The learning process in fado through artistic research

This project focuses on the learning process in the oral tradition of fado. A common Portuguese saying 'O fado não se aprende' (one cannot learn to sing fado) forms the departure point of this artistic investigation. As a singer I dived into the practices of the oral transmission in Lisbon in order to discover if I could in fact learn the skills of singing fado. The project discusses several methods one can use as a singer in order to enrich one’s artistic practice with new genres that are not taught in music academies. It is concerned with the question of what knowledge can be produced through artistic research. What can we learn from an artistic researcher that we cannot learn from an ethnomusicologist? What is the extra dimension of artistic research?