Welcome to Letras do Forró!
This project was initially an in-person, group singing activity suggested by Brussels forrozeiros Emmanuel & Paula at one of the Forró Brussels ASBL Community Forums. We would meet up for 15-20 minutes during one of our practice sessions to learn the lyrics of the chosen song and practice singing it together.
It wasn't a singing class as such - none of us have any singing talent to share with the group! - but a chance to learn a little more about forró through the lyrics of our favourite songs.
Then when the coronavirus hit, we decided to take the project online! So every week, I'll be sharing a post to a new song.
Each post will include:
- a YouTube link to the song
- a link to the written lyrics
- an audio file of me reciting the lyrics in Portuguese (with space for you to repeat after me)
- an audio file explaining certain important words and/or pronunciation features
- an audio file with an on-the-spot translation of the lyrics
As a language geek and forró teacher, my aim is to highlight the vocabulary which is particularly relevant to forró culture and/or to Portuguese language learners. I'm not a native Portuguese speaker, so there may well be some small pronunciation errors from time to time - if you spot a major one, please do send me an email so I can correct it!
Please do note that the purpose of the translation is to give non-Portuguese speakers a basic understanding of the lyrics, so I'm not spending time developing a perfect translation (poetry & song translation is an art in and of itself!) Instead it's a simple functional translation to aid comprehension. Trying to sing the translation will result in a big, ugly mess ;-)
I also hope this project could be a springboard to discuss other aspects of forró culture, so if you have questions or comments about the lyrics we cover here, I'd love to hear from you!