What is 'Choro'?

**Tim2723** · May-27-2012, 10:43am

Forgive my ignorance, I mean absolutely no offence. I don't think the term 'Choro' means here what it means to me. What kind of music are you guys talking about when you use the term? Can you point me to some beginner's examples?

I've never posted here before because none of these forms are my strong suit, but I have at least a rough idea of what Jazz, Swing, Blues, Bossa, and even Klezmer are (though I'm probably wrong there too!), but what is Choro and how do you pronounce it? (Is it Spanish?)

And please, don't get too technical because I'm totally ignorant. Be gentle with me, it's my first time.

**pgfoto** · May-27-2012, 11:12am

In short, the style is melodically and rhythmically complex.
These examples are typical of what you can find by these Vertuosos!
There are many you tube postings out there!
I hope these help..
Check out these You Tube video's for the traditional style:
Jacob do Bandolim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rBlZ...F99EDB7B23BC3D
Danilo Brito
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_R1ya7LsJ4
A more modern approach perhaps?
Hamilton de Holanda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSIUOTkJ3VE
Mike Marshall and Choro Famoso
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyI3c2AuQU8

**Tim2723** · May-27-2012, 11:33am

Thank you! That took a lot of time and effort to put together. Sometimes blindly searching YouTube doesn't give the results an expert would give. It isn't always the best teacher. I'll study those examples.

**Tim2723** · May-27-2012, 11:42am

I would not have known to search for 'bandolim'. These players are indeed virtuosos. Danilo Brito is a remarkable player and a genius!

Can you tell me more about the history of this music? How to correctly say the word? Is it 'ch' like 'church' or 'k' like 'chorus'? I am only familiar with choral, chorus, corale, and carol. I thought perhaps it meant playing with a chorus of voices. I spent five years scrolling past this forum wondering what 'Choro' was. Thank you again! I have played mandolin for 40 years and did not know this. Everyone can learn something new.

**Scott Tichenor** · May-27-2012, 11:50am

The roots of Choro (pronounced "sho - ro") which I believe means "to cry" -- we surely have native Portugese speakers here who can correct that if wrong) can be traced back to an individual known as Pixinguinha (Alfredo da Rocha Viana, Jr according to Google), pronounced "peesh-un-gee-uh" or similar. Guy wrote some incredible melodies that are still popular and played today by musicians all over the world. A modern example of his work is one of my favorite melodies entitled Carinhoso. A guitar player I play with learned the guitar part in this video note for note and I just picked out the melody on mandolin. Makes a terrific tune for a gig, wedding, whatever.

This piece is quite different from a lot of the up-tempo pieces he wrote (probably as dance music). Really a brilliant composer and musician.

The original:

**Tim2723** · May-27-2012, 11:58am

Thank you! So it is 'sh' like "Shure microphone"? Thanks for those examples. This is brilliant music I've ignored all my life. I hope others will read along here and learn something new.

**John Kasley** · May-27-2012, 11:59am

Here is an excellent introductory essay on choro.
http://www.marilynnmair.com/articles...tory-of-choro/
In Brazilian Portuguese the word is pronounced "shoro". It means "cry" or "lament".

An excellent source of learning materials for choro can be found at Atlantico Books.
http://atlanticobooks.com/index.php?...hk=1&Itemid=18
Prices are relatively high on imported books due to the unfavorable exchange rate between US dollar and Brazilian real. Elderly also stocks choro learning materials. Some books may be in Portuguese only, but if you read standard notation it's not much of a barrier.

**Scott Tichenor** · May-27-2012, 12:05pm

Another great version of this piece was done by the brilliant (and wildly dramatic!) Brazilian guitarist Yamandu Costa. This originally appeared in a DVD called The Sound of Rio: Brasileirinho. What's powerful about this performance below is that every person in the audience seems to be as familiar with this piece as Home on the Range might be to a U.S. audience.

**Tim2723** · May-27-2012, 12:11pm

Brilliant! I wondered what seven-string guitars were used for.

So is this Portuguese music imported to Brazil or does it have Brazilian roots? (Similar to Hawai'ian music in mainland America, early 20th century?)

I now realize I've heard this kind of music before but knew nothing about it. Over half a century of my life has passed and I've been missing out.

I have to admit that this music doesn't make me want to cry or lament.

**Jim Garber** · May-28-2012, 8:58am

For some excellent examples of 7 string guitar playing in an ensemble setting:

Tico Tico was a hit song over here many years ago, maybe 1930s/40s. Prob the best known choro in North America as performed by Carman Miranda:

**Jim Garber** · May-28-2012, 9:04am

A simple explanation by comparison for choro music is that it is the Brazilian equivalent of bal musette (France) or ballo liscio (Italy) which are essentially what I would term dance music performed in cafes. Choro dates back to the nineteenth century and it more like popular music of the time with many composed tunes. It takes that sort of style of cafe music but adds the south American beat to it. I am not sure if it actually uses many Portuguese tunes but I am sure that the instruments came over from Europe. The bandolim (Brazilian-style mandolin) is definitely styled after Portuguese instruments and the cavaquinho is derived from the machete or rajao.

**fatt-dad** · May-28-2012, 12:02pm

what a delightful thread! I love this sort of music and one day should give it a go on the mandolin. I never knew it was phonetically "shoro."

f-d

**Randi Gormley** · May-28-2012, 1:42pm

Tim, you've definitely got to check out Dudu Maia on youtube and make plans to attend his choro workshop when it comes to New York next spring. It's an eye-opener.

**John Kasley** · May-28-2012, 2:17pm

Originally Posted by fatt-dad

I love this sort of music and one day should give it a go on the mandolin.f-d

There's a couple of us down in Williamsburg who play a few choros on the mandolin if you're interested in getting together.

**SincereCorgi** · May-28-2012, 2:47pm

One analogy that gets mentioned a lot is that choro is to Brazilian music what ragtime is to American music. Early choro composers like Nazareth used 19th century dance music harmonies and structures but enriched them with much more complex rhythms. Like ragtime and its offshoots, choro is the taproot to a whole family of Brazilian popular music styles like bossa nova and samba, which now greatly overshadow it. The analogy doesn't totally hold up (choro developed around the same time as ragtime but it lasted much longer in the popular imagination- most of its biggest names seem to have recorded in the '50s) but it's not too bad.

**fatt-dad** · May-28-2012, 5:03pm

Originally Posted by John Kasley

There's a couple of us down in Williamsburg who play a few choros on the mandolin if you're interested in getting together.

Throw out a few dates. I'd be up for learning a few new sounds from my mandolin. I'd play wallflower and quiet just to see if the notes fall under my fingers. It'd be fun to know your jam list and try some practice in advance. You know, homework!

f-d

**Doug Hoople** · May-28-2012, 6:05pm

Back in 1870, Joaquin Calado, one of the hottest musicians of his time, formed a band in Rio called "O Choro de Calado," with two guitars, cavaquinho and himself on flute. Even though he was conservatory trained, the purpose of the band was to get together and play for pleasure, free of the constraints of formal classical ensembles. They'd play and improvise, and the tunes that caught on wound up in their regular repertoire. It was all very informal, a vibe that still governs choro today.

The use of the term choro always defies explanation. I'd reckon, though, that simply by using it in the name of his band, Calado provided a name for the form, and that the explanation isn't a whole lot more complicated than that.

As far as emotion, though, choro is emotionally "hot," and is supposed to be played with passion and emotional intensity. It's not supposed to be cool and cerebral. The slow beautiful tunes can make you cry. The fast tunes make you want to cry for joy and jump up and dance.

btw, the pronunciation of the second syllable is more like "roo" than "row", i.e., "show-roo," emphasis on the first syllable ("Row," as in "row your boat," "show," as in "Broadway show", and "roo," as in "kangaroo").

Calado attracted some of the best musicians in town to play with him, and was close with Chiquinha Gonzaga, who was apparently a force to be reckoned with, utterly irresistible, both as a pianist and as a person. Gonzaga electrified Rio simply by being in the band. She contributed several tunes to the repertoire, most famously "Atraente" and "Gaucho" (aka "Corta Jaca"). She composed some ravishingly beautiful modinhas as well.

Highly trained conservatory musicians playing relaxed and informal music for their own pleasure. They improvised where they could, played popular melodies, and dug around for racy rhythms that had no place in the conservatory. That explains a lot of why the melodies are so bloody difficult and the harmonies and rhythms so intriguing!

Interestingly, we think of Calado and Gonzaga as "first generation," pre-dating the modern choro composers like Pixinhuinha, Ernesto Nazareth and Jacob do Bandolim. But Nazareth's "Brejeiro," a stalwart of the modern catalog, was written no later than 1893, and Gonzaga's "Gaucho" was written in 1897! So the generations are a lot more mixed than we tend to believe.

Pixinguinha came a bit later. He got his start in 1912, 100 years ago(!), and brought a decided jazz and African vibe to the choro scene, making a huge splash in the 20s. He was probably most responsible for bringing choro to the world outside Brazil, with a couple of visits to Paris in which his band became the toast of the town.

**Tim2723** · May-28-2012, 7:45pm

For the moment I can only say thanks to everyone. This is a whole lot to digest. You guys are great!

**alb** · Jun-08-2012, 8:12am

Indiana University Press brought out 'Choro: A social history of a Brazilian Popular Music by Tamara Eleana Livingston-Isenhour and Thomas George Caracas Garcia in 2005. It includes a CD sampler of Pixinguinha and others. It's a very interesting read. It also notates a lot of the tunes (samples) to show what they are discussing.

I've read Marilyn Marr's wonderful web site more than once, there is a wealth of information there, along with her excellent books.

Grisman's re-release double CDs of Jacob do Bandolim from the 90s are sort of the starting point for learning the tunes. Buying those two CD sets sort of is like buying Bill Monroe's collected work. You can't go wrong. But warning: they play most of them incredibly fast, and will intimidate you at first. Simply plug them into Slowdowner, get your favorite beverage and relax and learn them.

Also, last summer I found a couple of French import CDs on a world music site that I ordered, they arrived quite quickly. I forget the name of the site, it's like a CD Baby in France. They had some very interesting stuff. A double CD called "Bresil- Choro-Samba-Frevo 1914-1945" It was put out in 1998 by Fremeaux and Associates. The extensive booklet with liner notes are in both English and French. But they have some wonderful photos in it that I've never seen before. There was a second double CD I got also, by the same company, called Choro: 1906-1947. This one includes Jacob do Bandolim tunes along with Luis Americano. It too has a wonderful small booklet in both French and English.

These are great 'samplers' of the original music. Like Bluegrass, it's great to listen to today's monsters of the instrument, and there are many. But for learning purposes, there is nothing like Amazing Slowdowner and the original masters. For those of us on mandolin, there is no one like Jacob. Endlessly inventive. Perhaps as great a player as ever lived.

**Doug Hoople** · Jun-11-2012, 10:32pm

Originally Posted by alb

Grisman's re-release double CDs of Jacob do Bandolim from the 90s are sort of the starting point for learning the tunes. Buying those two CD sets sort of is like buying Bill Monroe's collected work. You can't go wrong. But warning: they play most of them incredibly fast, and will intimidate you at first. Simply plug them into Slowdowner, get your favorite beverage and relax and learn them.

Word of warning if you try this... you'll be tweaking pitch in Slowdowner a LOT. Definitely worth the trouble, but you'll have to get a + or - semitone count for just about every tune.

'Tocando Com Jacob,' the book published by Instituto Jacob do Bandolim is a potentially better bet, as all the recordings use A440 as a base (whether in the original or tweaked for a learning volume, I don't know). Not to mention all the lead sheets already organized and ready to go!

But yes, Jacob! And yes, slowed down, absorbed and studied carefully. It's a process that never ends. I haven't done enough of that myself!

**Jim Garber** · Jun-12-2012, 8:14am

We did some analysis of Jacob's playing in Dudu Maia's NYC workshop. He had some recordings Jacob made at a party and the amazing thing was how he stretched the notes way across the measure bars (so to speak). I think that is one thing that gets you addicted to the music: that tension created by bending the rhythms in that way. I am not sure if I am describing it correctly but you can tell by listening. It is also interesting to listen to various versions of the same tune played by a master like Jacob.

**Doug Hoople** · Jun-12-2012, 3:50pm

Originally Posted by Jim Garber

We did some analysis of Jacob's playing in Dudu Maia's NYC workshop. He had some recordings Jacob made at a party and the amazing thing was how he stretched the notes way across the measure bars (so to speak). I think that is one thing that gets you addicted to the music: that tension created by bending the rhythms in that way. I am not sure if I am describing it correctly but you can tell by listening. It is also interesting to listen to various versions of the same tune played by a master like Jacob.

Jacob loved syncopation, and he also had the most amazing rubato, dragging back and accelerating like a dancer. Stretching across the bar line could have come from either of these, and, either way, it's magic.

For examples of syncopation, look at 'Bole Bole,' in which maybe 10% of the melody is NOT syncopated! Or 'Simplicidade,' which starts out pretty straight and adds syncopation as it goes, and by the C, every note is syncopated with the harmony motoring hard beneath, a real party built straight into the basic tune.

For one of the best examples of Jacob's rubato, his tempo dancing, look no further than the version of 'Vibracoes' on the Acoustic Disc re-release. Simply delicious!

**Jim Garber** · Jun-12-2012, 4:11pm

Wonderful description, Doug.

**SternART** · Jun-12-2012, 5:27pm

Mike Marshall is big into Choro and has a band to play this type of music here in the SF Bay area, called Choro Famoso. Mike been to Brazil numerous times to play with & meet Choro players.......has led music tours there...... and is partners in Adventure Music, which is dedicated to releasing music from Brazil.

We have been lucky at the Mandolin Symposium for several years now, as Mike has brought his Brazilian friends to be part of the faculty, including Hamilton DeHolanda, Danilo Brito, Dudu Maia, and Almir Cortes, among others. These fellas can really pick, some on 8 string but others on 10 string instruments, and seeing Mike jamming away with them is always a treat.

Like Bluegrass, or Jazz there are a number of standards, or tunes those familiar with the genre know how to play. It is complex music that requires charts until you master it........and from what I've observed they pretty much stick to the melody, with minor variations, maybe like an Irish music session as a comparison with variation & ornaments. Definitely less improv than Jazz or Bluegrass.

**Jim Garber** · Jun-13-2012, 8:14am

Art, you are correct that there is less improv (in most cases) than jazz or bluegrass, however the improv is prob somewhat more subtle -- see my and Doug's comments above. I am quite familiar with some of the more common tunes and whan I hear a guy like Dudu play them I notice what different things he throws in each time -- some variation in phrasing, rhythm, picking patterns, positions, etc.