The music
SINGING IN CAPOEIRA
Capoeira music is vast. Every school has its own way of doing things, built up over time. This page is not the truth about capoeira music — there is no such single thing. It is what almost everyone shares, where schools genuinely differ, and what we do here.
Everything you put here — so many books, and none of it is incorrect. Everybody in capoeira has their own way. Each school has its own way, that they developed over time. In my school it is very personal, and it works like we do.
— Mestre Mindinho
Rituals and traditions
Two different kinds of thing get called "how capoeira works", and telling them apart is most of what this page is for.
RITUALS
Tight. Go almost anywhere in the world and you will find them close to the same. Learn these and you can enter a roda you have never seen before without getting it wrong.
TRADITIONS
Local. They change by school, by group, by state, by region. Ours are ours. Another school's are theirs, and neither is a mistake.
What we teach in our school is our tradition. It is not the truth of capoeira. It is not against the books. It is not the main truth. It is one more truth in a pile of truths out there.
— Mestre Mindinho
The rituals
- The shape of the roda
- The pé do berimbau — the foot of the berimbau
- Waiting while the ladainha is sung
- Buying into the game
- The berimbau is the main instrument — it commands
Mestre is still adding to this list.
Where schools differ
These are the questions a book will answer confidently and a second book will answer differently. Both are telling the truth about the roda they come from. Here is the range, and then what we do.
What the three berimbaus are called
Twelve books in our library. Five different schemes, and they do not reconcile. The most common calls them gunga (large, leads), médio (middle) and viola (small, improvises). But Bimba's own academy recorded gunga · viola · violinha. Six named Angola mestres are recorded using berra-boi for the large one, with gunga as the middle. One source has no gunga in the bateria at all. One author contradicts herself between two of her own books.
LIB-035 · 037 · 039 · 040 · 041 · 042 · 044 · 045 · 046 · 047 · 048 · 050 · 054
AT OUR SCHOOL
We use gunga (large, leads) · médio (middle) · viola (small). Mestre chose it — not because it is the most common, but because it is what we do.
What is in the bateria
Bimba's Regional bateria was one berimbau and two pandeiros — no atabaque. Many Angola rodas run three berimbaus, two pandeiros, atabaque, agogô and reco-reco. Most schools sit somewhere between, and choose.
AT OUR SCHOOL
Right to left:
| Everyday class | Atabaque · 1–2 Médios · Pandeiro |
| Basic | Atabaque · Gunga · Médio · Viola · Pandeiro |
| Full | Pandeiro · Atabaque · Gunga · Médio · Viola · Pandeiro · Agogô |
| Bimba's | Pandeiro · Médio · Pandeiro — our own roots, not another school's |
Yes, we use atabaque. In a class the instructor may use pandeiro alone, atabaque alone or berimbau alone — but preference goes to the berimbau.
This is our roots. Mestre Bimba's traditions is our roots. We don't do exactly what he does, but everything we do is based on what he does. That's why it's important above everything else.
— Mestre Mindinho
How a roda opens
Many Angola rodas open with a ladainha — a long solo song, no game moving, everyone listening — followed by a responsorial section, then the corridos. Other lineages open with a quadra. The books disagree about which, and about what the middle section is even called.
AT OUR SCHOOL
We always open the roda with a quadra. And the singer is whoever is on the berimbau — the voice belongs to the instrument, not to someone standing apart from the bateria. What follows is louvação, then the corridos.
How many kinds of song there are
Three answers in our library, and they conflict. One says three forms: ladainha, chula, corrido. One says four, adding quadra. One says four with lamento instead. And the definitions cross over — what one book calls a chula, another describes almost inversely.
LIB-038 · LIB-039 pp. 51–52 · LIB-041 p. 30
In general we follow this.
— Mestre Mindinho · pointing to an outside source, not reciting the forms himself
AT OUR SCHOOL
The source he pointed to names four forms — corrido, quadra, chula, ladainha — with a chula as a short, usually improvised song that introduces or identifies, and a louvação as something different: praise, naming mestres and origins. That is our answer to how many forms there are and what a chula is — because he chose that source, not because it is the majority. It sits beside the roda's actual flow, above: quadra, then louvação, then corridos. The source doesn't say we sing a ladainha or a chula here — only what those words mean in general.
The voice
We are not singers, we are storytellers. The voice is just the tool you use to pass the message. Having an incredible voice is a plus — but definitely not required. What is important is that you find your internal voice, your internal way to transmit the message.
— Mestre Mindinho
In Portuguese the distinction is exact: a cantor is a singer, a cantador is a storyteller. If you have ever thought you could not do this because you cannot sing, that is the sentence to read again.
Is capoeira's music for everyone?
A respected mestre is on record saying it is not: "a música da capoeira não é para qualquer um."
LIB-047 p. 12
Mestre Mindinho was asked directly, and disagreed.
In my perspective, everybody can play capoeira and can sing. Like any other art, we will have people with incredible talent who become incredible artists.
— Mestre Mindinho
Everyone can perform, in one way or another. Using your voice to transmit a message is doable by everyone — and that is the minimum for being a capoeirista. Some will become above average, incredible performers, incredible singers. But capoeira has a didactic way to teach everyone to participate.
— Mestre Mindinho
Who may sing, play and lead
AT OUR SCHOOL
Nothing is locked behind a cord. No instrument, no toque, no leading the roda. Anyone can practise anything, any time — you just need the motivation. Using an instrument correctly in the roda is a different thing and takes more knowledge: the gate is knowledge, at the roda, not rank at the door. Higher cords usually get preference simply because they have more time in — but that is not true in many cases. A beginner with an incredible voice who performs correctly and follows the rituals and traditions will have the space in the roda.
The order you learn it in
2 · Answering the chorus
3 · Atabaque and pandeiro
4 · Berimbau
One well-known source puts the voice before the palmas. Mestre puts the palmas first. Both orders exist; this is ours, and a student who reads that book should know the other one is there.
LIB-051 p. 5
Why we teach it all
My goal as a teacher, my goal as a mestre, is to teach my students to be able to play, to behave, and to participate in capoeira in any circumstance. Anywhere there is capoeira, he is going to be able to play and participate and be a singer and sing in the roda.
— Mestre Mindinho
Which is why this school teaches the traditions of Angola and of Regional, and songs we do not sing here — because one day you will be somewhere that does. Our traditions come first. They are the foundation, not the boundary. And if you arrived already carrying another school's way of doing things: keep it, keep getting better at it, and add ours on top.
Using the songbook
- Open a song. It shows the coro — the line everyone answers.
- Press play. Each syllable lights as it is sung, and a countdown tells you when to come in.
- Tap a line to jump to it. Tap again to loop just that line.
- Drop to .5× when a line will not stick.
- Open Praticar for a backtrack — berimbau or pandeiro, three speeds — and sing with nothing but the rhythm behind you.
- Record yourself and send it to Mestre. He listens and answers you here.
Everything on this page attributed to Mestre is from his own recorded words. Everything about what other schools do is from books in the school library, cited so you can go and read them. Where they disagree, that is shown rather than settled — because you will meet all of it out there.