A long time ago, I published an article about tuning a berimbau. Looking back at it, it was actually more on how to properly assemble and prepare your berimbau to get the best sound possible, while not really focusing on the aspect of musically tuning its sounds. At the end of that article I talked a little bit about tuning berimbaus together for a bateria, but it was quite superficial as I didn’t know a lot about it back then.
Several years have passed since, and in that time I’ve thoroughly studied the berimbau (which started during the pandemic as there was not much else to do). And in the past half year, my focus went more and more towards proper techniques for tuning berimbaus. With the new insights I’ve gathered, it’s time for a serious update on the subject.
Tuning a single berimbau
This post is aimed at people who already know how to properly tune a single berimbau to a certain note. It is something you have to master before attempting to tune a bateria, obviously. In this article I’m not diving into techniques for tuning a berimbau, so if you haven’t mastered that technique this article might be difficult to follow.
A common tuning method
If you ask any mestre (or capoeira that plays the berimbau) how a bateria should be tuned, you will probably get one of these three answers:
- “I don’t tune the berimbaus, I just try to make them sound good.”
- “I tune my berimbaus simply by listening to them and adjusting the pitch until each one sounds right and fits in.”
- “There’s this rule you should follow to tune your berimbaus properly, it goes like this…”
Let’s dive into that third response. If someone teaches you a method to tune an ensemble of berimbaus together, 90% of the time, (s)he applies the rule below.
- The high note of the gunga has to match the low note of the médio.
- The high note of the médio has to match the low note of the viola.
Using this technique, you create a stepwise increase of the pitch from the gunga to the viola. This rule of thumb is actually a bit more complicated, but when applied correctly, the results are very good. This tuning method doesn’t really have a name, but I call it scaled tuning.
Let’s find out why this actually works and how you can apply this technique without a trained musical ear.
Brief introduction to music theory
Note: I’ve had no formal training in music, so if you spot a mistake please correct me!
To understand how tuning a berimbau works, we need to dive into a bit of music theory. I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible.
Notes
Starting with the absolute basis, in music you have notes. they might be represented by a letter (the first row in the table below), or by a sound (second row).
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
| La | Si | Do | Re | Mi | Fa | Sol |
Semitones
These are the 7 notes we use in Western music. When looking at a piano, the white keys represent these notes. To make things a bit more complicated, you can also use semitones, which is half of a tone away from a certain note. But beware, not every note has a semitone!
Here’s an example:
- If you go a full tone up from D (Re), you arrive at E (Mi).
- If you only go half a tone up from D, you get D#.
- You can also go half a tone down from E and you get Eb.
- In our case Eb is the same as D#, but that’s not always true.
There are are the two exceptions though: there is no semitone between B-C and E-F, as they are already only half a tone apart from eachother. Looking at the complete picture these are the tones we can work with:
Consonance and Dissonance
When two berimbaus, voices, or any other sources of music play together, it can either sound pleasant to our ears or not. When it sounds pleasant, there’s a consonance between the sound waves of the sources. When it sounds unpleasant, the sound waves are in dissonance. Consonance is further divided in two types: perfect and imperfect consonance. Perfect consonance sounds extremely good to our ears while imperfect consonance still sounds very good to our ears.
For example, a Gunga might be playing a C (Do) while the médio plays a D (Re). These two tones don’t really go well together and it will be perceived as a dissonant sound. The individual berimbaus may sound great, but together they sound bad.
So, to make a trio of berimbaus sound good in a bateria, all you have to do is achieve consonance between them.
Intervals
The distance between two tones, for example C (Do) to F (Fa) is called an interval. Several of those intervals exist in music theory. Some of them are (im)perfect consonant, while others are dissonant. Each interval has a name, which can be confusing at first. For our case, just accept it for what it is.
These are the intervals that exist:
| Interval | Distance | Consonance |
|---|---|---|
| Unison | 0 (eg A and A) | perfect |
| Second | 2 semitones (eg A to B or B to C#) | dissonant |
| Minor Third | 3 semitones | imperfect |
| Major Third | 4 semitones | imperfect |
| Fourth | 5 semitones | perfect |
| FIfth | 7 semitones | perfect |
| Minor Sixth | 8 semitones | imperfect |
| Major Sixth | 9 semitones | imperfect |
| Seventh | 10 semitones | dissonant |
| Octave | 12 semitones | perfect |
As you can see, only the second and the seventh are dissonant. Depending on the situation, a fourth can sound either good or bad. All other intervals sound pleasant.
Here is a handy overview of the consonant intervals we can use:
Reflecting on our bateria, we now have to find a way to tune each berimbau so that they use (im)perfect intervals.
Reflecting on the scaled tuning methodology
Now let’s apply our newly gained understanding of music theory to the scaled tuning method. We are going to assign some notes to our berimbaus and let us see which intervals we reach.
| Berimbau | Tuning | Intervals |
|---|---|---|
| Gunga | Low sound tuned to B High sound tuned to C# | |
| Médio | Low sound tuned to C# High sound tuned to D# | High sound is a major third from the gunga’s low sound |
| Viola | Low sound tuned to D# High sound tuned to F | Low sound is in unison (or octave) with the médio’s high sound. Low sound is a major third from the gunga’s low sound High sound is a major third from the Gunga’s high sound. |
As you can see, the berimbaus are tuned in ascending steps like mentioned in the beginning of the article. And this translates nicely to consonant intervals as you can see in the second column. Almost all intervals are major thirds, which is a popular imperfect consonant.
Small remark, this example works well in a bateria if the médio inverts the toque of the gunga and the viola plays the same base as the gunga (or uses the same emphasis note). In other words, the gunga and viola have to use the low note as their emphasis / base note, while the médio uses the high note.
Thoughts
Important pitfall
In the few sources that are available which discuss the technique of tuning berimbaus, it is always assumed that the high note (preso) is a semitone or a full tone higher than the low note (solto). That is unfortunately not true. The pitch of the high note depends on where you put pressure on the string using your dobrão / pedra. And this in turn heavily depends on the size of your hand and the size of the pedra or dobrão you use. I noticed myself that it’s difficult to create a preso note which is exactly either a half or full tone higher than a solto. In a lot of cases I get stuck with either a quarter or three quarters of a tone above the solto.
That makes it very diffcult to achieve the scaled tuning, since you can’t tune the solto and preso notes separately. So, don’t forget about this pitfall and try to find a way to manipulate the pitch of the preso by either using a different sized pedra or playing with the position of your hand.
Other tuning methods
Is this the one and only tuning method that’s applicable to our berimbaus? While it seems to be the most popular, it is definitely not the only solution. There are various other tuning systems being used and you can invent your own as well.
Perhaps the most important factors to consider are which berimbaus with which tuning you have at your disposal and which toques you use. If you have a bateria where all three berimbaus play the same toque, then this is may not be the ideal tuning system.
Do all mestres do this?
Yes and no. Perhaps only a handful of mestres know and apply this theoretical knowledge to their baterias. But an astounding percentage of the mestres does apply this “unconsciously”, they tune their berimbaus to their ear and apply this common rule of thumb (or any other rule) just by listening to their instruments and paying attention to what they perceive. They know when it is “right” but can’t necessarily explain you why. They feel it because the harmony resonates in their body and soul.
The extremely analytical approach I’ve laid out above is a very Western thing to do and a lot of Brazilians even kind of despise it, because it turns something emotional/sensory/spiritual into something mechanical. But for me this works, and with a lot of training I hope to be able to do it without tools someday.
Is this feasible to do?
After reading -and perhaps trying- all of this, you might wonder: is it even practical to try to tune your berimbaus together? There are many variables to take into account, and the moment one variable changes, your precious tuning work might be gone.
I think it is important to be conscious of all this, so you learn to understand what a properly tuned bateria is and how it affects the energy of the roda. If you have well defined (and properly applied) rules about the configuration of your bateria (which toques you play etc) and you have control over which berimbaus are used in the roda, then I think it is worth the effort.
If you have little control over the roda where, for example, a lot of people take over instruments, instruments are being swapped, toques are being freely chosen, … then it might not be worth the full effort and in that case I would recommend to make sure the vocals are in harmony (the lead and the coro). Because the vocals are more constant throughout a roda and have a big impact on the roda’s energy as well.
References
The first two people who made me wonder about the tuning of a berimbau are Mestre Negoativo and Mestre Ferradura. I followed music courses with both of them and both mestres triggered me to start studying the berimbau better, eventually leading to this.
What I’ve shared in this post it just a summary, there’s a lot more to it than what you are reading here. There’s certainly a whole book that could be written on the subject. And that is exactly what Contramestre Latino and Bárbara Kristensen from Ecos do Santo Amaro have done! They published a book which details the intricacies and techniques of tuning berimbaus. The book is called Capoeira Afinada and for me it was the key to answer a lot of the questions that kept me up at night.
If you want to learn more about the subject, I suggest to try and get in touch with any of these people or acquire the book.
Good luck!
— Vinho