We went to the opening of an installation in the New Market in Belo Horizonte. The work was a series of films projected onto the brick wall of one of the workshops in the space. The films by Maria de Fátima Augusto were selected by moving empty bottles in a crate. These beautiful films showed the life of the various artisans who worked in the market. One of them featured the guitar mender and as part of the opening he and his friends were playing in a rather casual way next to the bar. I say rather casual because the combinations of players changed all the time and most of the people at the party paid no attention to the music at all. There was a succession of long melancholic songs all accompanied by guitar and the occasional solo or duet on guitar. I recorded quite long segments of the music with conversation and background noise intruding throughout. This piece was a duo played on 6 and 7 string guitars. I asked the more loquacious member of the pair of players to write down both their names (this was being translated by a friendly interlocutor)…here is what the guitar player wrote in my notebook:
In the way of these things, my recorder’s memory filled up during the recording of the guitar duo, so it is cut short…so it goes. Rather than apply a fade out I have left the recording with its abrupt cut-off.
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