Interviews continue as the days lead up to Carnaval.

The past week has been great in that I have been getting tons of information. Luckily I have been able to record all of these interviews I´ve been getting so that later I can go back and transcribe (although that is going to be some serious work as I have almost 20 hours recorded at this point!). I´ve got to interview some musicians in their homes which is always an interesting experience. I´ve been treated very well for the most part although I´ve had several people either cancel at the last minute or not show up.
I already have a large amount of info for my thesis, but luckily I have one more month here to continue hanging out with musicians, interviewing them, and speaking with other people involved with the scene (composers, gov´t officials, students of the music, promoters, etc.). Forró really needs a full book to even begin to cover it with some depth!

Tonite I am going to train some capoeira (Brazilian martial art, dance, music) and play the berimbau to practice for the Carnaval block that I am going to play with. "O Bloco do Berimbau" which will be over 80 berimbaus playing together with some percussion that is going to march this coming Sunday.

Hopefully in the next couple weeks I will set up another site to talk about some of the interesting, weird, wonderful, and horrible aspects of what I see here everyday that I don´t think I should put on this site. Stay tuned for the address of the new blog!