appear except in the case of notes tied over from it. Some editors make much use of “courtesy”
accidentals, either parenthesized or (often) not, as reminders of their being in effect or, in subsequent measures or different octaves, cancelled. I find this rarely to increase readability and seldom do so.
The pieces in this volume cover a wide range of styles and levels of difficulty. They also may vary widely as to their fidelity to their sources. Some, especially the Tonos Darmstadt transcriptions of Baden Powell Gonçalves de Aquino and the Pierrot transcriptions of Aníbal Augusto Sardinha, are, I feel, quite true to their sources. Other material may be less so.
One way of approaching this music is, obviously, to attempt to play it more or less as written. Another approach, however, to which I have referred in other places, is to treat it not as canon but as sources of ideas, of traditional material and techniques. One should bear in mind that many of those who originally played this music, in whatever form they may have played it, might not have “known” precisely how they did so nor have been able to repeat it exactly on demand.
- C. Nelson
