Ah. Joke. But I get that all the time.
tot-Ou-tard:
Capoeira Angola is martial art game in that comes from Brazil (actually comes from Angola, Africa but became stylized and was codified as capoeira in Rio and the Bahia, Brazil). It's sort of a dance in that rather than laying a beat down as in Savate or Muay Thai, you move with, underneath, and away from the kicks, staying low to the ground, getting on yur hands. and being acrobatic in general. You try to out maneuvre the other person, while staying aware of their movements. You kick, trip, head butt and occasionally throw. Letting the other person know that you could have given them a black eye is considered better than actually giving them one. It's often compared to chess.
The game is accompanied by three berimbaus, two pandeiros (a brazilian tamborine hand drum), an agô-gô (african double bell), reco-reco (wood or metal scraper similar to a guiro), and a conga or traditionally an atabaque. The berimbau is considered the voice of capoeira. It's a single stringed bow with a gourd resonator. The string is struck with a thin piece of wood and is fretted with either a rock or large metal coin. It produces two notes approximately a whole tone apart, and a percussive buzz note. Despite it's relative simplicity it is a physically demanding instrument and usually takes atleast a year or two before anyone can hold it and play it without dropping the thing on the ground. The berimbaus are tuned low to high, but not usually "in tune". The deepest of the three is the Gunga, the lord or king. Kind of like a referee, but also has most control over the music. The middle is called Médio and plays the melody of the gunga but inverted and improvises a little bit. The highest pitched is called the Viola (a common name for many stringed instrumens in Brazil) and does the most improvisation.
The songs (sung in Portuguese) outline the structure of the game.
I. Ladainha: This is sung solo at the very beginning of the game. The players wait crouched at the foot of the berimbau. The Ladainha is sometimes a story, is sometimes a history or philosophical lesson, or can be pure poetry.
II. Chula/Louvação: This is sung right from the Ladainha and begins the call and response. The lead singer invokes, god, the old masters of capoeira, gives thanks.
III. Corrido. The game begins here. The corridos are short call and response songs that are often metaphorically descriptive of the game, respond to the game and react to it. Some amount of improvisation occurs in the singing, as long as you know Portuguese.
Very fun stuff.
