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Talk:Viola caipira

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Article name

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The current name Viola (Brazil) is ambiguous in two serious ways:

  • Under Wikipedia:disambiguation guidelines, it appears to be a type of viola, which it isn't. Similarly, the obvious alternative name Brazilian viola, would under the normal rules of English grammar simply mean a viola from Brazil.
  • Besides the orchestral viola, according to guitarshop.net there are two instruments called viola in Brazilian Portuguese:
    • The ten-string viola sertaneja, described in this article.
    • The viola caipira, which has twelve strings.
This distinction seems just plain wrong, see below. Andrewa (talk) 08:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's also a ten-string Violao Braguesa from Portugal, see Lark in the Morning.

My suggestion is to move this article to viola sertaneja.Andrewa (talk) 00:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. The mystery thickens... according to the online atlas of plucked instruments, the viola sertaneja and viola caipira both have ten strings, but the viola sertaneja is a type of resonator guitar, and this article is about the viola caipira. Hmmmm... Andrewa (talk) 00:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And this is supported by the articles at Música sertaneja (country music, likely to use resonator guitar) and Music of Brazil#Sertanejo, which contrasts it to an earlier form called musica caipira but doesn't describe this earlier form. Caipira means hillbilly; The article on Caipira reads in part By extension, the term caipira can also be applied to the different cultural manifestations of the caipiras, such as their music. Andrewa (talk) 08:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From http://www.harpguitars.net/luthiers/hoyt/avc1.htm The Brazilian viola caipira (country guitar in Portuguese) is smaller than a standard size guitar and has five double courses and later the viola caipira is Brazil’s national instrument.

I'm thinking that guitarshop.net is just plain wrong, and that viola caipira is the best article name. If this is Brazil's national instrument it certainly deserves an article, whatever it is. Andrewa (talk) 01:22, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm again... Babelfish doesn't even recoginse either viola sertaneja or viola caipira as Portuguese.

Google does better, here is what it makes of pt:Viola caipira. To be fair Babelfish does better on the page than just the phrase. And pt:Viola sertaneja redirects to pt:Viola caipira. And there's a proposal to merge viola caipira in Portuguese Wikipedia with their article on twelve string guitar.

Portuguese Wikipedia is one of the larger ones and explicitly seeks to cover Brazilian Portuguese, a fork having been rejected. So it's a worry that the article in Portuguese doesn't mention it being Brazil's national instrument, but instead (according to Google) says In Brazil, the guitar is being played less and less, making room for the guitar and guitar. I think we know what they mean...! Those second two guitars are wikilinks to pt:Violão (classical guitar) and pt:Guitarra (guitar), while the first is a translation of viola, meaning the instrument we're discussing. So basically, it means Spanish pattern guitars are replacing the older coursed instruments in Portugal as they have in other places.

Um, make that in Brazil. Hmmmm... Wish I could read their sources to see whether that's really verifiable. Andrewa (talk) 08:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But this same Portuguese article also says The layout of the strings of the viola is quite specific: 10 strings, arranged in 5 pairs (Google translation). Hmmm... that sounds like just what we want. Andrewa (talk) 01:54, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmmm... this Brazilian luthier's site appears to be about the instrument we want too, and again it calls it a Viola Caipira, on an English language page. That's the good news.

The bad news is that http://www.emiliano.com/pandeiro.html reads in part the pandeiro is considered the Brazilian national instrument. Other sites back this up...

But see also pandeiro - no special mention of Brazil.

Or http://www.delosmus.com/item/de32/de3245.html the guitar is the national instrument of Brazil, and it seems to mean classical 6-string guitar, that's all he plays on this album. Andrewa (talk) 03:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More obliquely relevant stuff...

  • http://www.brazilmax.com/news.cfm/tborigem/fe_music/id/9 Singer and researcher Inezita Barroso states a factor that definitely puts “música caipira” apart from the more fake “sertaneja”: authentic rural music is about country life, including tales about animals, more often than not being akin to a fable set to music (although, dare I add, it may also concern itself with tales about religion and the urban versus rural contrasts, as well as, according to American critic Greil Marcus, a certain extent of necrophilia, morbidity and other traits or “rural nostalgia”), whereas “música sertaneja” made in the city concerns itself with urban subjects, mostly the most dramatic and negative, such as money losses, tragedies, adultery and loss of love in general – just like much modern American country music is derided as “something that passes for country nowadays – rock music influenced by country, rather than the other way around."
  • http://www.allbrazilianmusic.com/en/styles/Styles.asp?Status=MATERIA&Nu_Materia=903 Many styles emerged from that mixture, especially in the southeast, then in the south and center-western regions, integrating what would be known as "música caipira" (literally, country music). The viola, a Brazilian type of small, acoustic guitar, was carved from tree trunks. In the early days, the strings were made out of animals’ guts; later, they were switched to wire, and through the years, the viola has been testified as the basic instrument for the countryside style.

Hmmm.... Andrewa (talk) 08:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, 18,800 English ghits for viola caipira and only 362 for viola sertaneja so I think it's time to be bold and go with the former. Lots more stuff raised in the meantime but that's the conclusion regarding the name. Andrewa (talk) 08:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't the term be "violão"? That's what Brazilians call the nylon-string "Classical" guitar (the real National Instrument of Brazil, if popularity is the criterion); there'd be a lot less ambiguity. Ka'upena Kuahewa (talk) 20:59, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Citations

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There's a tag already on the article asking fo inline citations, and in fact it's a bit light on for citations of any sort. Some of the links I've given above may be suitable. Andrewa (talk) 09:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

History

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http://www.brazzil.com/2004/html/articles/jun04/p135jun04.htm looks a real gold mine... how accurate is it, I wonder? Andrewa (talk) 02:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

http://em.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/35/1/3 another good site... more authoritative probably. Andrewa (talk) 02:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

http://br.geocities.com/vergilioluthier0/325.html Um pouco da história da nossa viola (in Portuguese) also looks interesting, as do other pages from this luthier's site. But BabelFish doesn't really do it justice...! Andrewa (talk) 06:11, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.violacaipira.com.br seems right on the money too... but also in Portuguese. Andrewa (talk) 06:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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