Como estudar os bombos? Um itinerário de pesquisa entre documentos históricos e o terreno etnográfico

Abstract

This article focuses on Bombos, a music ecosystem that mobilizes dozens of individuals with bombos, caixas, bagpipes and/or concertinas. The research highlighted the contrast between the scarcity of historical sources in Portuguese ethnography and the strong participation of bombos in the popular festas. What do historical sources say about bombos; to what extent do these sources express a tension within the very notion of music that shaped the nineteenth and twentieth-century ethnographic surveys; and how to inquire about the vivacity of this ecosystem, are the issues that I will explore anchored in the literature that proposes a turn from the study of music to the study of sound. My goal is to work towards an understanding of bombos in the relationship they establish with the performing spaces and practitioners. Resorting to descriptions of my participation as a musician in the Grupo de Bombos São Sebastião de Darque, I will develop a narrative that analyses the acts of performance, the tensions and distensions that foster a network of relationships between the participants of Festas; that pays attention to the constant dialogue between repertoire, learning and musical realization with the acoustic and physical environment; that addresses the affectivity of sound experienced by musicians.