The cavaquinho Museum Association is non-profit and aims to document, preserve and promote the history and practice of this instrument. The site, "cavaquinho.pt" is the only one that gathers all the information on this traditional instrument in Portugal, the Braguinha in the Island of Madeira, the Brazilian cavaquinho, a small guitar of Cape Verde, the Ukulele in Hawaii and North American Continent and the Keroncong in Indonesia.
Cavaquinho.pt site will be a collection of Portuguese music on the cavaquinho?
Júlio Pereira: It will not be, is. This all started about 32 years, when I did a record called "cavaquinho", this album was great success here, but there were some facets of this success were private, and in particular have fostered violist industry, which was based on Minho and suddenly it began to build many cavaquinho after this albun. Meanwhile, I did several other discographic work, over the years, with other instruments and now I made an album called "cavaquinho.pt" where the big difference is that the record of 33 years ago looked at music from all our regions, that I orchestrated my way and the current album, let's just say, I distanced myself from ethno-musical elements, I walked away from a direct way what is the root music of certain regions and composed freely crossing cultures, you can start with a sound of Minho, pass by Brazil and several sites in South America and I finished in Cape Verde. This was one aspect. Then about two years ago I started to investigate this whole universe of the instrument and slowly started building a website called "cavaquinhos.pt" which basically is our duty station. It was, however, formed a cultural association of the cavauinho museum that is just to document and preserve the practice of the instrument. The presentation of the album and the project was done at the end of January 2012,in the Cultural Center of Belem in Lisbon.
It is also a project that involves several countries?
JP: For now it's ours.
But, the site informs on collections made in Hawaii?
JP: Objectively the aim is to show ours to the world as it is and was taken to various sites in the world. And as you know, today, this derivative instrument and one of them is the Ukelele, who left the island of Madeira to Hawaii, then from there to the North American continent and spread to the entire world, is this is ukelee that is referred around the world and in fact refers the Portuguese as being at the origin of the instrument, but they do not really know it. This site was specially made to show the world their origin and to all countries where it exist and how it influenced, as is also the case of Cape Verde, Brazil and Indonesia.
Recently you stated that the said aims not only to just make a collection, but the goal is to make original music for this instrument.
JP: This is a set on the one hand, we intend to preserve, we must take into account several things, one of them is to study everything that has to do with the instrument and I found that this Portugal has more than two hundred groups of cavaquinho. What is a sign that this practice grew and spread throughout the territory, since we found groups in Alentejo, which was an area where before there was not this tradition, since, builders were found in various places of the country and so it is necessary to inventory all that exist out there. On the other hand, is essential to create, because there is nothing more that touch different cultures as is music, which does not need words, it is in fact an expression of art, so abstract that generates emotions in a simple and direct way. Therefore, make music, especially contemporary makes sense. The association is receiving this two types of actions, one study what exists in terms of publications and practice of the instrument, local schools, groups, and constructures the other hand, encourage musicians. There are three major players of this instrument until there could be more, but that I remember and that the association has been looking for conditions to record and create an album.
After 32 years of having edited an album on the cavaquinho, is still some prejudice toward traditional Portuguese music?
JP: This is a set of things, this really happening in other musical fields, there is a fantastic job, in Alentejo, on Campaniça with the harmonica-Bagpiper, I know the man that has best way to study to structure a course on this instrument, in the conservatory in Chaves, someone has came back to pick up the Beiroa viola, one of five of our country, in this case the lower border. The toeira is already known. This is a parallel fact, which proves that every time there are more young people who are also interested in our traditional music and it's obvious that they are a generation that has more studies, so there is first, a most educated people who enjoy various types and musical genres, which is extremely important. I recently met a 13 year old kid that grabs and plays in the ukulele heavy metal music mixed with traditional Portuguese music, these things are happening now and thankfully, because it is this set of efforts that will make move a little away that concept that exists in Portugal of classical music to one side and the popular to another. This gap has to end, because while it does exist, things are very slow and above all, there is still this thing of traditional instruments is done as it may, I think we're at the right time to turn it around. Incidentally, one of the steps the association to do this is to create protocols with college or conservatory, in order to make the design of a course, which will be obviously to study and teach the cavaquinho in a continuous manner.
However, when talking about the ukulele almost exclusively come to the fore his name and there was little or nothing about these new groups and musicians of this instrument that exist all over the country.
JP: Look, if people become accustomed to using only the media, like television or radio, and listen to these, it is evident that the have no idea what happens in the country. This is the big question, after all the country is doing much more than we imagined, when I say that I, alone, I discovered last year, more than two hundred groups of ukulele, got it through the use of the internet, because if it were television, or the radio, I would never know it. More, not only would not know, as would have the notion that everything had died. This is not true, the reality is exactly the opposite. But this is not only a reality in Portugal, this is an issue that Europe has to live, because the media tend to develop and copy the model that follows a song that is dictated by the record company and created by multinationals like a snowball where always sell the same.
http://www.cavaquinhos.pt/
