Hermeto Pascoal and his intuitive school of music

In an exclusive Agência Brasil interview on June 25, the renowned Brazilian musician, Hermeto Pascoal, long known for his unconventional music and opinions, discussed his ideas about musical education. The multi-instrumentalist, who plays at least ten different instruments, declared that he was self-taught and his music 99.5% intuitive. And he said he only learned music theory when he was over 40. Hermeto turned 75 at the end of June.

Music is more than those seven notes on the scale, declared Hermeto, who is called things like “genius” and “magus” by other musicians. Music is intuition and that is something that is little recognized in music schools, he went on to say. Hermeto thinks that what he calls “excessive emphasis on standard methods” is only good for some teachers to make a lot of money.

The problem with teaching intuition is that the professors never learned through intuition, according to Hermeto. “So how are they supposed to teach it? A lot of teachers have less musical perception than their students. They have experience, but they do not feel the music, which is what really counts. In fact, they feel very little,” declared Hermeto.

“Harmony is the mother of music and sensibility is more important than technique and real talent is having good taste in music. Music schools only make money, they don’t teach really teach music,” added Hermeto.

According to official numbers (“Central de Apoio às Escolas de Música”), there are 6,120 schools of music in Brazil with 294,610 students enrolled (there is no information about how much money they make).

Hermeto says he has plans to set up his own music school. It will be called Temple of Sound (“Templo do Som”). It will emphasize the multidisciplinary character of music (something he does in his compositions that vary in style from Brazilian regional (samba, bossa nova, forró, choro, baião, rasta pé, etc) to jazz to pop to classical).

“The world is mathematical. The mathematics of God. Not this premeditated math they have out there, with ‘to know’ in front of ‘to feel.’ The math I’m talking about is the engineering math that ants use to build an anthill [without a blueprint] and birds use when they sing everyday at the same time, without a clock telling them the time.”