Musical Imagination and Reading: The Role of Sight-Reading in the Constitution of Brazilian Musical Genres

Abstract

We focus on professional Brazilian music of the instrumental genre and address the crucial role of sight-reading in its development. We argue that in addition to the standard concept of sight-reading — related to the strict deciphering of signs on the pentagram — other reading praxis founded, over the last two centuries, what came to be recognized as Brazilian music. In this sense, we highlight that the notational format internationally known as lead sheet (the notational standard used in the context in question) not only enabled the availability of essen-tial musical elements for the singularization of work and authorship but also led to the con-solidation of the collection of images musicals that constituted the genre in question. In this way, the interaction of imagined simulations of generic patterns—the action of embodied memory — with reading the lead sheet gave rise to works and defined a repertoire. Consid-ering assumptions of embodied cognition of music, stylistic-musical foundations, and the analysis of recordings and transcriptions, we speculate attributing a central role to sight-read-ing in the constitution of the stylistic field addressed — primarily represented by Choro. It is a musical production originated by and in performance, encompassing phrasal and harmonic improvisation, modes of articulation, and sonority.