Baiao

The baião is a Northeast Brazilian rhythmic formula that became the basis of a wide range of music. Forró, côco, and embolada are clear examples. The main baião instrument is the zabumba, a flat, double headed bass drum played with a mallet in one hand and stick in the other, each striking the opposite head of the drum.

The basic baião rhythm is (shown here in two bars):

|ox.Ox.ox|ox.Ox.ox|

where o is a soft mallet strike, O is a loud mallet strike, and x is a stick strike.

The baião originated with the native peoples in the northeast, but is associated with music that is more or less indian, mestizo, african, and european in turn. Indigenous music can be generically characterized as incorporating flutes and wooden shakers, african influenced baiãos accompanied with atabaques and overlapping call and response singing, european influences with the inclusion of european dance music such as the polka, mazurka, schottische, and quadrille, as well as portuguese contest singing and accompaniment with one or two pandeiros playing the baião rhythm.

The baião is most associated with the State of Pernambuco, just north of Bahia. But despite the relatively small area that confines its popularity, a great variety of music is associated with baião. One only need listen to Gilberto Gil from Salvador, Bahia, Luiz Gonzaga and Selma do Côco both of Pernambuco, and any "repentista" singer from the region such as Perdal and Verde Lins. As national a music as samba and bossa nova are in Brazil, no complete understanding of brazilian music and culture can be had without taking into account the Baião and its influences as far south as São Paulo and Rio.

The baião is also very much a rural music and for a long time was condemned by the upper classes as being essentially uncouth hick music. The St. John Day festival, São João, celebrated furvently in the northeast in the month of June, is sonically defined by forró, and visually depicted with men dressed up as farm boys with suspenders and large straw hats, and (painted) gap toothed women in pigtails, freckles, and red checkered dresses. All in a loving tribute to the origins of the music, and of themselves, many of whom are recent immigrants from the country side to the big cities such as Olinda, Recife, and Salvador, and many of whom go back into the rural areas to visit family.