Music in the street: the mutual relationship between locality and musicking on Paulista Avenue

• Grant number: 20/03540-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2020
• End date: January 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: Suzel Ana Reily
• Grantee: Mariana Talamini
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 16/05318-7 - Local musicking: new pathways for ethnomusicology, AP.TEM

Abstract

In São Paulo, with the promulgation of the law officially establishing the Open Streets Program, in 2016, by Mayor Fernando Haddad, on Avenida Paulista, it now opens on Sundays for pedestrians and cyclists, for artistic manifestations and exhibitions. When walking along the long avenue, we notice a strong presence of music, from a band with high-projection professional sound equipment, to a person playing the harmonica next to a news stand. With different genres, styles and forms of musical presentation to choose from, the public gathers around the musicians, either just to listen or to dance and sing together.We use Christopher Smalls term "musicking", which shifts the focus and attention that previously was directed toward form and aesthetics, to the processes and practices involved in music, given that music performance is but one of the ways to music, since for Small, music is any form of engagement activated by musical experience. This research seeks to reflect on how the "musicking" of street artists constructs and is constructed by the locality, and in what way the musicians, as well as the public that sings, dances, appreciates, resignifies the Avenida Paulista. We seek a reflection on the ways in which musicking makes a city, exercises citizenship, experiences and constructs locality through the musical occupation of public spaces. (AU)