Berimbau – the perfect educational tool.

In this years music classes, I organised a class with the older kids (7, 8, 9 and 10 years old) to make Berimbaus. This was a real hit – the format was to get each child to come up and help me do a particular part; whether sawing, cutting, sanding, boring.

After this I realised even further what an amazing instrument the berimbau is and what tremendous educational possibilities it has:

• Its culturally important and significant to Brazil and its history.
• Its easy to make (around 1/2 hour) from very simple parts.
• The parts are very cheap, and even encourage recycling and use of old items (an old car tire for the high tensile wire); an old belt for a small piece of leather; and any smooth stone you can find on a beach or street.
• The principles of how it works can easily be understood by children, yet it still has a mystical, exotic property to it.
• Children can paint it.
• Its the kind of instrument that you can instantly get a ‘correct’ sound out of (try that with a violin, flute or saxophone); yet you can also spend years mastering it. So it has ample ability for children and adults to grow into it.

So, how often do you come across a musical instrument you can teach, that the children can make themselves and, paint, also be able to afford (if they want to get their own), and has cultural importance to their own country (rather than some imported item). And children as young as 3 can even have enormous fun playing it. To me, thats a real winner of an instrument!!

The kids really love the Berimbau, as you might expect and we generally had classes with it every day.

Here are some photos of the kids helping me make some berimbaus.

Make Berimbaus

And here are the 5 year old kids, showing that they really got to grips with holding the berimbau. No easy feat!

5yo Berimbau