Interview with Leo Vilhena

Leo Vilhena, one of the Summer Guitar Workshop Krzyżowa 2014 lecturers, told us about music, passion and joy.

1. In your biography we can read that you finished Music Conservatory in Rio deJaneiro. Nevertheless, there is not much we know about your infancy. Where did the willingness to study music come from? Was anybody from your family a musician? Or perhaps music is the inherent part of the Brazilian culture?

LV: Wilingness came when Iwas 12 and had my first music exam in school and got a really bad grade. Suddenly comes my mom and said that she'll teach me music and Ididn't even know that she knew something, she played piano and in couple of months Iwas already playing better then her, then saw my uncle playing “modinha” on acoustic guitar and Idecided to also learn it. The truth is that music is everywhere in Brazil, not necessary samba, you cannot really run away from it, even before playing Iwas dancing just for fun some samba-reggae from Bahia. Is worth the say that the music comes from the people more then from schools, if you really wanna learn brazilian music you need to go there and start playing on the street, squares, parks and bars. Igrew up in Copacabana and for as crazy as it may sound it is not a place to hear samba everywhere and my family is mixed from all over Brazil, so Ilived in this “soup” of all possible styles at once, my grandfather listened to classical music and samba, my friends to rock, my neighboors to funk and my parents to MPB (popular brazilian music). In carnaval samba plays on the TV and march bands play on the streets. Ijust went through many, many styles before taking samba as my favorite, it was more of an acceptation, Ijust couldn't scape from it.

2. You play many string, as well as percussion instruments. Is any of them closest to your heart and why?

LV: My heart is divided by many instruments which Ireally cannot decide, Ithink is just like the process of learning, discovering and having fun with it. When Ifound out that i'm very good at learning decided to jump on as many as Ican and work on finding better ways to learn and teach this to my students. But if Ineed to really choose Iwould go for small string-instruments such as mandolin and ukelele's. Ican bring them everywhere and start playing. Percussion Imostly like the energy and fisical strenght that Iuse to play, makes me explode with excitment. But i'll tell you one secret, i'm really passionated about saxophone, Ijust never tried to learn, maybe Ishould!

3. You dedicated your dissertation to Choro music. Excellent Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos inspired by this music, created on its basis a cycle of Choros, one of the most important series of his compositions. Could you please tell us a few words about the characteristics of this music genre?

LV: This is a very complicated subject and heads might fall on this discussion (hopefully not mine!). Choro is more a way of playing and inside it you can have many styles, such as: samba, maxixe, baião, valsa, polca and etc. Villa-Lobos always tried to put on a paper the soul of brazilian music and for sure he achieved to touch on the heart but still missed the rest of the body, specially the dancing feet. In my opinion, Iwouldn't put him on the “altar” of choro music, Irather choose the composer Pixinguinha cause he was the one that put some order in the whole style, wrote many standards and if you wanna enter the world of choro, he is the one to look for.
Choro has beautiful melodies, that should always be played with your interpretation and usually in a group or “roda de choro”, has usually 3 parts A-B-A-C-A and common instruments are 7 strings classical guitar, 6 strings classical guitar, cavaquinho (brazilian ukulele), mandolin, flute and pandeiro (tamburyn z membraną), can be sung but usually is instrumental. That's the technical part of explaining choro, the nice part is that each person can find there own instrument and a way of play to join this “orchestra”, if you play accordeon you can join, violin are also welcome, all instrumnts! It's about connection and playing in group, sharing your view, have your interpretation and freely improvise in your own world, it doesn't matter if you are just learning, if you are an advanced player there's always some space for everybody.

4. Currently you work in Poland. How did it happen that you came here?

LV: Well, Idon't mean to sound bad but it was a total mistake with a great happy end. Just quit my job and decided to travel outsite of Brazil for an year and Poland just got me by accident. There is a great need in the country of brazilian music that Icouldn't even imagine and i'm glad that Imeet Mikolaj WieleckIcause since we started to work together the whole moviment is growing stronger and stronger, it was just meant to be. To add to that Imeet my wife here which gives me all the support Ineed, Imust be really lucky.
In the beginning it was hard, Itried to pull some people to play choro and the truth is that this kind of music doesn't pay your bills, not even in Brazil, even bossa nova didn't help me here, what happened is that samba was my savior, people want this kind of energy, they want to dance as well not just seat and hear music “do kotleta”. If you think about your idea of brazilian music is always about people having fun in some “danceable” hot rhythm and this is the experience that Itry to bring., the joy of music. There was also the need to sing and play, and Inever fancy myself as a singer Iwas always just a player inside a group, so Itook the challenge to do it, who can sing and swing better then an brazilian in their own language and music? What is nice is that these songs are meant for everybody to sing along and Idiscovered that many people wanted to learn it and want to sing along in Portuguese!

5. You work as a teacher in samba school Ritmo Bloco in Warsaw. Does samba enjoy big interest in Poland? What are the reasons for which people from Warsaw sign up for samba classes?

LV: There's still some mistery around samba, no one really knows what's about it, people tend to mistake with Cuban music and others genres. There are people interested in samba but many of them doesn't know what samba really is, some like samba from the Northeast of Brazil some from the Southeast, Icannot even classify all types of samba, but there are huge differences! We provide more based on Rio de Janeiro style and when they come to the classes or concerts they understand that's completly different of what they thought and funniest part is the more the join into this world, the more surprised and overwhelmed they are. Some of them already dance samba for many years or even played before, and the most common reason why people sign up for classes is that they see this huge group of nice people, playing nice music and enjoying it, you just can't say no, it's awesome to be part of it.

6. How the Poles perceive the music, which comes from such a distant country as Brazil? Despite the spatial and cultural distance are we able to feel the rhythm and understand your music?

LV: For many, it take a while to start understand and most of europeans have the tendency to systematize everything instead of just feeling and enjoying it. Is a huge job to put on paper this math of musical notes and to teach to a person that is not a musician but needs to learn this way. A constant question that we have is: where is one? They all need to count from 1 to 4 to know where they are inside the rhythm and some of the aspects in samba you cannot count or it becomes very difficult if you do it so. And to that you also need to be satisfied with what you're playing, not think that you're hopeless and don't have any talent for music. This music comes from simple people, everybody can learn it and is meant to fill that gray gap in your life. Many songs talks about it, that samba helps you in your life, makes you a happier and better person, so Ithink if Poles (or anyone) can get that message they are able to feel more this music.

7. Is there any Brazilian music genre, which according to you is not enough popular in Poland and perhaps even in Europe? If there is, how is it called and why do you think it should be more popularized?

LV: Whole Europe is infested with brazilian music, all big cities have groups of many brazilian styles, Icannot think one something that is missing. There are some styles which are based more on cultural aspects and also religious, Idon't think they fit here. But one style that is still didn't hear about it in Europe is “Frevo”, it's a brazilian word that comes from “fever”. The problem with Frevo or others similar, styles, even samba batucada, is that they are nice when you play on the street for everybody around. We have days, holidays for that, for example carnaval, and it's tolerated and even expected from people this playing on the street, but Ithink here someone would rather call the police and say to stop with that noise (in Brazil many cities are like this as well). The culture and habits have a huge influence on which music genres are popular, that's just the way it is. But talking about Poland, in my opinion it is really in the begining in brazilian music, not even samba is that popular.. For example, we're little by little introducing pagode which is a variation of samba, there's been some good acceptation but if Imay point what is really missing is “Forró”, which is really nice when you know how to dance as well.

8. What are your plans after the Summer Guitar Workshop Krzyżowa 2014? Where will we be able to see you and hear you?

LV: At first Ithought of bringing choro repertuar to the table, but we'll see how students will take it, it requires some time to learn and the nice tunes aren't easy to play. I'll work more on the basic of samba, choro and bossa nova, there's a huge lack of information on how to play those styles and how to arrange songs, Ican even hear this from“polish bossa nova”: W moim magicznym domu and Samba przed rostaniem. Basic details about how those styles should sound can make a huge difference to the style. But mainly Iwould give the experience of being part of a “roda de samba” (samba jam session), where everybody sings along and just have fun with it, the most important point from my workshop is enjoy playing and especially in a group/ensemble. Mikolaj will make sure that we'll have the samba percussion support and we'll see how long we can jam, this way we'll be set for a whole day and night party. If you wanna find me just come along with some instrument and i'll be playing everywhere Ican and hope to have others joining me and Mikolaj.