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Samba Speaks
by GABRIEL (alumnus)
Now that we are
settling into the new school year, it’s a good time
to reflect on some of the highlights from the last year.
One thing
that comes to mind is the exhilarating samba performance
at Smith
School by Eric Galm and his group The Trinity Samba
Ensemble, from
Trinity College.
When I came to watch
this performance, I was
doing a project on
Brazil for my Social Studies
class at Bristow Middle School. A particular focus
of my project was
Brazilian music, namely samba and bossa nova. I didn’t
expect to learn a great deal from the
experience, but it turned out that I found it to be a
valuable
resource for my project. |
©
Pablo Delano
Eric Galm and the
Trinity Samba
Ensemble
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I had never seen anything like it. There were rows and rows of
percussion instruments that were the foundation of the
group. The
percussionists were completely in sync, and their sound
rose
together as if from one enormous drum. I am a
percussionist in my
school band. What surprised me was that, unlike our band
at school,
there were no wind instruments—just percussion,
vocalists, and a
guitar. I was shocked to learn that such fine musicians
could
actually be amateurs—and they played everything from
memory. Wow!
That would make my brain hurt!
They used syncopated rhythms made up of varied patterns
played on
all of the different instruments. Heavily accented notes
in the
rhythms gave it rough texture, and the big drum in the
back of the
band played a steady beat, like a traditional bass drum,
except you
could feel it resonating in your chest. The air was so
filled with
the vibrations of the percussion instruments that it
almost felt
like you could reach out and touch it.
|
The Red Sox
win the pennant!
The
Yankees win the Wild
Card.
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W |
L |
PTG |
GB |
E# |
| Boston |
96 |
66 |
.593 |
-- |
-- |
| New York |
94 |
68 |
.580 |
2 |
E |
4th of
July Issue
First
Issue
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The “tambourines” in the front were not actually the
same as our
tambourines. This was a small, high pitched drum, struck
with one
drum stick – almost too small to use two. The size made
the pitch so
high, it almost sounded un-drum-like. The “tambour” was like a
marching “tom-tom” (a deeper drum) that was used by Mr.
Galm to play
out the leading rhythm, driving the band.
After the performance, I conducted an interview with one
of the
college students from the band. He was a lead singer,
but he also
played percussion. I learned some names of instruments
(see above).
Although I already knew some of the differences between
samba and
bossa nova from my research, I learned that bossa nova
was
influenced by both American jazz and samba. Samba has
Afro-Brazilian
roots and was developed by working-class people.
Now I don’t usually think that school work is fun, but
this was an
exceptionally rare way to both have fun and learn
simultaneously.
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