Structure of samba music

Samba music is built up of ostinatos. An ostinato is a rhythm that is played

over and over again. The rhythms used to create an ostinato are usually 4 or
8 beats long.

Each instrument in the samba band has its own ostinato to play. Samba
music is built up of lots of different sections. For each section the sambista
will need to know an ostinato. A sambista may need to know as many as 6
ostinatos per piece of music!

The main pattern that a sambista needs to know is the groove. The groove is
the main ostinato that is heard most of the way through a piece of music.
The groove is then broken up by breaks and mid sections.

A break is a 4 or 8 beat rhythm which is usually played once or twice. It is

used to provide to create contrast to the main groove.

A mid section is where just 1 or 2 instruments change the rhythm of their

ostinato and the others stay the same or stop playing all together.

Sometimes breaks and mid sections are used to allow a particular

instrumental section to show of their rhythms.

Samba music also has an introduction and an ending.

The structure of a piece of samba music might look like this:

INTRO GROOVE BREAK 1 GROOVE BREAK 2 GROOVE MID GROOVE BREAK 1 GROOVE END
SECTION
1