Study will map academic work on music in Brazil

Study by UNESP group will reveal which topics are most studied and which methodologies are most applied

By Karina Toledo

Agência FAPESP – A study titled “Academic research in music: a survey of the art,” coordinated by Professor Lia Vera Tomás at the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) Arts Institute and funded by FAPESP, aims to map the main studies on music in Brazil since the end of the 1980s.

Expected to be completed by 2014, the study’s sources come from the annals of the National Association of Music Research and Post-Graduate Studies (ANPPOM) meetings and congresses, comprising some 2,000 works.

“At first, we intend to do a quantitative survey. This will allow us to know, for example, which universities produce the most, which is the most commonly examined topic, and the methodologies applied,” said Tomás.

Based on the numerical data, many interpretations will be possible. “We will be able to see, for example, how theories are abandoned as years go by and others begin to be adopted. If we find a group of more commonly studied composers, the question to be asked is: why did they choose this one and not another?,” Tomás noted.

Another of the project’s objectives is to show to what extent Brazilian academic production dialogues with the work conducted in Latin America and the rest of the world. “[We want] to evaluate whether or not we are in sync with what is being done outside Brazil and even measure whether our academic production circulates within the country itself,” said Tomás.

The study’s results are expected to be presented in a publication, . “Either in a book or on the internet, as this type of study needs to be available for consultation,” affirmed the UNESP professor.

The pilot project, which brought together 1,398 works, resulted in a chapter in the book Formação e avaliação de pesquisadores e docentes em música no Brasil (Formation and evaluation of music researchers and docents in Brazil), organized by Professor Sonia Ray at the Universidade Federal de Goiás.

Tomás will also coordinate the creation of a laboratory for studies in Music Aesthetics and Philosophy over the next two years, together with Mário Videira from the Universidade de São Paulo (USP). This project was the result of a Call for Proposals by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

In addition to a specialized library on musical aesthetics and philosophy, the project will include a compilation of passages from philosophical works about music translated into Portuguese. The material will be organized into topical and chronological indexes that will be available on the internet.

“The second phase of the project will be to include and translate passages from works that still haven’t been published in Portuguese,” said Tomás. The laboratory and library will be located inside the UNESP Arts Institute.