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Raul

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I live at Botafogo’s district in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I’m a musician, songwriter composer, lyricist. Since I was a little child, I used to go to the National Radio with my father and mother. He’s a trombone player (he’s 87 years old!!) and my mother was a singer, but now she’s retired.

My first participation was in the 80’s in an African band from Guinee-Bissau, called “AFRIKA OBOTA,” that means “Mother Africa” (Miéne dialect). In this group I was the bass player. After that I participated in three more bands: “JAMBOSAFI” from Tanzania and “KIESSE BAND” from north of Angola in 2000/1.

I have my own music style, with lyrics in Portuguese, we call this style MPB (Música Popular Brasileira - Brazillian Popular Music). But I think that my style is a little bit different from the others.

Well I’m an ethnic musical instruments maker. My instruments range from purely acoustic instruments to more exotic instruments incorporating electronic devices.

Besides the more conventional percussion instruments I create instruments that offer a wide range of timbres. Here are some examples:

This is an instrument that I've created, called “Clave 4 notas” (Clave’s four tones). This hand made plastic acoustic instrument plays 4 differents timbres. It is very small (11cm x 6cm) and it has one hardwood stick (20cm x 0.20cm). It’s very versatile. To play it, you must hold it with one hand and use the other hand to hit the resonance box with the stick, as shown, above, getting the first sound.

To get to the other sounds, you have to hit with the stick while closing the Clave’s opening using the fingers, one by one in sequence.

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Tubequere
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Singin' Drum
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