The History Of The Samba Surdo Drum

Who invented the surdo? The surdo was invented by Alcebíades Barcelos - (Bide) in Estacio de Sa in Rio de Janeiro and was first used in Rio carnival in 1928, in the parade of the first ever samba school, Deixa Falar. This first surdo was made from a 20kg wooden butter barrel with the top and bottom removed and replaced by hide skins.              Ze Perreira What inspired Bide to invent the surdo? However the surdo didn't spring out of nowhere. In the mid 19th century a shoemaker named Ze Pereira famously took to the streets in carnival with a bumba military style bass drum. The image of this large portuguese gentleman, in a white shirt, with a bass drum strapped in front of his generous belly, had become a traditional caricature in Rio newspapers, and thjis image probably inspired Bide. Why was the surdo drum so successful? Before the surdo was used in samba there wasn't a big, loud bass samba drum loud enough to hold the beat and be heard by everyone. The main percussion instrumets in samba were agogo, ganza, chocalho, reco - reco, cavaquinho and cuica. There were no samba drums built to hold a strong simple beat. With its simple, strong rhythm the surdo drum was an immediate sucess. It allowed everyone to keep in time to the music and so gave harmony and unity to the carnival parade. By the following year all the other samba schools had copied it and were using it in carnival. Ismael Silva, founder of Deixa Falar, said that the surdo drum turned the rhythm of samba from ""tan tantan tan tantan", to "bum bum paticumbumprugurundum".                                                                                                             Ismael SIlva with some surdos Ismael said, later, that this change in the rhythm was necessary because Deixa Falar needed a samba that encouraged people to move in time to the music throughout the parade. "The surdo is the soul of the bateria", explains André Diniz. How the surdo drum has developed Originally there was no second surdo. The beat was held by the first surdos, which played without any second surdos to answer them. This style is still played by the bateria of the samba school Mangueira. The samba school Portela introduced the second surdo, although originally it was tuned deeper than the first. More recently still, the third surdo has been introduced, playing more complicated rhythms that cut between the two larger drums. There are basically 3 types of surdo, although each can be of different sizes and tuning, depending on the size and style of the bateria. As the surdos mark the beat and the time for the rest of the samba drums in the band, if they make an error, the whole musical performance is in danger. The bigger the number of drummers the larger the surdos need to be, to carry out their basic function as an anchor for the beat. Originally the surdos marched in a line at the back of the bateria, but these days they form lines along the right and left of the bateria, with first and second surdos alternating along the line. Old surdos are very deep drums made of iron, with hide skins. More recently, surdos have been a bit shorter at 60cm deep and now there is a trend to use even shorter drums at 50 or even 45cm deep. Aluminium is much preferred over iron or steel these days because it is much lighter, but iron is cheaper so you still see heavy iron drums being used in carnival groups with little money. In general, the shorter the surdo the quieter the tone. So in styles that use many surdos, shorter drums are practical. In Rio samba surdos still have hide skins, but in other parts of Brazil and in other afro Brazilian styles of music, nylon skins are sometimes used. They have a much flatter sound, but that is right for some styles of music. Source: Giselle Winston  tdsounds.co.uk