Berimbau Tuning and Song Melody in Capoeira: How do they Relate? (Juan Diego Diaz, AAWM 2021)

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The paper "Berimbau Tuning and Song Melody in Capoeira: How do they Relate?" was presented in the Sixth International Meeting of Analytical Approaches to World Music (Held virtually).


Presenter: Juan Diego Diaz (UC Davis)


Abstract:
The berimbau musical bow is the signature instrument of Brazilian capoeira. Alone or in groups of three, berimbaus lead capoeira’s ensemble, control the flow, and serve as a vehicle of knowledge transmission for practitioners. Each berimbau can produce two pitches typically separated by an interval between a minor second and a major second. In the capoeira Angola style, practitioners tune each of the three berimbaus of the ensemble in three pitch levels: low, middle, and high. However, the intervals between those levels vary depending on the individual, group, and context. Bow tuning is further complicated when combined with song: at one side of the spectrum, singers may tonicize one or various berimbau pitches. At the other, practitioners may sing in any tonality disregarding precise bow tuning. This paper explores the largely unstudied relationship between berimbau tuning and song in early audio recordings of capoeira music in the 1940s and 50s, when capoeira music was codified. I will contextualize this with analysis of the first three commercial capoeira albums in the 1960s and with two contemporary mestres from Bahia. I argue that there are threads connecting contemporary practices of berimbau tuning and capoeira singing with those found in recordings throughout the twentieth century.
Through transcription and analysis of selected pieces and excerpts, I propose a taxonomy of relationships between bow and song that may correspond to unspoken ideal musical aesthetics that practitioners have cultivated for nearly a century in Bahia.