![]() ![]() ![]() This is the music of Jovelina Perola Negra and Bezerra da Silva, amongst others. Partido Alto is the Samba with the most pronounced African influence, with improvisation and call and response. Samba-exaltação is by far the most relaxed type of Samba, as you can hear in the song ‘Aquarela do Brasil’ (featured in Terry Gilliam's 1985 film Brazil), in Tom Jobim's Bossa nova version or the original by Francisco Alves. Chico Buarque’s ‘Meu caro amigo’ (My dear friend) is a typical piece. It has less of a Carnival feel but still lots of joy. Samba-choro is a mix of Samba and Choro, the urban music (vocal and instrumental) of Brazil in the late 1800s. A good example is ‘Sonhar não custa nada! Ou quase nada’ (To dream costs nothing, or almost nothing). ‘Enredo’ is Portuguese for ‘plot’, as this style is all about singing stories. Samba-enredo is what the ‘Samba schools’ perform at the Carnival in Rio. We’ll stick to mentioning the most popular, and the ones that had a greater influence on the Samba that is currently played in the UK. No two specialists seem to agree about the number of subgenres or styles (for a quick demonstration of some, look at this video). Instead, have a good listen to the video playlist below, that includes some classics, several compositions that made history, the latest winners of the competition at the Rio Carnival and a number of pieces that you might hear amongst UK-based samba groups. Read this explanation of how the different lengths of notes and the placement of accents empower the Samba groove, or this analysis of how Samba blurs the line between 2/4 and 6/8 meter.īut no amount of theory will be enough and, actually, it might get in the way. If that's your thing, have a look at this study about why highly syncopated music produces so much happiness and pushes even the most left-footed people into a frenzied dance. There is some music theory that tries to explain the magic behind Samba. 'Samba is a body unselfconsciously flowing in response to a syncopated beat, melding curious indolence and sexual charge, form and spontaneity,' - Rowan Ireland ‘Samba is the father of pleasure and the son of pain,’ composer Caetano Veloso once said, whilst the poet Vinicius de Moraes wrote: ‘To make a samba with beauty it takes a lot of sadness.’ But Samba uses music and passion to transform that sorrow into joy. Very much like the Blues in America, Samba is a product of the sorrow of the slaves and their descendants. The same gesture was also recorded by the Portuguese among Angolans in Africa during the period of slavery.’ What makes Samba so exciting? Edison Carneiro argues that it is this gesture which unifies almost all variations on the samba in Brazil. There are several theories, but the most widespread is explained by Barbara Browning: ‘The KiKongo word semba is translated in Portuguese as umbigada, meaning "a blow struck with the belly button." In the earliest documented forms of the dance in Brazil, this gesture was used by the dancer in the center of a circle of spectators to call the next dancer to take a turn. Though the first Samba recorded in 1916 had no percussion (the Samba-maxixe style had more influence from the Tango of Argentina than anything else), for many people it is now inconceivable that this music could be anything but an explosion of polyrhythmic drumming. ![]() It evolved from the Lundu dance, and it shares roots with the Batuque that developed in Cape Verde. Except for some limited European and indigenous American ingrendients, Samba is mostly an evolution of the music of African slaves (especially Kongo, Ewe and Yoruba) that were forcibly taken to the Americas between the early 1500s and the late 1800s. It is a music genre that developed in Brazil in the early 1900s amongst extremely poor workers that fled to Rio and Bahia. What makes this music from Brazil so exciting and popular? How do you successfully navigate amongst the dozens of music styles? And how do you get involved? What is Samba? After looking at Barbershop, Wind Bands and Brass Bands, we are now focusing on Samba. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |