I attended a music capoeira class tonight. Music is an important and integral part of capoeira. The speed and style of the song is supposed to lead the tempo of the jogo de capoeira, the game of capoeira.
Bira Almeida better known as "Acordeon" has this to say in Capoeira-An Introductory History:
"The speed and character of the jogo are generally determined by the many different rhythms of the berimbau, a one-string musical bow, which is considered to be the primary symbol of this art form...Inspiring solos and collective singing in a call-and-response dialogue join the hypnotic percussion to complete the musical ambiance for the capoeira session."
Capoeira is played in a circle--participants on the outside and two players in the center. The circle is called roda de capoeira, or "capoeira wheel," usually shortened to just a roda (All leading Rs in Brazilian Portuguese are pronounced as an H sound, in this case roda would sound like hoe-da.). The participants ringing the circle maintain the tempo by clapping their hands and singing or playing the berimbau, the tambourine (pandeiro), or drum (atabaque).
I laugh when a think an old friend of mine from middle school seeing me now. He has been involved with music since I have met him and would be laughing his ass off to see me attempting to sing. I played sports and he was in theatre, chorus, other performance groups.
I could possible overcome the singing hurdle if it wasn't for the fact that I'm also really slow at picking up foreign languages. I think much of my language problems deal with my learning style. I cannot learn aurally. I must read it or write it down to learn (aprendi) and understand it. But I progress anyway--I'm learning Brazilian Portuguese one (um) song at a time.
Boa viejo