“Cantar como quem fala”: a invenção singular de João Gilberto

Abstract

This work begins with the listening ofJoão Gilberto’s sound. When listening to him, we observe that his way of putting the words in the song, like somebody who “speaks by signing”, along with the way he played his guitar inseparable from himself, display his fundamentalsingularity point, wich is named like his “song gesture”. We willsee that this is founded in João Gilberto’s constant search of “life sounds” and the music essence that, to him, it would be in the best way to say it. Faced with a wandering life, his sound search – and its subsequente execution in the voice-guitar format – gave him a place to exist by taking refuge in his music. “Singing like someone who speaks” it seems to show his speech condition; while the guitar seems to have been the instrument trough wich he was able to give consistency to his body. This research is built around this song gesture, looking into the questions concerning how João Gilberto constructs such a gesture, why he does it, and, when he does it, what he could effectively touch with this gesture. The hypothesis raised here is that his way of making music indicates a treatment of word through song, touching on an inaugural point in language in wich music precedes speach itself. When we think about his music inventions, we can see him as someone who took back something that remains in the music and speech management; and, when he does it, along his phonic games, he was able to operate his unique approach that maintained him throughout his life.