The Birth of Brazilian Music
Brazil’s rich sweet custom derives from the deep mingling of races that has been going on since April 1500, when the Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral stepped onto the lush tropical beach of what would later be southern Bahia.
Of course, Cabral was not the first person to arrive in Brazil, and long before his foot touches Bahian sand, a long musical custom had been at play for thousands of years. The ancestors of today’s Brazilian Indians move around from Asia to the Western Hemisphere somewhere between twelve thousand and forty thousand years ago and eventually made their way down to South America. When Cabral first came to Brazil, the indigenous population possibly exceeded two million. In their music, they sang songs solo and in chorus, accompanying themselves with flutes, whistles, and horns. They beat out rhythms with hand-clapping, feet-stamping, rattles, sticks, and drums.
Their music did not, however, play a major role in the growth of Brazilian in style music. In part, this is because so many tribes were devastated by Portuguese invaders, and the Indians that survived often lost their cultural traditions when they left their native homes and went to live in cities and towns. There is Indian influence in some Brazilian popular music, as seen in songs by musicians like Egberto Gismonti and Marlui Miranda, instruments like the reco-reco scraper, and traditions such as the caboclinho Carnaval groups. But usually one must flight to the remote homelands of the Yanomami, Bororo, Kayapo, and other indigenous groups to hear their music.
