Everyday Phonography. Practices of a new sound culture at the beginning of the 20th century

• Grant number: 24/11328-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: February 18, 2025
• End date: August 03, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: José Geraldo Vinci de Moraes
• Grantee: José Geraldo Vinci de Moraes
• Host Investigator: Susana Bela Soares Sardo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidade de Aveiro (UA), Portugal

Abstract

The research project presented here is intended to apply for a grant for a research internship abroad to be developed at INET-md. Institute of Ethnomusicology and Popular Music Studies, Portugal, for the period from February 2025 to August 2025. This project is an offshoot of the long-range investigation Sounds, noises and urban listening, which received Fapesp Research Grant for the period 2022- 2024. In general, the investigation intends to advance the discussions and dilemmas of a new historiographic territory that is interested in sounds, sonorities and listening. Therefore, he intends to understand the places of sounds in historical experiences and their variations in temporalities. In this horizon, the concept of Sound Cultures appears as a central axis both for theoretical discussion and in historiographical investigative practice. The strict interest of the research is to identify and understand how in the beginnings of phonography at the beginning of the 20th century there was a search for countless paths and experiences before music and song became the cultural element and central commodity of the phonographic industry. Everything indicates that at this stage, as I try to conceptualize, a kind of Everyday Phonography appeared, which presents, discusses and questions aspects of life undergoing profound transformation in that period. Generally, it was aimed at putting tension in modern life in comparison with the more measured dynamics of archaic and rural daily life in disintegration. By capturing these changes, these phonograms recorded changes in sensibilities in general and in sounds in particular at the beginning of the 20th century. Furthermore, it played an important pedagogical function in the formation of new listening mediated by machines. In this way, this Everyday Phonography was closely associated with the construction of a new Sound Culture. This dynamic is noticeable in Brazilian phonography and also manifested itself in Portugal, as indicated by the first research into the collections, based mainly at the University of Aveiro, allowing for a comparative history and evident Atlantic transit. As research on these horizons in both Brazil and Portugal is still at an early stage, this investigation also acquires an unprecedented and innovative character.