During the last 500 years there have been 3 major influences over music in Brazil, the Indians, the Portuguese and the Africans.  The Brazilian Indians were great musicians and dancers and composers of improvised songs.  There appears to be little Indian influence in popular music today however.  The Portuguese travellers brought with them both traditional and dramatic dances, lullabies and nursery rhymes together with most of the basic musical instruments that we hear in Brazil today.  The African slaves contributed to rhythm and dance, the most famous influence being the samba.  They also brought with them an extensive array of percussion instruments.

Reco-Reco- A scraper of bamboo or metal, sometimes with springs.

Ganza- Also called cholaho, it's a tube filled with some small pellets, making a large rattle.

Tamborim- Small frame drum held in the left hand and hit with a stick in the right hand.

Pandeiro- A tambourine with jingles made to have a dry sound, not "ringing" like most tambourines.

Caxixi- Small basket rattles, used singly with the berimbau or doubly as rattles, one in each hand.

Berimbau- A musical bow with gourd resonator, it is played with a complex technique that includes the use of a stick to hit the string, a rock or coin to raise the string's pitch, a caxixi to add a rattle, and the opening and closing of the resonator gourd on the player's chest.

Cuica- A friction drum in the same family as the rommelpot of Europe, but the stick attached to the drumhead is inside the drum, allowing the right hand to rub the stick while the left hand presses on the head to alter the sound.

Afuche/Cabasa- Originally a gourd with serrations and a bead webbing, when rotated it produced pleasant scraping sounds. More common is the modern version, a corrugated metal strip with metal beads, on a wooden handle, played the same way.

Triangle- A standard triangle, but played so as to use a muting technique in the left hand to produce rhythmic variation.

Whistles- A three tone whistle is used to signal a large group, and as a sound effect on its own. Made of wood or the louder metal version.

I have listened to a Brazilian Samba and this piece of music has a lot of Rhythm which makes you want to dance.  The instruments used to play this piece of music are Guitar, Piano, Percussion and xylophone.

To listen to the music click here

Forro

Cha Cha