Good ideas are often simple. This seems to be the case here. Mário Nogueira and Ana Margarida Saraiva – he a saxophonist and she a clarinettist in the philharmonic band of the Sociedade Musical União Paredense (the mythical and centenary SMUP) – are two nature lovers. Adding the music was a no-brainer. But this is one of those cases where adding 1+1 doesn't equal 2. In addition to 1) music and 2) nature, SMUP's Music Walks are also 3) a way of raising money to buy musical instruments (with donations from registrations), 4) publicising SMUP's music school and band, 5) challenging two young musicians from the band to prepare a monthly performance, and 6) making around 30 people so happy that they'll even come back next month to do another walk and listen to other musicians. The next one is scheduled for 27 January, at 9.30am, departing from the Church of Nossa Senhora da Ulgueira (Ulgueira).
The original idea was for the tours to have three parts, says Mário Nogueira: one on the history and stories of music, another on the voice and a third on the instruments, with soloists from the SMUP band. “But we've fine-tuned it,” he explains. “For example, the voice. People seem embarrassed, so we put it to one side. But on this last walk we didn't take any instruments because rain was forecast, so we tried it again and it went very well. We did some harmony exercises and in the end it worked, it sounded beautiful and everyone was very happy to have achieved it.” And there are already new ideas in the pipeline, presented as part of the project submitted to Cascais Town Hall. Mário spoke to his choir teacher from last year and... she confirmed that she'd like to try a voice walk. Also at the Cascais Conservatoire, he spoke to a teacher who could do a walk “with real Music History” and it may well come to pass. It’s all a question of timing. “Our conductor, Sérgio [Costa], who is a percussionist, gave us the idea of using some percussion instruments because it's difficult to get people to play a saxophone, clarinet or trombone. But we could have a little music box, a little drum, a tambourine, just hand them out and try to play something. Sérgio is a conductor, so there's no one better than him to do it [laughs]. The idea is to try and get people more involved, so that they get a taste of music and feel that music isn't something that scares them, it's actually fun.”
In the project they presented to the Council, they also asked for help with transport and insurance. The idea was to have a bus at SMUP to take people there and back. “We have environmental concerns and it doesn't make sense to take 40 cars to the mountains. We're next to Parede station and people can come here by train. We'd like to make SMUP the centre of the walks. People could meet here, get to know SMUP, see what we do.”
The number of people per walk and the price are fixed. “We're a society that's here for the people, so we're not going to charge more. The donation is 5 euros, but strangely enough, many people have taken the initiative to donate more.” Registration is limited to 40 participants. “We're not going to accept more, because the idea is for people to interact with each other and feel free to ask questions; when there are too many people, they get embarrassed.”
As well as climbing the mountain once a month, SMUP's music goes to the beach once a year as part of The Band Goes to the Beach [A Banda vai à Praia] initiative. While we wait for next summer to see how things are going, we'll be hanging out with a society that doesn't know how to sit still.
SMUP's Walk with Music. Quinta do Pisão. www.facebook.com/smup.parede