Entre tradição e criação: Dinâmicas das pequenas editoras de música popular de matriz rural em Portugal no século XXI

Abstract

Small record labels have been a recurrent subject within popular music studies over the last twenty years, gathering contributions from various disciplines, from musicology to sociology, through media and communication studies. However, in the peculiar universe of rural folk music, and in the Portuguese case in particular, no study has yet been carried out with the aim of understanding the peculiar aspects of music publishing and the way in which it has developed over the years and in the context of digitization and disintermediation in music production. This should be pursued by taking into account the musicians’ own practices and repertoires within this domain. In this article I will address the small edition of rural folk music. The focus will be on the publishing practices and values which develop in this particular universe, which we can define as a subfield within the broader field of music production in Portugal. Through an approach that includes a sample of small record labels and by using interviews and a round table with editors and content analysis of various media I will focus on three dimensions of analysis: editorial line and respective values in its definition, formats and distribution, and business models. As a theoretical framework I will critically use Bourdieu’s work on the field of cultural production (1983), Becker’s approach to art worlds (1982) as well as recent works around the do-it-yourself (DIY) modes of music production.