Marchinha (, also called "marchinha de carnaval", "marchinha carnavalesca" or "marcha carnavalesca) is one of several genres of music typical of

Brazilian Carnival The Carnival of Brazil ( pt, Carnaval do Brasil, ) is an annual Brazilian festival held the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday at noon, which marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period before Easter. During Lent, Roman Catholics and so ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

and Southeast Region of Brazil. The other main carnival genres are:

samba-enredo Samba-enredo, also known as samba de enredo, is a sub-genre of modern samba made specifically by a samba school for the festivities of Brazilian Carnival. It is a samba style that consists of a lyric and a melody created from a summary of the the ...

frevo Frevo is a dance and musical style originating from Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, traditionally associated with Brazilian Carnival. The word ''frevo'' is said to come from ''frever'', a variant of the Portuguese word ''ferver'' (to boil). It is sai ...

maracatu The term maracatu denotes any of several performance genres found in Pernambuco, Northeastern Brazil. Main types of maracatu include ''maracatu nação'' (nation-style maracatu) and ''maracatu rural'' (rural-style maracatu). Maracatu Nação Marac ...

and Axé music. Marchinha is an extremely comic genre of music and the very name "marchinha" (little march) satirizes the seriousness of

military marches A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

, in both the musical and step senses, which are involved in the generalised satirization of the society that occurs during the carnival, for example the election of

Rei Momo ''Rei Momo'' is the debut solo album by David Byrne and second overall studio album (after the 1981 collaborative album ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (album), My Life in the Bush of Ghosts''), released on 3 October 1989. The album consists of d ...

(King Momo, the king of carnival). The bands feature

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...

tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

horn Horn most often refers to: *Horn (acoustic), a conical or bell shaped aperture used to guide sound ** Horn (instrument), collective name for tube-shaped wind musical instruments *Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various ...

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

s and

piccolo The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...

s and

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

. The first marchinha was the composition (in 1899) of

Chiquinha Gonzaga Francisca Edwiges Neves Gonzaga, better known as Chiquinha Gonzaga (; October 17, 1847 – February 28, 1935) was a Brazilian composer, pianist and the first woman conductor in Brazil. Chiquinha Gonzaga was the first pianist of "choro" and ...

entitled "O Abre Alas", made to the Cordão Carnavalesco "Rosa de Outro". Marchinhas are composed and played to date by the blocos carnavalescos every year, in the "street carnival" of

References

Brazilian music Brazilian styles of music {{music-genre-stub