The rabeca or rabeca chuleira is a fiddle originating in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

, commonly used in Portugal,

Northeastern Brazil The Northeast Region of Brazil ( pt, Região Nordeste do Brasil; ) is one of the five official and political regions of the country according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Of Brazil's twenty-six states, it comprises n ...

, where it is most commonly used in Brazilian

forró The term forró (*) refers to a musical genre, a rhythm, a dance and the event itself where forró music is played and danced. Forró is an important part of the culture of the Northeastern Region of Brazil. It encompasses various dance typ ...

music, and Cape Verde. It is descended from the medieval

rebec The rebec (sometimes rebecha, rebeckha, and other spellings, pronounced or ) is a bowed string instrument, stringed instrument of the Medieval era and the early Renaissance. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and one to fiv ...

History

The rabeca is thought to have originated in the

Entre-Douro-e-Minho Entre Douro e Minho () is one of the historical provinces of Portugal which encompassed the country's northern Atlantic seaboard between the Douro and Minho rivers. Contemporaries often referred to the province as simply "Minho". It was one of si ...

region of northern Portugal, especially in the areas around Amarante during the 18th century. Rabeca have also sephardic origins. In the Portuguese tradition, the ''rabeca chuleira'' is a short-scale variation played in village bands alongside

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

s or ''

viola braguesa Viola braguesa is a stringed instrument from Braga, north-western Portugal. It has 10 strings in 5 courses. The strings are made of steel. It is tuned C4/C3–G4/G3–A4/A3–D4/D4–G4/G4. The scale length is about . Requinta Many , such as th ...

'', drums,

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colli ...

and, now occasionally, the '' gaita transmontana'' or the galician bagpipe. The repertoire consists of the 2/2 '' chula'' and 3/4 '' chamarrita''. In Portugal, the ''rabeca chuleira'' (also known as ''rabeca rabela'', ''chula de Amarante'', ''chula de Penafiel'' or ''ramaldeira'' depending on the region it is played with very little variation) is still widely associated with the people of Minho,

Douro Litoral Douro Litoral () is a historical province of Portugal. It is centered on the city of Porto, now the capital of the Norte Region. Other important cities in the province are Vila Nova de Gaia, Matosinhos, Maia, Póvoa de Varzim, and the historica ...

and, to some extent,

Beira Litoral Beira Litoral is a former province (''província'') of Portugal, formally instituted in an administrative reform of 1936. It was abolished with the 1976 Constitution of Portugal. The province was bordered on the north by Douro Litoral Province, ...

. However, it doesn't have an important popularity in the rest of the country and it has been slowly replaced by the violin in Portuguese folklore. In the Brazilian tradition, the ''rabeca chuleira'' is simply called ''rabeca'' and is not a short-scale instrument unlike its Portuguese cousin. The Portuguese ''viola braguesa'' finds a counterpart in its Brazilian cousin, the ''

viola caipira The ''viola caipira'', often simply ''viola'', (Portuguese for ''country guitar'') is a Brazilian ten-string guitar with five courses of strings arranged in pairs. It was introduced in the state of São Paulo, where it is widely played as the ba ...

''. In forró music, the rabeca is typically accompanied by accordion,

zabumba A zabumba () is a type of bass drum used in Brazilian music. The player wears the drum while standing up and uses both hands while playing. The zabumba generally ranges in diameter from 16 to 22 inches, and is 5 to 8 inches tall. The shell is mad ...

drum, and triangle. The three primary dance rhythms of forró are the 4/4 ''

xote Xote (, ) is a Brazilian music genre and dance with a binary or quaternary rhythm. It is the local equivalent of the German schottische. Xote is a common type of forró dancing. The word ''xote'' is a corruption of the German word ''schottisch'' me ...

'', '' baião'', and ''arrasta-pé''.

Tuning

The short-scale rabeca chuleira from Portugal is tuned an octave above the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

. The Brazilian rabeca, on the other hand, plays in the same range as a violin, but may be tuned in fourths or fifths.

References

{{reflist Bowed string instruments Brazilian musical instruments

History

Tuning

See also

References