Produção musical como espaço de aprendizagem: entre a autoexperimentação, a prática reflexiva e a colaboração

Abstract

This thesis investigates musical learning within the context of contemporary music production, understanding it as a formative space where artistic, technical, aesthetic, and pedagogical dimensions intertwine. Recognizing that digital transformation has profoundly changed the ways of making, teaching, and learning music, the study proposes that production processes themselves constitute fertile environments for musical learning. The central objective was to understand how learning manifests during the production process, considering the influence of digital technologies, dialogical relationships, and creative self-experimentation. The research adopts a hybrid methodological approach that articulates A/r/tography (IRWIN, 2022) — a methodology integrating the roles of artist, teacher, and researcher — with Schön’s (2000) concept of the design process, which conceives knowledge as emerging from reflective cycles between action and reflection. This perspective allowed the study to unfold as a living, situated practice, where creation, teaching, and analysis continuously nourished one another. The corpus was built from the creation and recording process of the song Nem Bem, Nem Mal, Nem Tal, part of the album T.O.C. – Tratado de Organização do Caos. The process was documented through videos capturing both the autonomous creation of the arrangement and the recording in dialogue with a guitarist. The final product was presented as a Holographic Fanzine with NFC technology, enabling collaborative interaction with the audience and configuring a participatory dimension of learning. The results indicate that musical learning in production emerges implicitly and processually, supported by three interdependent dimensions: the autonomous-subjective, characterized by self-experimentation and autodidactic practices; the communicative-reflective, in which learning occurs through dialogue between producer and musician, reflection on making, and critical listening; and the collaborative-participatory, expanded through interactions on digital platforms, where the audience also participates in constructing musical meaning. These dimensions reveal that music production is simultaneously a space for creation, inquiry, and education, where learning unfolds continuously and contextually. By recognizing the studio and the digital environment as learning spaces, the research broadens the traditional understanding of music education, shifting the focus from the sound product to the formative process that produces it. Thus, music production is understood not merely as a technical activity but as a reflective and pedagogical practice that articulates cultural, technological, and aesthetic knowledge. The analyses further highlight the importance of integrating such practices into Music Education curricula, valuing experimental learning and sonic thinking as legitimate forms of knowledge. The study concludes that contemporary music production, although shaped by digital technologies, remains profoundly human, affective, and collective. By integrating art, teaching, and research, this thesis reaffirms music production as a singular epistemic field — a territory where learning and creation merge, and where sound becomes both the medium and the metaphor of knowledge.