I’m English but I live in Brazil. Is anyone on here Brazilian?
It would be cool to have some connections here as it can be difficult to know things like where to buy parts or get instruments fixed.
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Hello @THRILLHO ! I’m Brazilian but I’ve lived most of my life in Finland, so I’m afraid I’m unable to be of any help, unfortunately.
But Brazil is such a big country that probably you can find anything you need there. Maybe you could visit a music shop and they could help you? If you could get acquainted to local musicians they could offer some help. There are probably Brazilian bass forums on the web. There might be even Facebook groups for British people living in Brazil (or maybe even groups for British musicians living there), and that could be one place to ask.
I’m afraid I’m unable to even speak about bass guitars or music theory in Portuguese, because everything I studied was in English. My sister asked me once some questions about studying bass guitar, and I had no idea what she meant by some terms. I had to use Google translator 
Where in Brazil do you live?
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That’s a good point about studying in English. I tried learning to play the cavaquinho in the past but I struggled with the Portuguese music theory terms, like how notes are do-re-mi rather than A-B-C. It really threw me off.
I’m in a small town in Sao Paulo state, been here about 10 years now.
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It’s gets even more complicated than that. The do-re-mi form is called solfège, but there’s movable solfège and fixed solfège. In the movable form, “do” is always the root note of the scale, “mi” is the third, “so” is the fifth, and so on. In the fixed form, “do” is always “c”. The fixed form sucks. Solfège is great for sight singing and learning intervals. I used it a lot when learning 7-part harmony acapella madrigals. But solfège for instruments? Not for me.
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I do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, does that count?
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Sorry for butting into someone else’s conversation lol, I’m just bored and looking at posts, but that’s cool. One of my favorite bands is in Finland! Poets of the Fall. I have a widdle teensy crush on Marko Saaresto.
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I learned Solfège (or Solfeggio) in school as a kid - only that I never knew where and how to apply it since there was no proper explanation by the teacher, she only made us sing “do-re-mi-fa…” countless times in different pitches. So this is kind of burned in my brain and still today I know exactly how “do-re-mi-fa…” is supposed to sound, no matter the root. And it is funny that only when I started learning bass, I realized that it is absolutely useful because no matter where I start playing a (major) scale, I always know exactly how the next note is supposed to sound like.
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Good point!
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Cool! It’s a great band! 
That’s very useful! I studied piano as a child or young teenager in Brazil and we used the Solfège, so I find it useful for recognising the sounds of the notes.
But I think it would be hell to try to learn to play bass with do-re-mi instead of A B C, specially because of this:
It would complicate and confuse everything so much. It’s easier to use the Nashville number system for that.
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Which city do you live in? I have a cousin living in Campinas, and other family members in Bragança Paulista.
Maybe it could come in handy if someone mistreats your bass 
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Good point!
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I’m very close to Campinas actually, in Indaiatuba, just south of Campinas.
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I wrote to my cousin and asked if she knows local bassists or other musicians, and what they could recommend. If she finds out anything useful I will let you know. 
I am not Brazilian, but I lived there for a couple years (that definitely doesn’t help the main point of the thread) but I loved Brazil and Brazilian food! That was over 20 years ago.
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My cousin told me that in the city of São Paulo, a street called Teodoro Sampaio is famous for having many music stores, that sell instruments. People even call it “Rua dos instrumentos musicais” (musical instruments street), because there are lots of stores and close to each other. If someday you are visiting São Paulo, that could be a good place to visit.
I made a search and found a store in that street called Destroyer https://www.destroyer.com.br They sell instruments, gear and parts, but I don’t know whether they do repairs or other services. But it is one place to check. I imagine you probably speak Portuguese, and you can call and ask.
There are many more stores there, here are some more:
https://www.tangomusic.com.br/
I also found a short video from YouTube (in Portuguese) of someone very excitedly speaking about how many music stores can be found in that street.
It sounds like a promising place to visit!
PS: I also found a thread in a Brazilian forum with lots of information about the street and the stores that can be found there. It’s a goldmine of information. It is all in Portuguese: 【FIXO】Guia das lojas de instrumentos musicais da Rua Teodoro Sampaio - Cifra Club
This seems like an interesting forum for musicians. https://forum.cifraclub.com.br/
Might be a good place to exchange ideas and to get to know other bassists.
Thanks Andrea, there’s loads of great info there. I actually used cifraclub when I was learning cavaquinho but I didn’t realise they have a forum. Seems like it would be a good place to ask Brazil specific music questions.
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