Repertoire

With some 150 years of history, choro repertoire is already very extensive and still growing. One of the challenges we face at­ Choro Camp, then, is how to find or create common musical ground. No doubt this will happen in the most organic fashion as it always has—on the fly in actual rodas de choro.

That said, at a typical roda in Brazil or elsewhere the “regulars” have a shared repertoire that makes up much of what will be played whenever they gather. So we’re recommending some repertoire to prepare, to whatever degree possible, in advance.

The collections of repertoire we’ll list below come in two varieties:

• Core Repertoire — 9 tunes we’ll focus on in our morning and early afternoon classes. For these, we’ll share extensive support materials: play-along video accompaniments, sheet music and reference recordings.
• Supplementary Repertoire  — Additional repertoire you may want to work on if time allows.  These tunes are selected and grouped so as to facilitate participation at camper-led evening rodas.

Core Repertoire 2026

The 9 tunes that will make up our Core Repertoire this year are listed below. Please note that, while the linked performance provides a good reference, our lead sheets and video accompaniments are not transcriptions of them. We encourage you to seek out other recordings and to expect variety in performances of choro.

• Acariciando (Abel Ferreira)
• Arabiando (Esmeraldino Sales)
• De bem com a vida (Luciana Rabello)
• Gingando (Dino & Canhoto)
• Matuto (Ernesto Nazareth)
• Maxixe do Galo (Paulinho da Viola)
• Os Oito Batutas (Pixinguinha)
• Tua imagem (Canhoto do Paraíba)
• Vamos acabar com o baile (Garoto)

Lead Sheets

Below, you’ll find links to sheet music for all these tunes in Concert C, Bb and Eb.  

Thanks to Marcilio Lopes and Mauro Correa for these charts! 

Compilations of Charts:

• CCNE Core Repertoire 2026 – Concert C
• CCNE Core Repertoire 2026 – Bb
• CCNE Core Repertoire 2026 – Eb

Video Accompaniments

The members of Água de Moringa, who will be of staff at Choro Camp this year, have prepared 5 different sets of videos for you to work with this year. These have been organized into playlists, as described below.

• Playlist 1 provides play-along accompaniments to all the tunes in this year’s Core Repertoire. 

The next four playlists are drawn from the same performances as those in Playlist 1, but each one brings a different instrument into focus. These are intended for study by accompanists who play each of these instruments:

• Playlist 2 is focused on the cavaquinho accompaniment.
• Playlist 3 is focused on the 6-string guitar accompaniment
• Playlist 4 is focused on the 7-string guitar accompaniment
• Playlist 5 is focused on the pandeiro accompaniment

To get the most out of these videos, be sure to use the slow down features available on YouTube—including the “Custom” slow down feature that provides unlimited control over the speed at which the video plays.

“Special Topics” Repertoire

For an overview of the Special Topics classes we’ll offer this year, please see this page. 
As they become ready, you’ll find charts for those tunes here.

Recommended Additional Repertoire

Much of our “down” time at CCNE, especially in the evening, will be spent in informal rodas. Some of these will be completely unorganized, with people simply suggesting whatever tunes they’d like to play.  For those who find it helpful, however, we’ll also recommend some tune-collections that can form the foundation of a nice roda. Registered Choro Campers will be informed of those updates as they come online.