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O Passo: A Brazilian Approach To Music by Tom Mullaney


Quibbletown Middle School, Piscataway tom@opasso.com.br


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lay the following excerpt on the piano. What are the rhythmic challenges here?


Were you able to maintain a steady beat throughout this piano montuno? If so, how did you accomplish that? Did you have to do something specific to help you “keep track of the beat?” If not, why? Did you use your body? Can you feel “where” the beat is without using your body? Most importantly, how did it sound when you played it? Did it groove? Did it sound like salsa? Here we have several notions to consider: (1) That we must know “where” the


beat is if we want to properly play an offbeat. (2) That we can rely on our bodies to


provide important musical information; in this specific instance, to help us know the location (or position) of each beat, and (3) That performing music “properly”


involves more than playing what is on the page. For example, the musician playing this excerpt must deal with more than just the duration of each quarter note in mea- sures 2, 3, and 4 if he/she wants to play this properly. Duke Ellington’s saying, “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing!” re- minds us that proper execution of the stylis- tic nuances of any musical genre will make or break a musical performance. These ideas are some of the fundamen- tal concepts of O Passo. O Passo (The Step) is an approach to musicianship where the body is used in specific ways to construct and deepen musical ability and musical un- derstanding. In O Passo, the walking step and body are used in patterns that change with meter to create a map of musical time. The Brazilian musician and music educator Lucas Ciavatta, created O Passo in 1996. It is


TEMPO 36


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JANUARY 2013


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