Brasil em 3 por 4

Ever since recording Violino Popular Brasileiro (my first CD), I had been thinking about doing a solo project where I could play duets, trios, quartets, and so on, all with myself.

The idea came about because I had already done this on various projects for other people.
They would call me to record a violin part for a song, and we’d get excited and end up recording multiple voices.
The final track on my album was an example of this: my friend Diogo Ramos asked me to play my song “Gil e Hamilton” over a percussion backing track, and I kept recording more and more violins playing different parts.
The result turned out really cool, and we used it on both his band’s (Pau d’Água) CDs and my own.
From then on, it became a dream of mine to have a little home studio where I could play around with chamber music.
It took quite a while—a year or two—to go from that idea to actually starting the recording process.

I never seemed to have the time or the courage, and I didn’t have a concrete project plan either. For this second CD, I arranged, recorded, and played every track myself right here in my apartment; however, as every rule has an exception, I was lucky enough that Gabriel Grossi was touring here in France and could come over to make a very special guest appearance on the track “Valsa Brasileira” (thanks, Gabriel!).

Another thing that encouraged me to move forward with the project now was the fact that I had bought special strings that make the violin sound an octave lower, reaching a range almost as low as a cello.
I used these strings on a second violin, which greatly expanded my arranging possibilities.
This special violin is called a “tenor violin.”
In the liner notes for each track, I explain how many violins and how many “tenor violins” I recorded.
I sought to vary the arrangements, recording everything from solos to ensembles of up to 10 or 11 violins.