Samba Enredo
Samba enredo (theme samba) utilizes the bateria of samba carnavalesca but also includes sung text with harmonic accompaniment. Each samba school has its own theme music that has been selected by the school’s leaders after weeks of deliberation. This theme song plays an important role in the judging of the samba-school contests during Carnival. Having a “hit” song for the year’s festivities encourages favorable reviews for the entire school and can bring fame and fortune to the song’s composer and/or the puxador (lead singer). Samba enredo includes the bateria percussionists as well as vocalists and melody/ harmony instruments. The majority of the latter instruments are usually from the guitar family, such as the viola (a guitar with five single or double courses of strings), the violão (Portuguese for the common six-stringed guitar), cavaquinho (a small four-stringed guitar), and bandolim (a small high-ranged mandolin with four double courses of strings). Though infrequent today, brass band instruments, such as cornets and tubas, known as bombardinos, are sometimes heard in samba enredo, revealing the early influence that marching band music played on the samba street parades.