Vitor Lopes interview

Vitor Lopes joins me on episode 97.
He is a Brazilian chromatic player who specialises in Choro music.

Vitor tells us about the history of the harmonica in Brazil, starting out when Hohner opened a factory there in 1923, which later became the Hering factory. The availability of harmonicas in Brazil made the instrument very popular and spawned some tremendous players.

In 2008 Vitor was awarded the APCA prize for the best Brazilian musician of the year. He has recorded several Choro albums with his bands, has toured in Europe several times and appears on numerous albums with other musicians. 

If you want to learn some Choro, Vitor has an online course available so you can play some of this wonderful music on the chromatic harmonica.

Links:
Chorando as Pitangas band website:
https://chorandoaspitangas.com

Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/vitor-lopes-harm/tracks

Vitor’s Choro harmonica course:
https://hotmart.com/en/marketplace/products/choro-harmonica-with-vitor-lopes/U51984467A?sck=HOTMART_SITE

Videos:

History of harmonica in Brazil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIF4-7Em_aw

Edu da Gaita playing Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w8j_gfIEiU

Vitor’s series of videos on Brazilian Choro music on harmonica:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb7Pnj0vhWE3TcArNwNkjO4P9IQVCAbxA&si=Ai7wIhxP7LTXzrV-

Concert with Chorando as Pitangas:
https://youtu.be/Wbe2Dr0oi9s?si=IyiLCCHoiwHevJ2f 

With Ana Fridman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuxUvAEIPCM

Duo with Pablo Fagundes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s87mSjNEGJ8

Vitor playing diatonic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-RtOdozKdw

Suzuki condenser mic  overview from Joe Powers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQKs3yFRInc

Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

or sign-up to a monthly subscription to the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/995536/support

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram 

Chapters

• 1:30 Vitor is a Brazilian chromatic player
• 1:57 The history of the harmonica in Brazil, started by the opening of the Hering factory in 1923, originally opened by Hohner
• 2:46 Hohner sold the factory to some Brazilians, and they changed the name to Hering
• 3:07 Hering probably moved off using Hohner components as a result of World War II
• 4:00 Vitor has a Japanese mother, so he is aware of the difficult time Japanese, Italians and Germans had in Brazil during WWII
• 4:09 How Hering evolved to become the most important manufacturer of harmonicas in South America
• 5:13 The Hering factory was instrumental in the harmonica becoming so popular in Brazil
• 5:29 Edu da Gaita was an early pioneer of the harmonica in Brazil, with him winning some championships set-up by Hering
• 6:25 Edu da Gaita started his career busking on the streets of Sao Paulo
• 7:15 Edu da Gaita went on to record the first wind instrument version of Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo
• 10:04 Lots of players in Brazil started out on diatonic harmonica, including Vitor’s teacher Omar Izar, who went on to play chromatic
• 10:49 In the beginning lots of different types of harmonicas were played in Brazil but over time the chromatic is the most popular now
• 11:23 The history of music in Brazil means there is a lot of regional Brazilian music played on the harmonica
• 12:09 Use of diatonic for blues in Brazil started in the late 1980s, led by Flávio Guimarães
• 12:55 Vitor specialises in Choro music
• 13:24 History of Choro music has it’s origins in classical Portuguese music, with the Brazilians adding their own accent to that
• 15:07 Two centuries since it’s beginnings Choro became the foundation of all Brazilian music
• 15:27 Brazilian music is very rhythmical and percussive, due to mix of cultures that migrated to Brazil
• 16:31 Rhythmic playing on chromatic can be a challenge
• 16:48 Vitor has produced some great YouTube videos about Choro music and playing it on the chromatic
• 17:08 Initially learnt Choro by ear but then added reading music scores
• 18:14 Can play acoustic guitar and piano to a reasonably good level
• 18:24 Harmonica was first instrument, taking it seriously from age 14 and performing professionally a year later
• 19:25 Has a set of videos about how different instruments have influenced his sound on chromatic
• 20:49 The bandolim is a plucked instrument with a very precision staccato attack of the note, which is the opposite of the chromatic
• 22:15 What Vitor adapted to harmonica from the flute was legato and using the doubled notes on the chromatic to achieve this
• 23:12 Uses an open, soft mouth to get closer to the timbre of the clarinet and drawing inspiration from the great players of those instruments
• 24:22 Emulates the sound of the accordion by mixing chords and melody on the chromatic, and uses chords to accompany other instruments
• 25:39 Now uses Suzuki Sirius 14 hole chromatic
• 25:53 What chords he uses considering the limited chordal possibilities of the chromatic and selecting tunes where it works
• 26:26 Likes to play solo harmonica solos with the chords and melody at the same time
• 27:08 Um Trio Viralata is Vitor’s first Choro band
• 28:09 Toured ten times in Europe with the trio
• 29:38 Popularity of Brazilian music around the world
• 30:09 Toots Thielemans released The Brazil Project album, with Vitor seeing him perform live in Brazil at this time
• 31:12 Chiquinha em Revista album album with Ana Fridman
• 32:39 The Choro music scene for harmonica players in Brazil
• 33:13 Other Choro harmonica players in Brazil, including Pablo Fagundes, although Vitor was the first to play Choro seriously
• 34:35 Harmonica players are becoming more common with Choro groups in Brazil
• 35:35 Albums with current group: Chorando as Pitangas, who have played together for more than twenty years
• 36:23 Um Passeio na Benedito Calixto album was a tribute to a market in Sao Paulo where Vitor played four hours a day for seven years
• 37:32 Cheguei has five different harmonicas, all played by Vitor
• 38:59 Choro music is challenging on the chromatic, and Vitor’s dedicated practise routine
• 39:58 Writes some new Choro songs, and last album is completely new compositions from the band
• 40:30 As well as fast Choro songs, there are also slow ballads
• 41:00 Vitor plays some Samba, Tango and other types of Latin music too
• 41:29 Recorded a chromatic duo with Pablo Fagundes
• 42:57 Vitor has a video tutorial available for anyone who wants to learn some Choro
• 43:58 10 minute question
• 45:04 Choro chord structures are quite complex, derived from the different waves of Brazilian colonisation
• 47:25 Suzuki Sirius is chromatic of choice. Did play 16 hole, then 12, now 14
• 47:48 Vitor plays the 14 hole partly because it has the same range as the bandolim
• 49:18 Embouchre: moved over to tongue blocking during pandemic and how learning the tongue switch technique has transformed his playing
• 51:03 Using tongue switching lots in latest album: O Tempo E a Arvore
• 52:30 Does play some diatonic, and has recorded some
• 53:36 Plays acoustically a lot of the time, but does use a condenser mic from Suzuki
• 55:27 Two albums released in last year, and plans to release a compilation of this solo harmonica recordings
• 56:44 The Bagdad Cafe soundtrack from William Galison

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Vita Lopes joins me on episode 97. Vita is a Brazilian chromatic player who specializes in choral music. Vita tells us about the history of the harmonica in Brazil, starting out when Hohner opened a factory there in 1923, which later became the Herring Factory. The availability of harmonicas in Brazil made the instrument very popular and spawned some tremendous players. In 2008, Vita was awarded the APCA Prize for the Best Brazilian Musician of the Year. He has recorded several Choró albums with his bands, has toured in Europe several times and appears on numerous albums with other musicians. If you want to learn some Choró, Vito has an online course available so you can play some of this wonderful music on the Chromatic Harmonica. This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world, at www.zeidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zeidel Harmonicas.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24

Hello, Victor Lopez, and welcome to the podcast. Hello, Neo. I'm very glad to be here. Great to have you on from Brazil. You live in Sao Paulo in Brazil, yeah? Exactly. So you're a Brazilian player and you're a chromatic player, yeah?

SPEAKER_02: 1:38

Exactly. Most of all, I really rather to play the chromatic in all my artistic work are related with

SPEAKER_01: 1:47

the use of the chromatic. Yeah, and very fine use you make of it as well, which we'll get into. But before that, you watching the material you've got out and some great YouTube videos you have. You've got a really interesting few videos on the history of the harmonica in Brazil. So let's start with that. And I think maybe the beginning of it was the opening of the Herring Harmonica Factory in 1923. Is this what started off the harmonica craze in Brazil? Exactly. It was part

SPEAKER_02: 2:13

of an Easter tragedy from Horner in Germany to spread the use of the harmonica in the world that took place one century ago, so one of the factories, Horner, started to open several different industries, fabrics for harmonica all over the world, and they chose Blumenau here in the south of Brazil to build one of them. So, at the beginning, we had a Horner factory here in Brazil, but with the passage of time, they eventually sell it to a Brazilian group, so they changed the name from Horner to Eding. So now we have, until today, they are still on the business. Nowadays, they call themselves only the Herring, the Fabric of Harmonica.

SPEAKER_01: 3:06

That's interesting. I didn't realize that Hohner was the original factory there. So did you know what changed from Hohner? Did it become completely different when Hohner left and Hering took over? I am not sure, but I

SPEAKER_02: 3:20

suppose. I suppose. I never heard anybody talking about this precise point, but I believe that is something related to the Second World War. Because after that, basically all the investments made by Germans, Japanese, and Italians here in Brazil were controlled by the government in Brazil, you see, because of the war. Brazil took the place of the allies along the war, so the Japanese, the Italians, and the Germans, all of them were treated as enemies, even those who were here in Brazil. It was a tough time for them here, and I can say that because my mother is Japanese, so my Japanese family suffered a little bit in the in this period.

SPEAKER_01: 4:08

Right. So assume then that Herring then started using different materials, you know, to make the harmonicas different re-material. They weren't using the whole new material.

SPEAKER_02: 4:17

No, yes, but it happens because they are so different now, isn't it? But I really cannot say with precision when everything changed, you see. But little by little, what I can say is that at the beginning, Herring, it was a group that was manufacturing not only harmonica, but also clothes and toys for kids. So little by little, the business with the harmonica grows. So little by little, they become the most important factory of harmonicas in South America. That's what I know for sure. And nowadays, the group is divided. So the factory of harmonica in Brazil belongs to someone else than the family. The family, Hering, doesn't belong to the factory anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 5:05

And Hering made some great harmonicas. I definitely own some herring chromatics in the past and they were fine instruments so I have definitely played some herrings but this led to I think the popularity of the harmonica in Brazil right so the fact that you had a you know the factory producing them made them available and I guess quite cheap and yeah so and there's a really interesting story you tell about one a famous player in Brazil which please correct me if I pronounce his name wrong so Edu da Gaita Edu da Gaita was

SPEAKER_02: 5:37

his name I may say that once that we had a factory in Brazil, that factory, they were called Hering in that time already, they started to promote a lot of championships to give prizes to the best harmonica players. And they started to make this kind of championships all over the country. So that was something that really, really impulsioned the use of the harmonica in Brazil. And, of course, the fact that it is a ship instrument, isn't it? So that, for obvious reasons, makes it easier for us to purchase the instrument, isn't it? So it became really very, very popular here in Brazil. Pedro da Gaita, who was born in the south of Brazil, And he started to play in the South Hill. So when he become a little bit older, around his 20s, he came to Sao Paulo. And he started to perform in the front of the stores exactly to make the advertisement of the instrument for the customers who was just passing by the street. And he was making concerts and performances in the street in front of the stores. So that's how he started his career. But he eventually became a professional and he started to record with several artists of Brazil. And he started to record his own long plays.

SPEAKER_01: 7:15

Yeah, and he did a recording of Paganini's Molto Perpetuo, which is a very challenging violin piece, as probably most of Paganini's pieces were, which, you know, are very challenging to play on the chromatic harmonica. Yeah, so tell us about that one.

SPEAKER_02: 7:30

In that time, all the harmonica players here in Brazil used to play lots of different styles, different genres, isn't it? So Edu da Gaeta himself used to play some Brazilian popular music He used to play some standards of jazz, and he could also play some classical pieces, such as the Moto Perpetuo from Paganini. And this recording was really, really famous because we recorded in the studio in Rio de Janeiro with Leo Peracchi at the piano, if I'm not mistaken. People say that they went into the recording studio And they rehearsed a lot to play, of course. And then when they started the recording, the first run was just perfect, was the best one. But in the last seconds of the recording sessions, someone inside the studio made a huge noise. This guy screwed all the recording. So they were obliged to repeat. And he made almost 40... repetitions recordings of the same track so and after that he eventually picked one of them so

SPEAKER_01: 9:12

I understand this is the first recording by a wind instrument of this piece by Paganini. Exactly. It is mentioned

SPEAKER_02: 9:18

even in the Guinness Books of Records. He's written there that.

SPEAKER_01: 9:24

Yeah. So yeah, an incredible piece. And apparently he was learning it for like 11 years, this piece. And yeah, very challenging. Very challenging. So... This was back in the early days of Brazilian harmonica music. He was born in 1916. So is he one of the forerunners of the Brazilian players? He was the first one who

SPEAKER_02: 9:43

became a real star. Because of him, I know lots of harmonica players that started to play the harmonica.

SPEAKER_01: 9:52

And so in those early days, he played the chromatic. So was it the chromatic that was popular in Brazil? And obviously, I know there's lots of different players in Brazil now, which we'll get on to shortly. But was it the chromatic? Actually, here in Brazil,

SPEAKER_02: 10:05

most of the harmonica players started playing the diatonic models. For example, Omar Izar, who was my master, my particular master of harmonica, Omar Izar started playing in a sonhadora model, which is a diatonic model. But He only played by ears, so eventually he noticed that there are some notes that were lacking in his instrument. So one day he discovered the chromatic one and he changed it for the chromatica. So in the beginning, We were playing here in Brazil all kinds, all types of harmonica, not only the chromatic. So, for example, in the northeast of Brazil, we had a lot of great musicians playing. playing the diatonic models, which is a very good instrument to play some regional music, some folklorical music from the northeast of Brazil, you see? But with the passage of time, the chromatic become the most used here in Brazil.

SPEAKER_01: 11:23

So yeah, it's interesting that you say about playing... Brazilian music on the harmonica. Is that what it's used a lot for? Obviously, there are blues players and what we'd expect to hear on the diatonic harmonica and other harmonicas. But is there a lot of Brazilian regional music played on the harmonica as well?

SPEAKER_02: 11:42

Yeah. Here in Brazil, the history is a little bit like this. At the beginning, we had a Duda Gaita. He was the former harmonica player. He was a big inspiration for all the next generations. So after him, we had lots of great harmonica players who were dedicated to play the chromatic, such as Omar Izar, Maurice Schweinhorn, Rio Duora, Fred Williams. But using the diatonic harmonica in Brazil, we started in the in the end of the 80s when Flavio Guimarães, a great blues player from Rio de Janeiro... started to play the diatonic professionally with his band, which is called Blues Etílicos. And he is the guy who brought the harmonica blues to Brazil. So he is the inspiration for the next generation of blues players here in Brazil.

SPEAKER_01: 12:55

You yourself specialize in choral music. So this is a type of Brazilian sort of swing music. It's fast and it's challenging. So, you know, how would you describe

SPEAKER_02: 13:18

Choro music to us? Well, the history of Choro Neo, it's pretty interesting because the history of Choro began in the beginning of the 19th century when the Portuguese royal family moved to Brazil because they were afraid of the invasion of the French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte, he invaded Spain and Portugal in the beginning of the 19th century. So, the royal Portuguese family, they moved from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. So, from the night to the day, Rio de Janeiro became the capital of European royal music. And when they came here, the royal family brought along with them great musicians from Europe. And those musicians started to play in Rio de Janeiro, of course. And that just... thrilled the Brazilian musicians of that period. So the Brazilian musicians, they were just fascinated for that music, for that European music. So they were trying to repeat it here in Brazil. But when he was trying to do this, they started to play the European music of that time with a certain Brazilian accent. It's from that that the choro will be born. After some decades, we will finally have something new here in Brazil. And this was the choro. That's why the choro is an instrumental music. And it was a virtuosity. It demands the virtuosity of the players. So the choro, the history of the choro is pretty much connected with the classical European music. After two centuries, the choro have developed and become the foundation music of Brazil. It's from the choro that will be born later the samba, the frevo, the bossa nova, forró,

SPEAKER_01: 15:21

everything comes from the choro. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And a really interesting thing, I think, to pick up on, you know, Brazilian music is, you know, it's very rhythmical. You've got really strong connections with percussion and dancing, right? You know, and rhythm is such a fundamental part of the way that you connect to music over there, which I think is different than the West, where we, you know, in the West, we tend to focus more on melody. So, you know, what about that, you know, and the fact that rhythm is such an integral part to how you play choral music, particularly on how you play it on the chromatic harmonica?

SPEAKER_02: 15:51

Yeah, the rhythm is a very... thing to all Brazilian styles, all of them. That's because we have a mix of cultures here in Brazil, a very special mix of cultures. So we have the original people from here, the Indians, who already made a very beautiful music, and we had the slaves who came from Africa with their own cultures. So everything together here with the European culture brought by the Portuguese are the basis of all the Brazilian manifestations, isn't it? So that's why the rhythm is so important for us, you see? And that's pretty much a challenge for the harmonica, of course. because we got to use a lot of staccato notes in order to produce the attack with precision that will make the characteristics of the Brazilian popular

SPEAKER_01: 16:47

music. Yeah, and you do some great YouTube videos where you talk about choral music and you do one on the basic choral rhythm. So when you're learning the rhythms on the chromatic, are you doing that from reading music scores or do you do it from, you know, your knowledge of what the rhythm needs to be, you know, sort of playing by the rhythm by ear? Actually, I use both. As

SPEAKER_02: 17:19

many of the Brazilian musicians, I started playing by ear, playing by heart, you know, just using my ears to understand the rhythms. And here in Brazil, we have a natural musicianship, you see, as a people. So, for example, our childhood music, there's a lot of syncopes. We have a lot of the children's songs here that are really hard to someone who is not Brazilian to understand where the accent lies, you see? So, that's really natural for all of us. So, in my case in particular, I started playing by ear and eventually I learned how to to read music, how to write music. I studied harmony. I studied improvisation. I studied arrangements. I studied counterpoint. I can manage, well, reasonably, the acoustic guitar. I can play a little bit of piano. So with all of that, I have constructed my own career.

SPEAKER_01: 18:23

What was your first instrument?

SPEAKER_02: 18:25

My first memory, musical memory, is with a harmonica. And I don't remember how old I was because... But I imagine that I was just a little shy because the harmonica, I remember that the harmonica seems very big to me. So I presume that I was really, really small. And I remember the taste of the harmonic in my mouth. I always loved the sound, the sonority of the harmonica. When I had about 12 years, I fell in love with the guitar, the acoustic guitar. So I started to play the acoustic guitar always by ear, okay? Only play some Brazilian music, some rock and roll music as well. When I was 14 years, I decided to play, to learn how to play the harmonica. And in one year, I was already performing professionally here in Sao Paulo.

SPEAKER_01: 19:25

I mean, again, sticking on the Churro topic, you do, again, a great series of videos about what you can learn from each instrument. So, yeah, it'd be great to talk through some of that. So let's start with the bandolin, first of all, which is kind of like a plucked string instrument. It's kind of like a mandolin sounding, but with more strings, yeah?

SPEAKER_02: 19:43

It's exactly that. The mandolin is a mandolin, actually. I don't know what is the difference between them. I think it's the same instrument, actually. Here, in the beginning, the Shoto music was an attempt to copy the European music, which was a chamber music. So they didn't have the percussion on it. So, the first choro groups here, they were trios, they were called here Trio de Pau e Corda, because they were made of a wood flute, a cavaquinho, and a six-string acoustic guitar. That was the bass. This is the first formation. Little by little, other instruments were coming to the choro, such as the clarinet, the flute, and everything else. And that's pretty important to mention because this... initial instrument will give all the sonority of all the identity of that genre. So, in the case of the bandolim, as a plucked string instrument, they have a very precision attack of the note. Okay? So, when they pick the The chord, the attack of the note is immediate. It's just right away, you know? And so what we have to learn from that in terms of harmonica is that harmonica and the bandolim have different envelopes of sound, of sonority, you see? So when you think about the bandolim, the first attack of it is pretty strong. But it decays pretty quickly as well. And the harmonica is the opposite because we have all the reeds of harmonica. They took a little time, a very small time to produce sound. So we always have this little, little delay on the attack of the harmonica. So I have to work my staccato note in order to try to play as a plucked instrument. So that's my first challenge to play the choro, to understand where I need to use the staccato to emphasize the attack in order to make the style, the genre, the choro's genre be

SPEAKER_01: 22:12

obvious for those who are listening. And then the flute is another commonly used instrument. So legato is what you've learned from the flute and applying that to the chromatic.

SPEAKER_02: 22:22

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 22:24

So how do you try and play your best legato on the chromatic?

SPEAKER_02: 22:27

I like to use the C and the F on the chromatic in a way that I can't connect the notes. So for example, if I have a passage that passed through, let's say, A, B flat and C, let's say that we are in the first octave of 48 chromatic, okay? So I would use in that case to create the legato, I would use the C note in the fourth hole drop with the button so that I could connect the B flat with the C. So I use the C, I use the F in different positions so that I could have a more connected sound in our harmonica.

SPEAKER_01: 23:13

And the clarinet, the one thing you say about the clarinet is it's got a nice soft timbre and so you try and have a nice kind of open mouth playing the chromatic to create that beautiful tone of the clarinet.

SPEAKER_02: 23:23

Exactly, because in a matter of fact, when I say bandolim, it's not only the instrument, but I'm talking about the bandelonist in Brazil that created the choro. So when I think about bandolim, I'm thinking about Jacob do Bandolim, who was a great bandolim player, the major one. When I talk about clarinet, I'm thinking about Abel Ferreira. I am just fascinated by his sound. Abel Ferreira used to play a very soft clarinet. Timbre of the wood, the way he put the air on the notes are just beautiful. So that's what I try to emulate in the harmonica. Not only the instrument, but maybe most of all, those artists

SPEAKER_01: 24:20

who use that instrument. And then accordion, another common instrument in choral music. So this is somewhere you try to play the chord and the melody together as an accordion does. So are you playing chords and single notes then on the chromatic to do that?

SPEAKER_02: 24:35

Yes, because the harmonica is the only wind instrument I know that could make some chords, isn't it? That could play more than one note at the same time. So sometimes I try to emulate that from the accordion and actually because we had already some great accordionist here in Brazil, so sometimes I like to play some chords, mostly when we are playing the same tune with several solists, and there is another instrument who are playing the main melody, and I come to the basses and try to put some chords, you see, to make the accompaniment of my colleagues. So that produces a very, very interesting effect.

SPEAKER_01: 25:24

You use a standard tune chromatic for this, do you?

SPEAKER_02: 25:39

Yeah. Nowadays, I use 56 voices with 14 holes, isn't it? I use the Sidious voice. series from suzuki and it's a

SPEAKER_01: 25:52

wonderful instrument but there's quite a limitation on the chords you can play obviously you can play two note chords on the chromatic is that is that what you're doing mostly playing two note chords

SPEAKER_02: 26:01

well for obvious reasons it's not possible to harmonize anything of course i got to choose some tunes where these are available these are possible

SPEAKER_01: 26:13

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 26:13

but when i really can find the solutions the fact is pretty good. One thing that I love to do, for example, is to create harmonica solos when I play the melody and the chords at the same time. That's something I really enjoy to do, some harmonica solos. Actually, I have a whole concert of it. I went to France one time to perform this concert. It produces a very beautiful effect as well.

SPEAKER_01: 27:01

So great. So let's get on then to your recording career and what you've recorded on the show. Obviously, you've drawn these influences from the other instruments. Your first group was a trio, is it? We call it Um Trio Viralata. So your first album with them was a live album recorded in 2003. Um Trio Viralata

SPEAKER_00: 27:19

We

SPEAKER_02: 27:28

have two albums. Both of them are live concerts that eventually become CDs. And the first one was recorded here in Brazil. And the second one was recorded in France in 2006.

UNKNOWN: 27:48

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 27:58

And it was a very important work for me. We worked on that arrangement for years until we finally recorded them. And with this group, I went 10 times to Europe to make some tours. And it was a very, very important job for me. A very, very important work. I'm very proud of it.

SPEAKER_01: 28:20

And how did you get these tours in Europe? How did they come about? Basically, the guitar player of

SPEAKER_02: 28:26

this group, who was on vacations in France, And he is a great acoustic guitar player. He was passing through a city, to a village in France, where a masterclass of guitar was taking place. So he eventually took part of it. And the teacher, a French guy called Roger Eon, a great, great guitar player, he was really astonished with his technique, with his talent. So he invited him to go back to France only to play with him. So he did it. And the success was so huge that he was invited to come the next year. So he decided to invite me and Marcelo Costa, the percussionist. So that's how we started to tour mostly in France. And we created the trio exactly for this project. first tour and so we started to perform every year every year we got lots of invitations to come to europe to perform and we repeated that

SPEAKER_01: 29:37

for 10 years i mean this is partly the reason that you know brazilian music is so popular all around the world right i guess you find that with when you you know you traveled across to europe yeah

SPEAKER_02: 29:47

yeah i may say that The Brazilian music is very communicative because we always have lots of pieces, lots of songs. They are really, really joyful, are really optimistic music, isn't it? And for you from Europe, who has a different sense of rhythm, Brazilian

SPEAKER_01: 30:06

music could be really interesting. And of course, the great Toots Tillmans did an album called The Brazil Project, as well as, I think, another album or two. Was that an influence on you?

SPEAKER_02: 30:26

Yeah, definitely, definitely. You see, I was already playing there when Toots appeared in my life. I was already thinking about being a professional, but I remember I went to his concert, I believe it was 1989, 1990, and I don't remember the year, but I went to the concert of when he released the first volume of the Brazil project. It was one of the best shows, the best concerts of my life. And the way he put... His harmonica into Brazilian music was so beautiful, so beautiful. I just love this project. I love both

SPEAKER_01: 31:07

albums. Yeah. And then yourself, you played with another, well, you're playing on another album, Chiquinha em Revista. Is that with a different band?

SPEAKER_02: 31:17

Yeah, well, of course, I'm a professional harmonica player, so I have lots of groups, lots of participations. I have more than 100 recordings. But Chiquinha in Revista was a tribute to a great piano player called Chiquinha Gonzaga. And it was produced by a great piano player called Anna Fridman. And I've been playing with her for, I don't know, 20 years now. We have released... something about six albums together with her group. I'm part of her group. And this album is a tribute to Chiquinha Gonzaga, who was a pioneer in the showroom music in Brazil. And she was a woman much ahead of her time. She was really important, not only for building the Brazilian music, but also to create the Brazilian movement for the rights of women here in Brazil. To end this slavery here in Brazil, he also took part of this fight. So she was a very, very important woman in the history of my country.

SPEAKER_01: 32:39

And great to hear that you get lots of work. So, you know, what is the scene like for a choral harmonica player in Brazil? Are you plenty busy?

SPEAKER_02: 32:49

Oh, yeah. I live from performing concerts, show the concert most of all. Sometimes it could be really busy, sometimes less busy, but after the pandemic, we are still warming our economy here in Brazil. So little by little, we are just going back to the place where we were before the pandemic.

SPEAKER_01: 33:14

And are there many other choral chromatic harmonica players that you have to compete with, or are you the man in Brazil? No, no, not at

SPEAKER_02: 33:22

all. We have lots of great harmonica players here in Brazil playing choro. The point is that until myself, until I dedicated myself to play the choro, the older harmonica players didn't want to do so. They were more concerned about playing bossa nova and playing samba and playing some different styles. So I am the first one who have dedicated his career to this genre. But we definitely have wonderful players here. For example, we have Pablo Fagundes from Brasilia, who's a great choro player. He knows everything about choro. We have Rio Duora, who's a master, a master. He recorded lots of choros from Hermeto Pascoal, for example, and who are really difficult to play. We also have Gabriel Grossi, Rodrigo Weisinger. We have lots of great harmonica players playing choro here in Brazil nowadays.

SPEAKER_01: 34:36

If you were to see a choro group in Brazil, what were the chances of there being a harmonica player? Has it become quite a standard instrument or is it still a little unusual?

SPEAKER_02: 34:46

No, not that far. No. Not by now, but it's pretty much common, you see. So if you are in Sao Paulo, you could hear eventually some harmonic enxodo. If you are in Rio de Janeiro, you can eventually hear some harmonic enxodo. If you are in Brasilia, you can eventually hear some harmonica and choro. So little by little, we started to occupy some spaces. You see, it's not so

SPEAKER_01: 35:15

rare nowadays. That's great. Well, if anyone listening, if they fancy a holiday to Brazil to check out some choro music and hear some harmonica, that'd be fantastic too. Yeah. Okay, then going back through to your recordings, as you say, you play with lots of different people and you've got lots of recordings in your belt. So I've got another one here. Again, help me with the pronunciation. So, yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 35:38

this is the second album from my group. I have a choro group which is called Chorando As Pitangas. We have a This is my main work nowadays. We have already released three albums. The last one is from the last year. It's an album that we released in 2022. We have been playing for more than 20 years now. We perform, I don't know, two, three, four times every month. And Um Passeio na Benedito Calixto was a tribute that we made for a certain place here in São Paulo called Praça Benedito Calixto, which is a street market. And in the middle of this place, we had a space dedicated for choro. So for seven years, I performed there every every Saturday from four hours of choro, straight. It was really a big school to me because we had to perform for four hours playing choro. It was exhausting and it was exciting. It was challenging. It was just great. When we recorded the second album, I proposed to the group to make a tribute for them. So I composed a tune called O Passeio na Benedita Calisto. and recorded this album, an album that I like a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 37:29

Yeah, some beautiful playing on there. And then on the second album with this group, you do a song called, again, help me with pronunciation, called Xagai, which is where you're playing five different harmonicas all yourself. Oh yeah, this is

SPEAKER_02: 37:43

the first album, actually. This is our first album. It's called Only Vitor Lopes and Xoranas Pitangas. This is the opening piece. This is something that I really enjoy. It's to make arrangements for many harmonicas. I have lots of different things with many harmonica players. Sometimes it's a duo. I have solos, duos, trios, and this case is a quintet for harmonica. Four chromatic harmonicas and one bass harmonica. So this is a very beautiful theme, a theme composed by Pixinguinha, the most important name in the history of Choro. The word Cheguei, it means here I am. So I decided to record this one exactly as a message, just as I was saying, hello everybody, this is the harmonica and the harmonica is coming to the Choro music. So that's why I decided to open this first album with this, with that arrangement.

SPEAKER_01: 38:59

You know, the Choro music is great to listen to, you know, like you say, the Brazilian music is great, but the Choro, there's such fast and exciting playing. So it is very technically challenging. So how have you gone about learning it? Lots of practice, I guess. Lots of practice. You

SPEAKER_02: 39:15

got to play lots of notes very quickly, with precision, with timers. So yes, it's definitely a quite challenging genre. I used to spend all the days studying. So to record this album, I remember that I studied more than five hours every day for months. record this first album and until today i keep practicing every day at least two hours every day it doesn't matter if it's a saturday if it's a holiday if i'm sick you see every day i try to play at least Two Hours of Harmonica.

SPEAKER_01: 39:55

Good to hear, good to hear. And so the pieces that you're playing, are you playing, are these kind of traditionally, traditional Sherlock songs, or are some of them new songs that you've written yourself, or, you know, how did that come about? In all the albums,

SPEAKER_02: 40:10

I got some compositions by myself. And the last album, the album that we released last year, it's only by compositions by not only from me, but also from the other guys in the group. So it's our first 100% personal album.

SPEAKER_01: 40:29

Yeah, and there's also, as well as being very fast and exciting, there's some very slow and beautiful melodic pieces as well, isn't there, played in the Choros?

SPEAKER_02: 40:37

Yeah, Choro has this complexity, you see? It could be really fast, it could be really virtuoso, but it also could be pretty... You see, it could be really romantic.

SPEAKER_01: 41:00

So, I mean, you mentioned that choral is the kind of the mother of all the other sorts of Brazilian music, but you do play some of that other type of music yourself, some tango music and some sambas as well. So you dip into those genres as well, do you?

SPEAKER_02: 41:13

Yeah, definitely. I'm passionate for not only the Brazilian music, but all the Latin music.

SPEAKER_01: 41:29

Another thing that you've recorded is a duo with two harmonicas with another chromatic player. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 41:35

This is Pablo Fagundes from Brasilia. This is a piece that I wrote for him. It's a tribute I made for him. It's a piece. written for two chromatics. One has 64 notes and the other one has 48 notes. It's a very complex piece. I composed a small counterpoint on it. And that's another thing that I love to compose. I love to play that are the counterpoints. I always try to put some counterpoints in my music as well. And this was really, really interesting because I was touring in Brasilia. I just called Pablo and said, Pablo, what do you think about we record a video a composition by myself and he just he said oh great come so I sent him the music he learned it really fast you see he played that it's very hard to play it's not an easy piece we make a rehearsal with I don't know we passed through the music twice and we went to studio the only recording you see we just recorded one time that's it but I just love the result music

SPEAKER_00: 42:43

So

SPEAKER_01: 42:57

what about if someone wants to learn some Shoro? What would be the best way to start? Is there kind of an easy piece someone can work on?

SPEAKER_02: 43:05

Yeah, yes, of course. Well, first of all, you've got to listen to the Shoro. Of course, you can start from playing some ballads, such as Carinhoso, or Vou Vivendo, or Pedacinhos do Céu, which are really romantic choros. We will always have some small pieces of virtuosity, but the main line, the main melody are really, really singable, are very sweet melodies. So that's the best way to begin. I myself, I have created a course to teach people how to play choro and i start exactly with those tunes you see because they are really more friendly for beginners because of course you got to understand the style before trying to to place the harder pieces

SPEAKER_01: 43:54

yeah i'll put a link on to that course so that people can find it okay so a question i ask each time each time vittoria is if you had 10 minutes to practice what would you spend that 10 minutes doing so um if you can slant that towards choro that would be great

SPEAKER_02: 44:08

Yeah. If I had 10 minutes to study, it depends on the period of the year. You see, if I had some concert very hard, sometimes I have some pieces that I'm working on. So I would study that particular passage of that tune, for example. But if I'm just relaxed, if I'm with my family in the countryside, in the holidays and vacancies, I would just improvise. I love to improvise freely. Once thing that I love to do is starting to improvise and I start to modulate from the most crazy modulations. You see, I try to modulate a lot using all kinds of different scales, all kinds of different measures. So I really practice to be free with my harmonica all the times. So how complex are the chord structures of Churro? Oh, it's quite complex. Shodo, a standard of Shodo, to give you an example, have three parts. Each part is in a different key. And inside, in each part, you can have modulations. So when you're talking about, I don't know, let's say the number of chords, one part of a Shodo could have more than 30 different chords. You see, lots of progressions. This one part, and the choro has three. It means that you really have to understand harmony to really

SPEAKER_01: 45:45

play the choro. And this comes, I assume, from the original Portuguese chamber music, does it? So it's originally kind of classical chamber music, and has it evolved from that? Exactly. That

SPEAKER_02: 45:56

comes from the European concept of harmony. But there is a very interesting thing about it that, well, Brazil were colonized by Portuguese, isn't it? But we had different waves of colonization. So each one of these different waves of colonization brought some different kind of musics. So the first wave of colonization that came to northeast of Brazil brought some kind of a more medieval European music. And that's the basis for the northeast music until today. Another wave came into the center to Brazil in Minas Gerais where we found gold and silver and other precious stuff. So we got another wave. that we composed in that period, a music that were more closer to Bach music, you know, the Baroque music. And the last wave was exactly that, that gives the origin of the Choro music. So we were always influenced by that different waves of music coming through with the colonisators.

SPEAKER_01: 47:20

great stuff we'll get on to the last section now we'll talk about gear and what sort of gear you use so you've already mentioned you play the Suzuki Sirius I think the 14 hole is that your chromatic of choice these days?

SPEAKER_02: 47:31

Yeah, I use the 56 note, which have a 14 holes, isn't it? And I love the Sirius series from Suzuki. They are really made for me. I love their playability. The sound is fantastic. The

SPEAKER_01: 47:46

durability. And so the 14 hole, you're playing a C tune, right? chromatic OU only. Yeah, yeah. So you like to get those, you like to get down to that G. Is that, well, it's a useful note in lots of music, but particularly in the choral as well. You need that note, do you?

SPEAKER_02: 48:01

Yeah, exactly. In a matter of fact, that stention is the same stention of the bendling, of the regular bendling. So it's, perfect to play the choro. You got some low registers and you have the optimum of the perfect sound of the harmonica, which starts, I believe, for my taste, it starts in the C. of the C4 of the piano and go into the D6 of the piano. That's the perfect region for the harmonica. So the 14 model is

SPEAKER_01: 48:35

perfect to me. Did you start off in a 14 hole or did you play a 12 or 16 before then?

SPEAKER_02: 48:40

I started at 16, then I changed for 12. I stayed for a long time playing the 12, because my master Omar Izzar only played the 12, the 12-hole harmonica. And because I was, of course, inspired by Tooth Silliman, who only played the 12, isn't it? And he obviously was a great inspiration to me. But little by little, I was... missing some notes in the low register so i eventually changed my all my mechanics to play the 14 and now i'm completely used to it

SPEAKER_01: 49:18

yeah and what about embouchure you use playing the chromatic you uh puckering tongue blocking anything else that's a funny thing because

SPEAKER_02: 49:25

when the pandemic arrives I just, well, I believe that like most of people around the world, I was really frustrated. It was a hard time, isn't it? Then a very surprising thing happened with us here in Brazil. That was, we have a group of harmonica players who are together in a WhatsApp group, something like this, you see? And some guy of our group put it in our group, a link to to a guy from German who made a site teaching how to play the switch, the switch corner technique. And that was a revelation to me because I always have listened that people, there were people who were playing using not the pocket lips embouchure, but using the tongue blocking technique. And I never, never give, never take it really, really seriously because the only guy I knew that played with that technique was not a great harmonica player. So I never understood how could it possible. But the switched corners technique wow that was a real revelation to me so I started to study hard using the switch using the tongue blocking and that just made things so much better to me The last album I recorded with my group, Children's Pitangas, I already put something on it. And I have just released an album, EP actually, in Spotify. And in this album, it's a very small album with only six tunes. I use the switch all the time. There are some passages that are only possible with the use of the switch corner. It's a wonderful technique. And now I am studying this for four years now. Now I am starting to get used to this technique, but it's just something that we must learn. understand we must know this technique because it's revolutionary for any harmonica player it's perfect

SPEAKER_01: 51:53

yeah it might inspire me again to try it because I've tried it in the past and I've kind of given up with it as quite difficult and I'm not sure how practical it is to use but like you say I think it's something that can be quite revolutionary in your playing yeah Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 52:07

definitely. There are some passages that just sound so beautiful. There are some phrasing that are only possible with the use of the switch corner. Otherwise, you won't play that, you see. So it's really, really important to have a professional harmonica player to understand and to play the switch. It's very, very important.

SPEAKER_01: 52:30

And do you play any diatonic harmonica at all?

SPEAKER_02: 52:33

Yeah, only for have fun, of course, and sometimes to record some things. I don't have the same feeling of a great blues player, of course. I don't have the same embouchure, and I don't play with tongue blocking, for example, but I really have fun with it, and I work with it, you see? So sometimes people want to record some harmonica, and I always bring all my diatonics with me, because depending on the music, I will try to put some diatonic, you see? So I just love the sound, the sonority. It's just okay for me. When I was younger, I had a rock group, which was called Banda Toca, and we produced a video clip for music television.

SPEAKER_01: 53:36

And so what about microphones and amplification? What do you use? Well, actually,

SPEAKER_02: 53:42

most of the concerts of Shodo are acoustic. So I definitely am not worried directly with this, but I always carry with me my microphone, which is a microphone from Suzuki made exactly to amplify the chromatic. It's a condenser with a gear to put... The capsule, it's only a capsule. It looks like a GPA mic, but it's only a capsule, the capsule of the mic. It comes with a small piece of plastic where you put... You plug the mic, the capsule on it, and with that, you can hold with your hand. It is pretty light and it takes the full complexity of the harmonica. It's really light, so it doesn't bother you to play. It's really easy to hold. You can manage to change a little bit the position of the mic if you want to take better the high notes or the low notes You see? So to me, it's perfect. It was made by Suzuki. I bought it from José Stanek, one of the great classical Brazilian musicians here in Harmonica. and a great friend as well. And they had a very good capsule that takes everything in the harmonica and takes really, really well the high notes. So sometimes I have to work with the technician, with the engineer, the sound engineer, so that we can cut a little bit the higher frequencies. but it's a wonderful microphone. Very good.

SPEAKER_01: 55:27

Okay, and then final question then. So just about your future plans, what have you got coming up? More live gigs? Any more albums coming out?

SPEAKER_02: 55:34

Yeah, definitely. Well, this year I already released two albums. An album with Daniel Moura, this EP with only six tunes, called O Tempo e a Árvore. And another, the last album of Anna Friedman. And I participated in that as a musician, isn't it? So these two albums are Just fresh. They were just released in 2023. And now I'm planning to record my solo harmonicas because I got several registers from different tunes, but they are in different albums, you see? So I want to put everything together. I want to make a register on audio and video from all the concerts I have to solve solo harmonica. I made some compositions. I have some arrangements for short music, for traditional Brazilian music. So I really think that it could be really interesting and that because I just love the sound of the pure harmonica. You know, I remember I was a kid, I was, I don't know, 14 years old when I heard the soundtrack of a movie called The Bag da Café. I don't know if you remember that movie it's a wonderful movie and in the soundtrack we have a beautiful harmonica from william gallison and one of the tracks that changed my life is in this this movie and he made a solo harmonica from one of the tunes he made a wonderful thing with the chromatic and that just make my head you see So since that, I tried to make my own solo arrangements for harmonica. I'm a great fan of the sonority of the solo harmonica. I love that.

SPEAKER_01: 57:42

Well, we'll end it there. Thanks so much, Peter, for telling us all about Choro music, which I've really enjoyed listening to so much. And I'm sure everyone else can have a listen and enjoy your music, too, and hopefully get playing some Choro music as well. So, yeah, so thanks so much for joining me today, Peter Lopez.

SPEAKER_02: 57:59

Oh, Neo, I'm very glad to be here. I hope that my English was workful for our interview. Big live to our podcast. And maybe we can meet sometime. to play along together, isn't it? I

SPEAKER_01: 58:14

hope so, absolutely. Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks to Vita for joining me today. I do hope I can meet up with him for that jam one day. Doesn't the choro just sound amazing on the chromatic? For sure, I'm going to learn one of the songs he recommends to get started. Thanks all to you for listening. please check out the website at harmonicahappyhour.com. And now it's over to Vita to play us out with one of his solo harmonica pieces from his latest album. This one's called Perapiri.