Beginner Berimbau Workshop With Professor Avi!

This is an open beginner’s workshop teaching how to play the Berimbau. 

This workshop is geared towards complete beginners. We will review how to prepare the berimbau and how to properly hold it. We will learn how to produce some basic sounds and play some basic rhythms. Again, this workshop is for complete beginners and if there is sufficient interest we may offer successive workshops in the future. 

We will have about 10 berimbaus to share with participants and a few for sell if you are interested in owning one of these amazing instruments. Due to the limited amount of berimbaus, please contact us to reserve a spot ASAP. We look forward to having you there! 

The cost of the workshop is $10 and it will take place Saturday February 20th at 1:30 at the Center for Indigenous Music and Culture.

The berimbau de barriga (Berimbau of the stomach), commonly referred to as just berimbau, is one of Brazil’s most recognizable musical instruments. It is a bow with a single steel string and a gourd resonator affixed near one end. It arrived to Brazil from Africa through the Atlantic slave trade during the colonial period in Brazil. In Africa it was and is still being used as a ceremonial and religious instrument. The Berimbau generates a distinctive sound that in modern days has come to be especially associated with capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art-dance-game. The Berimbau has also been used in other African Brazilian music as well as in contemporary music.