What is the music? Female bodies and musical choices

Abstract

This paper, which is developed under the perspective of Cultural Studies, presents a few aspects of the culture of music and dance that point to the issue of the differences in performances and bodies, outlining distinctions between musical identities and, in this sense, between musical tastes. The analysis starts from self-narratives, both verbal and written, of a group of 20 students of a pedagogy undergraduate course who are also elementary school teachers, through musical memories of different times of their lives. It is a biographical investigation, and in the end of the analysis I highlight that their musical influences and choices emerge from their childhood, adolescence and adult life, intertwined with different groups, bands, rhythms and media discourses. There are eclectic musical choices, including styles such as samba, pagode, hip-hop, sertanejo, Brazilian popular music, waltz, among others, constituting the repertoires that the interviewees have chosen to listen to, sing or dance.

Key words: female narratives, musical choices, bodies.