Post by Radrook Admin on Sept 15, 2019 18:37:50 GMT -5
The Puerto Rican cuatro
The Puerto Rican cuatro is the national instrument of Puerto Rico. It belongs to the lute family of string instruments, and is guitar-like in function, but with a shape closer to that of the violin. The word cuatro means "four", which was the total number of strings of the earliest Puerto Rican instrument known by the cuatro name.[1]
The current cuatro has ten strings[1] in five courses, tuned, in fourths, from low to high B3 B2♦E4 E3♦A3 A3♦D4 D4♦G4 G4 (note that the bottom two pairs are in octaves, while the top three pairs are tuned in unison), and a scale length of 500-520 millimetres.[2]
The cuatro is the most familiar of the three instruments which make up the Puerto Rican jíbaro orchestra (the cuatro, the tiple and the bordonúa).
A cuatro player is called a cuatrista. This instrument has had its prominent performers like Edwin Colón Zayas, Yomo Toro and the maestro Maso Rivera.
Contents
1 History
2 Types of Puerto Rican cuatros
3 Cuatro shapes, sizes and variants.
4 Cuatro orchestras of Puerto Rico
5 "The Puerto Rican Cuatro Project"
6 Use in popular music
Attachments:
Last Edit: Sept 15, 2019 18:41:31 GMT -5 by Radrook Admin
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