Os instrumentos musicais tradicionais portugueses no ensino especializado de música: Uma ausência (con)sentida

Abstract

This article reflects on the near-absence of traditional musical instruments in formal music education in Portugal, as well as on the challenges raised by the inclusion of a number of these instruments in some specialized music schools. To approach this topic, we borrow some concepts coined by the sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos, namely those that critically address the phenomena of subordination and the logics behind the production of non-existence in society. This theoretical contribution allowed us to draw the justification for the aforementioned absence in a continuum of five fundamental domains: aesthetics, in which there is a monopoly of the instruments that promotes the classical music canon; technique, in which attributes as ‘complexity’ and ‘rigor’ seem to be recognized only to this musical instruments; pedagogy, in which adaptability and synchronicity of musical knowledge with the different contents of instrumental practice find a greater echo in this type of instrumental offering; the presumed musical affinity, in which political and educational agents presuppose the existence of a greater familiarity with these musical instruments; and, finally, the  domain of  indifference, in which irrelevance, or even ignorance about Portuguese traditional musical instruments is highlighted in the face of a scholarly musical canon that is to be hegemonic within formal music education. The study, which focuses on the period between the mid-1980’s and the early 2020’s, is supported by fieldwork, documentary research and analysis (syllabuses, curriculum guidelines and teaching manuals), and a systematized study of the legislation that frames formal musical education in Portugal.