Music and Dance of Brazil

Brazil is the largest country in South America and the fifth largest country in the world. It contains mountains, plains, and the Amazon River basin, and its large coastline is on the Atlantic Ocean. Much of Brazil is covered by dense forests, which are filled with tropical plants and exotic birds.

Brazilian culture is a blend of many different cultures, including indigenous people who have lived there for centuries; people of Portuguese descent who have come from the Iberian peninsula of Europe since the late 1400s; and people of African descent who were brought as slaves from West Africa. In addition to these groups, immigrants from many different countries have come to work and live in Brazil in the last 200 years. Over time, people from these cultures have intermarried, forming a mixture of cultures and traditions, which the music and dance of Brazil reflects.

Hidden deep in many of the forests of Brazil are groups of the original peoples whose cultures are ancient. Members of these groups are often hunters and gatherers and live in the way people lived thousands of years ago. Their musical instruments include various kinds of rattles, drums, whistles, flutes, and horns. In addition to playing instrumental music, the people enjoy dancing and singing. Their music often reflects their aural surroundings—it imitates the sounds they hear. One ancient indigenous Brazilian language uses its word for "sound" for all sounds, including musical sounds. These isolated, indigenous cultures are not well known, and they have not influenced the rest of Brazilian music. A contemporary singer and expert on Brazilian music, Marlui Miranda, has collected and arranged a variety of songs from these ancient cultures and recorded them on several albums.

The Portuguese influence in music is threefold. When the Portuguese people arrived in Brazil, they had with them many European instruments, including the flute, clarinet, a small, four-stringed guitar (that later became the ukulele in Hawaii), guitar, violin, cello, accordion, tambourine, and piano. These instruments, particularly the guitar, tambourine, and flute, have been used in much of Brazil’s traditional music. The Portuguese brought from Europe vocal music such as ballads, romantic songs, church music, children’s songs, and lullabies, which were sung using the scales and harmonies common in Europe then. The choros (Portuguese for weeping or crying) is the most popular song form in Brazil and is accompanied by guitars, flute, clarinet, and mandolin. People enjoy dancing to this music. Finally, the Portuguese brought with them the familiar rhythms of their region of the world, including rhythms of the polka, the waltz, and the march.

The African musical influence is very strong in Brazil and is found in the instruments, rhythms, and dances that are enjoyed there. The most familiar African instruments are various large drums, two-toned agogo bells, a variety of rattles, and bowed instruments with a resonating gourd attached. Another popular African instrument is the friction drum, which is a metal drum with a leather head that is punctured by a stick wrapped in a wet cloth and moved up and down, making a haunting sound. Much African music is used to accompany dances that are included in rituals. The drums are considered sacred, and the drummer plays a very important role in the rituals.

Some popular dances in Brazil that have become well known in North America are the samba, bossa nova, and the lambada. The most popular dance in Brazil, the samba, comes from African rhythms and movements. The music for the samba is usually played on African-derived instruments but might also include brass instruments and guitars. Each region of Brazil has its own form of samba. The best time to experience the music and dance of Brazil is during Carnival. This is a pre-Lenten festival in which groups of people dress in elaborate costumes and parade through the streets. The celebration usually begins with marches with lyrics that praise women and criticize the government. Members of different samba schools gather and enter the parade, dancing their samba down the street and singing their school song, accompanied by large drums.

Like many North and South American cultural traditions, Brazilian culture is complex and extremely varied, although some aspects have blended over hundreds of years.