It's a living being: Substitution, adaptation and standardization of music instruments between Africa, Europe and Brazil

Abstract

Music instruments are generally investigated from a Eurocentric point of view that, based on physical and visible aspects, observes them as fixed and standardized objects and compares them to canonic instruments mainly from European concert music. Having as main object of study the viola machete of samba de roda, this article crosses historical and iconographic records of the presence of African instruments in Brazil with data collected with sambadores and viola luthiers in the field, in order to deconstruct the supposed European origin of instruments and practices of popular music in Brazil. I seek to demonstrate how music instruments are not mere fixed objects that were immutably transfered from one culture to another, but that, like the "living beings" that constitute their materials, are constantly adapted to different contexts, being often replaced and re-signified within the musical practice.

Keywords

• music instruments
• machete guitar
• afro-brazilian music
• western musical normativity