Repinique - the samba leader's drum

If you have ever seen the Worldwise Samba Drummers or a similar band in performance, you may have noticed that the leader has a different type of drum to everyone else. A repinique (also known as a repique) is a double-headed, metal drum. It is larger than a caixa (the snare drum) but smaller than a surdo and is tuned to a high pitch. The repinique has a loud, piercing sound, particularly when rimshots are played (when the drum skin is hit with the end of the drum stick at the same time as the the rim of the drum being hit part-way along the drum stick).

The repinique leading the Worldwise Samba Drummers at the Lancashire Encounter Light Parade. Photo by Michael Porter.

In Rio samba, home of the batucada style of music, the repinique is played with one stick and one open hand. In Bahia samba, where samba reggae originates, it is sometimes instead played with two plastic ‘whippy’ sticks. In Worldwise Samba Drummers, it is usually the single stick that is used, partly because it frees up one hand for the leader to give hand signals to the group. The whippy sticks are used for samba reggae pieces or for pieces where patterns are fed to the caixa section.

The repinique is useful to a bateria leader because the sound cuts through the volume of all the other instruments and so can be used to give calls that then lead to prepared musical responses from the other drummers. The repinique is often the first instrument to play in a piece, setting the speed and clarifying which piece is about to be played (which is useful where there are large numbers of drummers involved or where some participants don’t know the different pieces by name). In bands such as Worldwise Samba Drummers in which the leader is the only drummer with a repinique and often doesn’t have a fixed pattern to play, there is freedom to improvise. This allows for musical variety to be introduced even where the rest of the band are playing a repeated pattern.

The repinique leading the Worldwise Samba Drummers at the Lytham Classic Car Show. Photo by Daniel Martino.

In some bands, the repinique is played by a full section of drummers though the piercing sound of the instrument means that it is usually the smallest section in the bateria. Worldwise Samba Drummers used to have a pair of pieces called Fire and Water for which we had a small repinique section. For these pieces, one caixa player and one tamborim player switched to repinique. Alongside our sister group at the time, the Preston Samba Dancers, these pieces were performed in several events around the north-west, most notably the Preston Caribbean Carnival and the Liverpool Brazilica.

Explore our other blog posts to find out more about samba and the other samba instruments.

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