Samba
The Origins of Samba
Samba is a Brazilian musical genre and dance style, with its roots in Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions through the samba de roda genre of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia, from which it derived. Although there were various forms of samba in Brazil with popular rhythms originated from drumming, samba as a music genre has its origins in Rio de Janeiro, the former capital of Brazil.
How Samba Became Popular
Samba is recognised around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival.
Modern Samba
The modern samba that started at the beginning of the 20th century is mostly in a 2/4 time signature varied with a sung chorus to a batucada rhythm.
Instruments
Traditionally, the samba is played by percussion instruments – see the video below:
Structure of Samba
Each instrument in the samba band has its own repeated pattern to play. Samba music is built up of lots of different sections. For each section the samba piece will need to know an ostinato (repeated pattern). A samba piece may need to know as many as 6 ostinatos per piece of music. The main pattern that a samba piece needs to know is the groove. The groove is the main ostinato that is heard most of the way through a piece of music. The groove is then broken up by breaks and mid sections. A break is a 4 or 8 beat rhythm which is usually played once or twice. It is used to provide to create contrast to the main groove. A mid section is where just 1 or 2 instruments change the rhythm of their ostinato and the others stay the same or stop playing all together.
traditional Samba
They use traditional instruments. See this clip:
Melody
Samba is mainly using percussion. There might be the odd little agogo melody. They use trumpets and brass in the tunes. The example below shows this. They use strings too.
Rhythm
Samba is made up of different rhythms – the style is based around these. There are very complex rhythms – cross-rhythms/syncopation. Here is an example:
Harmony
The style is rhythmic so really there are no chords. In more remix examples they may use EDM style piano breaks.
Instrumentation
Drums, percussion, whistles etc – brass and strings. Synthesisers in remixes.
Modern Technology in Samba Music
The whole style is rhythmic. The technology aspect is really when Samba is recorded. They use microphones to record the groups performing in concerts. They also use technology more in samba remixes. They sometimes add synths and drum grooves when fusing samba with dance music.
Sources of information
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba
youtube research – https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=samba
internet pages on Samba:
https://www.normans.co.uk/blog/2014/07/world-drums-samba-drums/, https://wiki.kidzsearch.com/wiki/Samba, https://www.myinterestingfacts.com/samba-music-facts/
My Samba Piece
With my piece I wasn’t 100% sure what type of style is was going to make. However, I started playing around with the drums and steel pans and managed to make quite a nice beat. I experimented with lots of different ideas and it started to sound like Samba. The steel pans make it sound a bit like Calypso music.
What makes my piece Samba
My piece has a variety of percussion instruments such as drums, tom toms and steel pans. However, I also added some effects, such as the arpeggiator, fade and EQ etc to make the piece sound just that little bit better.
The structure is quite simple – the same ideas repeated
Melody – i used strings for the melody and steel pans for the second melody.
Rhythm – my piece has a beat that changes at different times in the piece.
Harmony – i used broken chords for my harmony.
Instrumentation – i used strings, steel pans and drums.
I took a long time working out different rhythms for the piece and i tried out lots of ideas. I tried and experimented with lots of instruments and i think it sounds good.
Review of the piece.
How i did well
The piece meets the brief because it is 2 minutes and 42 seconds long. It has more than 4 midi tracks and an audio loop. I think it sounds nice and upbeat and it would make people dance to it. I liked the structure because samba is repetitive. I could have added a break in though. I like the rhythm side – it sounds good.
Use of DAW
I used lots of techniques to create the piece. I used midi and audio editing. I used a range of software instruments and had to quantise my sounds to get them in time.
How i could make my Samba piece better
- Add some vocals
- Make the piece less repetitive
- Have a variety of steel pan tracks
- Add some effects to make the piece sound more authentic
- Have a greater variety of MIDI and Audio tracks
My piece sounds a bit like Calypso because of the steel pans. If i was to change it i would just use drums and not steel pans. I could have used more synthesisers and made it into more of a remix.
^sources of information – wikipedia