Música na pele: tramas sonoras nas vivências de músicos negros em Salvador na primeira metade do século XIX

Abstract

Several travelers who passed through Bahia left their impressions about the musicality marked by the presence of black musicians. The presence of blacks in music was not uncommon, but the sounds produced by the instruments played by these hands usually seemed strange to foreign ears. The sounds that permeated the daily life of the streets of the city of Salvador were commonly classified as noisy and deafening. From another perspective, in addition to travellers’ accounts, other documentary sources such as newspapers, reports, balance sheets, manuscripts, receipts, etc., indicate a prominent role of black musicians in the the craft of written music, reaching other spaces such as churches, theatres, dance-halls, and military regiments. Given this sound-labor panorama permeated by the presence of professional black musicians, the aim is to analyse the intersections in the sociorracial structure through the musical texture woven in the city of Salvador, in the first half of the 19th century, in order to understand how music was activated by these men in a context of subsistence, distinction, and social upward mobility.