Forró

Forró
Stylistic origins	Polka; contra dance; European partnered folk dances;
Cultural origins	19th century, Sertão, Brazil
Typical instruments	Zabumba; triangle; accordion;
Subgenres
	Xote; xaxado; baião; forró universitário; forró elétrico;

Statues of Forró musicians

Forró (Portuguese pronunciation: [fɔˈɦɔ]^*) is a genre of Brazilian music that originated in Northeastern Brazil. It encompasses various dance styles as well as a number of different musical beats. This music genre has gained widespread popularity in all regions of Brazil. Forró is closely associated with Brazilian June Festivals, which celebrate a number of Christian saints. The most celebrated is Saint John's day.

Origin of the Music[edit]

A theory on the origin of forró music is that it originated on the farms and plantations in Ceará and all over northeast Brazil, where farmers and workers used to sing to the cows and together with each other as they gathered coffee and other crops like sugarcane, corn, and vegetables. They had a different song for each crop, and for each phase of the collection. As the farmers and field hands corralled cows and carried crops from the fields into the houses and cafes, the songs came with them, and everybody joined in singing together. From there, talented local singers began performing the songs at parties and gatherings, and sometimes they did informal competitions with competing viola (guitar) players in freestyle rap-like improvisations. Originally the large metal triangle, zabumba (Afro-Brazilian drum) and guitar (called the viola) were the main instruments. Later on, with the French immigration between 1850 and 1950, the accordion was added to typical forró bands. The rabec, known as the Brazilian fiddle, joined the forro sound as well. The rebec has sephardic origins, and is possibly descended from the Arabic "rabeba" which may have arrived in Brazil by way of the Portuguese, who use the Rabeca Chuleira (Portugual having absorbed Arab influence dating back to the Moor's occupation from 711–1300 AD), or with the great Arab migrations to northeast Brazil in the late 1800s to 1930s from Syria and Lebanon.

Origin of the term[edit]

There are several theories on the origin of the name.

The main theory is that forró as a derivative of forrobodó, meaning "great party" or "commotion". This is the view held by Brazilian folklorist Luís da Câmara Cascudo, who studied the Brazilian Northeast through most of his life.^{[citation needed]} Forrobodó is believed^{[by whom?]} to come from the word forbodó (itself a corruption of fauxbourdon), which was used in the Portuguese court to define a dull party. The word forrobodó is itself very common in Portuguese popular conversation to describe a fun, but almost depraved and limitless party. This word was carried by Portuguese migration waves to Brazil, and lost the light negative meaning and was slowly simplified by their children.

Yet another theory often heard popularly in Brazil and elsewhere—for example, Gilberto Gil provides it in concerts—is that the word forró is a derivative of the English expression "for all" and that it originated in the early 1900s. English engineers on the Great Western Railway of Brazil near Recife would throw balls on weekends and classify them as either only for railroad personnel or for the general populace ("for all"). This belief was somewhat reinforced by a similar practice by USAF personnel stationed at the Natal Air Force Base during World War II, but it is unrelated because before the USAF went to Natal, the name "Forró" was already in use.^{[citation needed]}

Popularity[edit]

The city of Embu das Artes, Brazil

Forró is the most popular genre of music and dance in Brazil's Northeast, to the extent that historically "going to the Forró" meant simply going to party or going out. Regarding the music, it is based on a combination of three instruments (accordion, zabumba and a metal triangle). The dance however becomes very different as you cross the borders of the Northeast into the Southeast. As part of the popular culture it is in constant change. The dance known as college forró is the most common style between the middle-class students of colleges and universities in the Southeast, having influences of other dances like salsa and samba-rock.

The traditional music used to dance the forró was brought to the Southeast from the Northeast by Luiz Gonzaga, who transformed the baião (a word originated from baiano and assigned a warm-up for artists to search for inspiration before playing) into a more sophisticated rhythm. In later years, forró achieved popularity throughout Brazil, in the form of a slower genre known as xote, that has been influenced by pop-rock music to become more acceptable by Brazilian youth of Southeast, South and Central regions.

Music[edit]

Valdir Santos plays Forró

Forró, referring to the music and not the dance, encompasses today various musical styles. The musical style, which is at the origin of, and from which have grown out most musical styles today denoted as Forró, is the Forró of Luiz Gonzaga (and others such as Jackson do Pandeiro and Marinês).

This musical style, commonly called also Forró Pé-de-Serra, is played by a trio combination of

an accordion (with a dry tuning, as opposed to the wet tunings used more commonly in Europe) and a
rhythm section of a triangle and a zabumba (where the triangle keeps an ongoing pulse and the zabumba is responsible for the different syncopated rhythms in the Forró genre).

This combination of instruments was defined as the base of Forró by Luiz Gonzaga. Before Gonzaga other combinations have been commonly used. The combination of triangle with accordion is a combination that has already existed in European folk music before and is also used in Cajun music in the United States. Forró thus conserves a format of a small ensemble with multiple (in this case two) percussionists, something that also used to be common in Europe and the United States before the era of the drum set.

This combination of instruments serves rather as a base and is not fixed, incorporating sometimes other instruments such as fiddle, flute, pandeiro, bass, cavaquinho and acoustic guitar.

The combination of zabumba and triangle is almost always part of the rhythm section of any Forró group. The accordion is always part of a Forró ensemble, apart from the sub-style of "Forró rabecado", where the accordion is replaced by a fiddle.

The triangle keeps an ongoing pulse on all the four times of the (4/4) beat, while accentuating the third beat. In this sense, the function can be compared to the rhythm guitar or the hi-hat of the drum set in rock music, although the triangle accentuates the third beat more strongly with its high pitched metallic sound, being damped to give a fainter and drier sound on the other beats. The zabumba, which is played on both sides, on one side giving a grave sound and on the other a sharp whip-like sound, plays the syncopated rhythms essential to Forró.

From the melodic and harmonic point of view, Forró makes heavy use of the Escala nordestina (literally North-eastern scale), which could be characterised as being a mixture of the Lydian and Mixo-lydian modes. The North-eastern scale represents the basis of a large part of the more traditional Forró and the Forro Pé-de-Serra, in similar way as the blues scale is the basis for the music of the Mississippi Delta. The Escala nordestina is most evident in pieces such as Vem Morena, Baião of Luiz Gonzaga. The accordion is the typical melody instrument used in Forró, and is sometimes called the "Soul of Forró" or the "Soul of the Sertão", referring the region where Forró has originated.

As Forró diversified away from its roots, it has incorporated other influences, and more significantly, diversified into quite distinct musical styles.

Lyrics and themes[edit]

Forró lyrics have changed with time and regarding the subgenre, as the music moved from being a purely North-Eastern music genre to being a genre popular all across Brazil.

Traditionally, lyrics were about life in the rural North-East (in particular the Sertão) and other North-Eastern themes, such as concerns about droughts, migration to look for work and thus about longing or homesickness (Saudade).

An example of this is the probably most emblematic (anonymous) song Asa Branca, made famous across all of Brazil in the 1940s by Luiz Gonzaga, sometimes also called the "Hymn of the Sertão" or "Hymn of the North-East". The lyrics are about leaving the rural home in the Sertão because of drought, and about hope to be able to return when the rain will fall again on the dry, barren land of the Sertão. The rain will be announced by the arrival of Asa branca, a certain white winged bird, which only flies there if it rains (there is a recent American version played by the group Forro in the Dark featuring David Byrne).

In the more recent genre of Forró Universitario, lyrics have a much more urban flavour and relate more to life of a young urbanized middle class, as lyrics found nowadays in rock music.

As in many other musical styles, lyrics are also often about love and romance, passion, jealousy, or reminiscing about an ex-lover.

Instruments[edit]

Today various musical instruments are used in the various styles of Forró (although always with a reference to the traditional combination of accordion, triangle and zabumba) :

Dance[edit]

Dancing styles[edit]

Bicho de pé

There are three rhythms of forró: xote (a slower-paced rhythm), baião (the original forró) and arrasta-pé (the fastest of the three), and amongst these, many styles of dancing, which varies from region to region, and may be known by different names according to the location. Forró is danced in pairs, usually very close together, with the man's left hand holding the woman's right hand as in the waltz, his right arm around her back and her left arm around his neck. Other styles may require to stay partially away, or in a considerable distance, only holding their hands up the shoulders.

Influences from Cuban salsa and other Caribbean dances has given mobility to forró, with the woman — and occasionally the man — being spun, although it's not essential to spin at all. The more complex movements may prove impossible to be executed in the usually crowded dancing area of forrós. Below is a list of the most popular styles of forró in Brazil:

Xote[edit]

xote: a basic style, danced close together in a left-left-right-right movement and has no spinning or variations;
forró-love: similar to xote but with a strong influence from zouk-love;
universitário: the most popular style outside the Northeast, much like the xote, but with the partners moving forward and backward, much like traditional bolero. It contains many variations of movements;
miudinho: the man dances with his left side slightly tilted, his left hand on the woman's waist and both her hands around his neck. It is danced in the same place (mobility can be gained through spinning) and has a lot of hip movements;
puladinho/manquinho: is danced with the man's right leg still and his left leg marking the beats on the ground, while the woman with her left leg still and her right leg moving (the partners can exchange the leg positions, although it's not common);
merenguinho: the partners move along the sides, with movements similar to merengue dance;
cavalguinho: much like the puladinho, but with the man and woman marking both their legs on the ground in alternate tempos, as if riding a horse.

Xote originally has its roots in the schottische.

Baião[edit]

baião/pé-de-serra: basically a style of xote, but with the partners tilting to the sides and moving their legs less to follow the faster rhythm;
cacau: comes from Paraíba, in which the partners dance slightly away from each other in very fast leg movements;
amassa-cacau: a variation of cacau from Ceará, it's danced less close and demands a lot of hip movements, with the legs mimicking a person squeezing cacao;
valsado: danced close together, consists of moving along the sides, crossing the legs in front of each other;
valsadão: same as valsado, but danced slightly away from each other. It is, together with universitário, the richest style in terms of movements and variations;
forrófieira: a newer style, mixes the traditional forró with steps and influence from Samba de Gafieira, and it has become quite popular in Rio de Janeiro and some parts of Northeast.

Arrasta-pé[edit]

arrasta-pé: can only be danced to its own style, much like a very fast xote, but alternately marking the beats on the ground with both legs.

Miudinho and puladinho can be danced to baião music and even to arrasta-pé, but in the latter the leg work is so intense that it's impracticable. Some people like to include brega/calypso in the forró category, because this dance has suffered much influence of forró throughout the decades, but it's danced to its own rhythm (not to be mistaken with Calypso music).

Steps[edit]

Forro dancing styles are informally often grouped into two main "families", simply for practical reasons: The older Nordestino (North-eastern) type of Forro and the Universitário (University) Forro that developed later in the South.

Nordestino forro is danced with the couple much closer together, with their legs often inter-twined and a characteristic sideways shuffle movement. Because of the intimacy, there are not as many step variations in this style.

Universitário forro, with its origins in the big southern cities of Brazil, is the more popular style outside of the Northeast. Its basic step is forward-backwards — slightly similar to traditional bolero or salsa in line. With more space between the pair, many more moves, steps and turns are possible than in Nordestino styles. The more common steps include:

Dobradiça: the couple opens to the side;
Caminhada: simple step of the couple to the front or the back;
Comemoração: balancing step, with the man's leg between the ladies';
Giros: a variety of turns, both simple and ones involving the dancers;
Oito: a movement of the dancers around each other, side by side.

Universitário forro supposedly evolved from (and is very similar to) the pé-de-serra/baião styles, while Nordestino is used to refer to the styles more like the original xote.

International Forró Festivals[edit]

From 2008 on several Forró Festivals are held in Europe and since 2016 as well in North America, Oceania and Japan. In 2017 there have been over 50 international festivals organized outside of Brazil.^[1]

Notes[edit]

^*Guttural R, when spoken in the Central Northeastern Portuguese, is usually pronounced as a voiced or voiceless glottal fricative, in the beginning of words or "rr" digraph.

References[edit]

^ List of Forró Festivals Emphasis lies in Europe. Accessed on 6. March 2018.

[1] List of Forró Festivals Emphasis lies in Europe. Accessed on 6. March 2018.

[1]

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