Old Town School – On The Road

Dispatches from the road from our wayfaring travelers.

“legal”…the word for cool in Portuguese

Pro Music School visit

Which is what this place is….so cool! It’s been one full week here in Brazil, I wish we could stay longer! This morning Andrea and I taught part 2 of the folk/pop/rock guitar class. Again, the Brazilians just soak up the American music. One woman Nivea loved all the classic rock of the 70s…calling out sort of obscure groups like Yes and Rennaissance. Even thought most of the students spoke only a little English, they knew a lot of the words of the American songs. We taught Big Yellow Taxi, Paper Moon, California Dreaming and more. Then we headed to the cafeteria/lounge area and rustled up our own barn dance with 10 or so of the students. Bau taught two circle dances and Steve taught one too that I really liked. We hung out with a student named Leandro…a self-taught players…so good…can play many styles…we all loved listening to him play Brazilian music, and he also plays the viola….not like the viola you think….a 7-string, or maybe 5-string?? instrument, nylon…great sound.

Yesterday, Bau and I heard a chorro (spelling?) band….mandos, ukes, that box thing you bang on, flute….so good. They played in a courtyard on the campus. Then we visited the Pro Music school that night for another jam session with all four of us..the students had lots of questions….one was “what is folk music?”….good question!

Okay, backtracking to that morning…..I had a wonderful workshop with the music ed. students of the univ. Somehow I got 25 college students to play freeze dance and sing If you’re happy and you know it and the like! They were great. I talked all about the kids programs at OTS and again, they had tons of interesting questions about how we teach. Then I was interviewed by one of the students for their campus radio station.

The group went up to the mountains today…I stayed back to relax. Tomorrow we will head to Ouro Preto, a town in the mountains about 2 hours away.

Filed under: Belo Horizonte,Brazil,Notes from Laura by Laura | June 6, 2009 | Comments (0)


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