Àṣẹ & music: do domínio acústico da cultura, uma densa presença incorporada

Abstract

This work re-analyzes the musical genre axé music by exploring its "acoustic/non-verbal domain," seeking a stable conceptualization that encompasses both its musicological taxonomy and the "world hearing" of the Salvador community. The work defines the acoustic domain of the culture as the expression and perception of the native audible world, operating independently of the verbal-cognitive linguistic system in the composition of the local identity. The research proposes to expand the semantic capacity of the sound focusing on the communication of a "programmed contents" set that positions meanings as inherent to the sound itself – without words. Through a macro-epistemological framework integrating the anthropology of senses, semiotics, and the musicologies, it analyzes how ethno-folkloric musicalities and urban popular music are embodied in axé music. The analysis prioritizes rhythmic and timbral parameters, understanding them as vectors of identification (self), belonging (kronos), and location (locus). It concludes that the "acoustic/non-verbal domain" of axé music is central to the "community imagination," activating collective memory between the mythical time and the contemporary reality of the city of Salvador.