The Brazilian rabeca-diversity and the orocongo: the collaboration process for the making of an 'other' musical instrument based on two traditions

Abstract

The rabeca is an instrument that arrived in Brazil during the early days of colonization, currently undergoing a revival process in which players, builders, researchers and enthusiasts form a “community of practice” (Lave & Wenger 1991). Within this community, there is a permanent and fluid exchange of information between its actors, which allows many interpreters to be builders and vice versa, and where there is a consensus that there is not an only type of rabeca, with an ideal and crystallized pattern. On the contrary, it presents a multiple diversity in terms of shape, size, materials used, tuning, number of strings, ways of playing and repertoires, always privileging the practical result over conventions and standards, and superimposing ‘the customer's taste’ to crystallization and standards. Based on this diversity and our experience, researches and fieldwork this includes – in addition to interviews, organization and participation in knowledge meetings, presentations playing the rabeca with different players – the collaborative construction of similar instruments, one bigger, called rabecão, and another based in the afro Brazilian orocongo. The orocongo is a skin-covered bowed string instrument which has only one string. Its body is commonly made with the shell of the coconut or calabash, and the neck of wood. Each orocongo is unique, as it has a different tuning due to the way and size and manufacture. In that way, we thought of making an ‘other’ instrument based on the orocongo with the differences of being bigger, with two strings and a lower tuning in order to accompany the rabeca in its different repertoires. Therefore, in this paper, we will explain the process and present the design, manufacture, sound and possibilities of this ‘other’ instrument, conceived and manufactured in a collaboration process.