the last book I ever read (Amália Rodrigues’s Amália at the Olympia (33 1/3 Europe), excerpt five)

from Amália Rodrigues’s Amália at the Olympia (33 1/3 Europe) by Lila Ellen Gray:

Fado is customarily sung by one singer (male or female), called a fadista, and accompanied by one or two instrumentalists on the Portuguese guitar (guitarra portuguesa) and by another instrumentalist on the six-string Spanish acoustic guitar (viola). Sometimes a bass guitar or (less common) a stand-up bass joins. Fado instrumentalists are almost always male. The guitarra and viola improvise “in dialogue” with the fadista and the bass line of the viola provides the harmonic and rhythmic grounding and propels the rhythm forward. The guitarra, with twelve steel strings strung in six double courses, and plucked with fingernail extensions, is the defining instrument of fado sound, known for its shimmering, harpsichord like timbre and for its expressive power, at time almost approximating the human voice. Some of the words that fado musicians and listeners use to describe the techniques and sounds of guitarra playing reflect this likening of the instrument to the human voice. Fado lyrics might describe a guitarra that sings (cantar) or that sobs (soluçar) and some lyrics gender the instrument as female. Fado is a genre of the night, traditionally, when sung in intimate venues, is performed in semi-darkness with candles on the tables or a dim lamp in the space. The darkness helps to direct the attention of the listeners to the sound of the voice, and inwards, to the realm of feeling. While fado has origins in dance, in contemporary performance, fadistas are often remarkably still, feet firmly planted, grounded to the floor, head thrown back, eyes closed; sometimes they might sway a bit from side to side, sometimes using the hands and arms to gesture, sometimes with an almost complete stillness in the body with the exception of the movement of breath and sound, and dramatic facial expression while singing.

Fado performance links story, life experience, emotional expression, musical improvisation, creativity and interaction, and poetry. Many fado musicians learn to sing and to play through traditions and practices that are passed down orally, historically in small venues where amateurs gathered to sing or in professional casas de fado. Listeners also learn how to listen to fado in these contexts. Fado recordings also serve as a pedagogical resource for learning how to sing and to play fado instruments, and also for listeners to cultivate knowledge of fado repertoire.