The music is a key component of Capoeira. It determines the pace and style of game that is played during the Capoeira roda. The music is composed of instruments and songs, the pace may vary with the Capoeira Toque from very slow (Angola) to very fast (São Bento Grande).

Many songs are in the form of small verses interspersed with a chorus, while others come in the form of long narratives (litany). Capoeira songs are about varied subjects. Some songs are  stories of famous Capoeiristas, others may speak of the life of a washerwoman. Some songs are about what is happening in capoeira, others on life or love lost, and others are happy and talk about silly things, sung just for fun. Capoeiristas change the style of music often according to the rhythm of the berimbau. Thus, it is actually the music that drives Capoeira, not only in rhythm but also in content. The toque de Cavalaria was used to warn members of the roda that the police were coming, in turn, the words were often used to pass messages to one of Capoeiristas, in most cases veiled and subtle.

The instruments are played in a line called a bateria. The main instrument is the berimbau, which is made of a wooden bow arched by a steel cable and a gourd used as a reverb box. The berimbau has various pitches and could be the Berimbau Gunga (bass), Medio (middle) and viola (treble). The other instruments are tambourine, drum, caxixi and less frequently the ganza and agogo.

It is often stated, amongst Capoeira practitioners and scholars that the music used in the fight served to disguise it in dance, and thus escape police persecution, which did not allow the cultural manifestations of black people in public spaces. The instruments used in capoeira, to keep this disguise, would be the berimbau and the atabaque (drum). 

All of this simulation would be necessary for the survival of such events. But there is no proper scientific evidence for these assertions. As the dance is also a cultural manifestation, like Capoeira, was repressed by the authorities. 
What it does not justify is the argument of being disguise. However, that like so many other issues relevant to the history of Capoeira, will always remain the object of reflection, questions and concerns since there are no necessary proofs of the facts. 
However, says the researcher and writer Fred Abreu, it was possible, before the approach of police, that those present would affirm that they were just fooling around. 
But we know that the practice of Capoeira as a fight, attack and defense was not tolerated by society. It was perceived in this movement a danger, because blacks were strengthened and were becoming 'endowed' in corporal combt, "threatening" their property and physical integrity.
 

Another issue that polarizes opinions (keeping in mind that Capoeira is the only fight in the world to include musical accompaniment by instruments and singing) is which was the first instrument to be used as an accompaniment of the vagrancy and consequently helped to transform it into a fight / dance, helping to form the paradigm, also questionably, the "social avoidance."
 
The first written record of the fights association with the berimbau, an instrument of African origin, previously used by salesmen to hawk their wares, says:

In these exercises, that the rogue elements called  toy, danced under the capoeira rhythm of the berimbau, an instrument consisting of an arc of flexible wood, attached to the ends by a thin wire rope, being tied by a rope, a small gourd or copper coin . The berimbau player holding the instrument with his left hand, and on the right, a basket containing small pebbles, called gong, and a thin vine, with which he smote the cord, producing the sound. (Quirino, 1916)

Some researchers, based on screen Rugendas "The Game of Capoeira" or "War Dance", dated 1830, which depicts a set of drums together in Rio de Janeiro, said that this instrument was the first to serve as a rhythmic accompaniment to their practice. Others claim it to have been the berimbau. However, the fact that Querino recorded the presence of the berimbau in 1916, and Rugendas represent a drum in 1830, does not guarantee, per se, "that the berimbau was not there been before the drum in contact with the rods without proper registration. Another controversial issue of very little relevance.

The berimbau is considered the main instrument in capoeira performance. For this reason and for directing and providing greater or lesser speed (pace) the progress of the fight, it gained notoriety and importance. Moreover, it is given the task to manage the pace, through characteristic rhythms for each game type, and in the roda, to introduce chants.
 
In capoeira, the lyrics are configured as a form of oral transmission of collective memory and traditions, but which can not be considered a reliable reference tool. However it is referenced based on the need for the construction of popular idols and heroes. We can say therefore that the degree of truth contained in the songs of the game, ranging from factual historical record to the reverie of the fertile popular mythical and legendary imagination, based on the collective unconscious or the particular and partial version of each composer on a particular fact in issue.

 
The content of the song expresses the reinterpretation of socio-political and mythical reality. These elements are responsible for the preservation and continuity of tradition, because through it the history, learning and memory, are passed between generations, becoming a great cultural legacy.

Many of these songs interpret the lives of black people in captivity and their interpersonal relationships as well as the supposed origins of capoeira. Improvisation, which is part of the samba de roda, the pagode and embolada, is also present in the form of improvised praises praising the qualities of the players and Capoeira itself, their mythical heroes and legends extolling their epic virtues. These songs have an influence on the capoeirista determining the emotional state, the pace and intensity of the game amongst other relevant factors.
The influence of music on the mood of the people, one just has to recall the sadness of the sound of silence, the tenderness of the Hail Mary, the agitation of Olodum and electric trios, the gentle movements of the ballet Swan Lake. [...] So if music can change the mood and its motor manifestations, statics and dynamics, we must necessarily conclude that the tempo, rhythm, clapping and singing also modify the behavior of Capoeira during the game. (Decânio , 1996)

Here, we have characterized one of the most charming aspects of Capoeira that lends a unique plasticity, an emotive catalyst of seduction that the art and Bimba, Pastinha and many others has on its practitioners and admirers.  They represent the translation into an art form, the day-to-day life of communities and represent one of the aspects that identify it as such and helps to differentiate it from other social groupings.