# Capoeira: An essay of the Berimbau and atabaque



## Casey_Sutherland

Here's an essay I thought I would share. It was written for my Music and World Culture course. Enjoy and let me know what you think


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## Casey_Sutherland

Anybody actually read my essay? I'd love to get some feedback. I don't sense a huge capoeira presence on MT. It would be cool to get some further insight into some great mestre's


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## Flying Crane

i'll give it a read and get back to you, as soon as I get the time.


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## Flying Crane

Casey, I haven't had a chance to read it yet, and want to give it my full attention and consideration so I don't want to rush it until I have the time to do it right.

I was wondering, for my own reference in reading your work, what experience have you had with capoeira?  any formal training, and if so, with who and for how long?  If so, have you developed any skill with the birimbau yet?

If you haven't trained capoeira, was this paper written purely from a musical point of view?  

thx.

michael


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## MartialIntent

Would you be interested in an opinion from an avid [_non_-capoeirista!] reader...?

I thought the introduction was intriguing and got me hooked immediately, unfortunately for me, my interest waned as the article became increasingly light with your own narrative and insight and heavy with quotation.

As the reader is led away from your own descriptive writing it becomes a little apparent that _maybe_ you haven't had a great deal of experience of the roda? Apologies if this is incorrect!

While your article is certainly well-researched and technically competent, my only advice from a readability [grading?] point of view would be to call up your nearest Capoeira school and get yourself off to your nearest session for an hour - I'm sure they'll be more than happy to have an interested researcher - and bring your notepad and mp3 player / recorder - record the live roda to slot in the article, and get some first hand insight - as a martial artist yourself, you know getting yourself off to class is the only way to do it: first hand! Right?

For me a technical essay on the various musical elements of the roda is an odd paradox - the roda being the great Capoeira game of unpredictable interchanges and flowing physical movement backed by the mysterious, fascinating call-and-reply rhythms of the berimbau and is built around passion and about fun and while your essay is certainly efficient, it's maybe lacking the expression of that excitement - and there's certainly room for this within the formal structure of a coursework essay.

More of *your own* experiences of listening to the instruments and less of the experts will provide a stronger, fuller, more cohesive essay I feel.

Good luck though.

Respects!


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## Flying Crane

Regarding the technical writing aspects of the paper, I have to agree with MartialIntent in that you used a heavy reliance on quotation, where you might have more effectively put the information into your own words while giving credit to your sources.  Also, check your writing manuals, I believe that lengthy quotes should be offset as their own paragraph, slightly indented.

As far as the content of the paper, you have picked a very difficult topic and you deserve a pat on the back for taking up the challenge.  In all honesty, this is a topic that could become a PhD Dissertation.  Until just recently, there have been few written sources in English about capoeira, and by extension the berimbau and atabaque, so unless you read Portuguese you can find yourself limited.  More recently a few more works have been published, some of which have been of a higher quality of scholarship than many of the previous works.  I would suggest you get a copy of _Capoeira: The Jogo de Angola From Luanda to Cyberspace_, by Gerard Taylor.  So far only Volume One of Two is available, but I have found this book to be by far the most informative, as well as the most ambitious work in tackling the highly convoluted and confusing history of Africa and Brazil that meshed to create capoeira.  This book also makes it very clear how difficult this research is, trying to make sense of what was happening in Africa and Brazil that lead to modern capoeira and the development of all aspects of the music that has become part of it.  His research into Africa goes back as far as the time of the crusades, if I remember correctly.

Also, as MartialIntent mentioned, active training with a capoeira school would go a long way in developing your understanding of the music of capoeira, and this alone would give you more confidence in your own insights and lessen your need to rely on quotations of others.  However, competent capoeira teachers outside Brazil are still somewhat few and far between, so if this is not available to you, I certainly understand.

Regarding the historical developement of capoeira, most teachers today can give you the most recent and modern history, say from the time of Mestre Bimba in the 1930s to the present.  What many of them won't be able to tell you is the history prior to this, as well as the parallel history of capoeira that did not include Mestre Bimba even tho these events were taking place at the same time.  Mestre Bimba was a very influential figure in modern capoeira, but he was by no means the only influential individual.  Others of his contemporaries, like Mestre Pastinha as well as many unknowns, also had a hand in developing capoeira, so the lineage that traces thru Mestre Bimba is only one aspect of the whole picture.  I believe the reason many teachers, including those from Brazil who have trained for many years, cannot relate this history is because it has been largely an oral history and much of it has been forgotten.  This is why works like Gerard Taylor's are so important because his has really dug into the history to try to bring this forgotten information back before it is completely lost for good.

At any rate, I think you have given this a good effort and I applaud you for doing this.  There is more to it however, and you could dig deeper and keep going if you are so inclined.  Some of your ideas may be challenged by works like Mr. Taylor's.  As an example, you state on the top of page 4 "This also gives light to another context of how Capoeria grew, hidden as a simple dance with extravagant *techniques which the slaves freely practiced* to attact customers and such, hidden within a devastating Martial Art exists." [emphasis added].  I think the truth is that capoeira, with other aspects of the African's culture in Brazil, was highly oppressed and not freely practiced, but rather done on the sly, or if done openly then it was an expression of defiance against the colonial Portuguese.  Again, Mr. Taylor makes this picture quite clear.

Once again, I have to thank Arnisador for making me aware of Mr. Taylor's book a couple months back.  I highly recommend the book, more so than any others I have read in English, to anyone who is interested in capoeira history.

I want to apologize for focusing most of my comments on Capoeira rather than the Berimbau and Atabaque specifically.  The truth is, they are so closely intertwined that to discuss the one is to include the other.  While Berimbau and Atabaque can also be found musically outside of Capoeira, once you present them within the framework of Capoeira, then they cannot be separated.  A greater understanding of one is a greater understanding of the other.


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## Casey_Sutherland

I really appreciate the insight. You are both correct. I have no, and I mean no Capoeira training. I am an american kenpoist and I am just really interested in capoeira. There isn't any capoeira where I am from unfortunatly. The paper is meant to be purley on the music. I added the martial art to the essay to keep them intertwined because they go hand in hand. I used mainly research papers for my quotations and "the little capoeira book" by nestor capoeira. Thank you both for reading over my essay. I'll have to try and revamp it a little more.

Thanks again


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## Flying Crane

Hi Casey,

I've got a list of publications in English, that could help you out.  These are full books; there are probably articles in anthropology and music journals that might help as well, but I haven't researched into that realm.

_Capoeira, the Jogo de Angola from Luanda to Cyberspace, vol. 1._
Gerard Taylor, North Atlantic Books.
(looking forward to the release of Volume 2)

_Ring of Liberation, Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira_
J. Lowell Lewis, The University of Chicago Press

_Learning Capoeira, Lessons in Cunning from an Afro-Brazilian Art_
Greg Downey, Oxford University Press
I haven't read this one yet, but it is in my collection

_The Little Capoeira Book, Revised Edition_
Nestor Capoeira, North Atlantic Books
The revised edition is significantly thicker than the original, but I haven't read it yet so I can't tell you what is different.

_Capoeira, Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game_
Nestor Capoeira, North Atlantic Books
i haven't read this one yet, but it is in my collection

_Capoeira, A Brazilian Art Form, History, Philosophy, and Practice_
Bira Almeida - Mestre Acordeon, North Atlantic Books

_Capoeira, the Art of Survival_
Waldenkolk Oliveira - Mestre Preguica
I think this one is self published and probably not generally available

Some of these books are more heavily researched and scholarly than others.  Some of these present capoeira from the viewpoint of the author, who is a capoeira teacher.  This represents their own vision of capoeira, which may disagree with what others write.

There are also many music CDs of capoeira music, put out by various capoeira groups.

Hope this helps.

Michael


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## MartialIntent

I understand your predicament insofar as trying to separate the music and instruments from the play in Capoeira is like trying to separate a wave from the sea. I certainly defer to Michael's greater knowledge of the subject though if I could make one other suggestion that might fit in, it would be to perhaps include something of the particulars of the rhythms. Here's a snippet from this short article http://pertout.customer.netspace.net.au/lberimbau.htm ...

_The berimbau can produce distinctive rhythms called toques that are easily recognised by the Capoeristas (game participants). Some of this toques de berimbau are common to all schools, while others are developed by different mestres (masters) and played by their students. Some of these rhythms are related to African nations such as Angola and Ijexa, some refer to Catholic saints, while some were used to alert the participants. As an example the rhythms known as Aviso and Cavalaria were used traditionally to advice the participants of the arrival of a stranger, the police, or the cavalry squadron to the circle. _
​If you do rework your essay, please do post your updated version.

Respects!


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## Casey_Sutherland

Hi, Thank you for all of your support. I am re-posting my essay now that it has been edited a bit. I would have liked to focus more on the artistic aspect of capoeira but once I consulted my professor she told me I needed to focus more so on the aspects on of the instruments, organologically. Here it is, thank you all again


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## MartialIntent

Casey_Sutherland said:
			
		

> Hi, Thank you for all of your support. I am re-posting my essay now that it has been edited a bit. I would have liked to focus more on the artistic aspect of capoeira but once I consulted my professor she told me I needed to focus more so on the aspects on of the instruments, organologically. Here it is, thank you all again


Casey - it's evident you've put more focus on the organology of the instruments. Hopefully this should serve you well with your prof. 

If I could just make one comment [purely as a layperson you understand!] I cut all the quotation from the essay leaving only your own commentary and perspective but this amounts to only 44% of your 2000-odd words. I appreciate this balance is a difficult one to strike [and you've done a decent job]. It seems a pity though that you weren't able to get your hands on any of the instruments yourself. 

Plenty of cheapies like this [hope it's still listed]: 
http://cgi.ebay.com/BERIMBAU-BRAZIL-3-5-DAYS-capoeira-NEW-SHIPPING-PRICE_W0QQitemZ7395016956QQcategoryZ622QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

- a first-hand perspective I feel would be invaluable in tying together that existing research and quotation. But then so many have written extensively on Abe Lincoln and never had that actual pleasure so I suppose it's a moot point!

I'm not certain in what health the Martial Talk Capoeira community is in. Have you tried directing your questions to any of the other fora? 
http://www.capoeira.com/forum.php 
or the smaller [but my favorite] http://www.beribazu.co.uk/forum/

There are several others as I'm sure you're aware.

An interesting read and you have documented the MP3s well. I wish you good luck - you've earned it at the very least for your persistence!

Respects!


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## Flying Crane

MartialIntent said:
			
		

> I'm not certain in what health the Martial Talk Capoeira community is in.


 
from what I can tell, I may be the entire Capoeira community on Martialtalk at the moment  
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





I haven't had a moment to sit down and give this the attention it deserves, so I didn't want to make comments until I could do that.  I will get back to this as soon as I get some time to focus on it.


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## Flying Crane

OK, I think you still rely heavily on quotation, which has its place but is easy to overdo.  I think if you go back and re-read all of the quotations you will find that many of them could be put into your own words, while still giving proper reference to your source material.  This is just a writing style issue.  If you look at page six where you begin to discuss the Ipod casts, it seems like this is much more in your own words, and is much more comfortable to read.

years ago I worked as a legal assistant in a corporate lawfirm in San Francisco's Financial District.  One of my duties was to Citecheck legal briefs written by the attorneys.  What this means is that we read their work and check all the caselaw citations and quotations they used to make sure they are both accurate, and in the case of the caselaw, still good and current law.  One of the attorneys that I would citecheck for had a habit of writing almost his entire briefs using quotations from caselaw.  It drove me nuts because he would have a dozen or so quotations on every page of the brief and it was very difficult to read.  Don't fall into this trap.  There are times and places where it is appropriate to use a direct quotation, but it is very very easy to overdo it.

That aside, I think you have some good basic information on your topic.  I still recommend you take my list of books and see what more you can find in them.  I know it's a lot of reading, but there is still a lot more out there.

Good work, keep it up.


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## Casey_Sutherland

Thank you for all of the input. I am still such a capoeira newb, but my appreciation for it is growing. Thank you all again


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