The cuatro of

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

has four single nylon strings, tuned (ad'f#'b). It is similar in shape and tuning to the

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

, but their character and playing technique are vastly different. It is tuned in a similar fashion to the traditional D tuning of the ukulele, but the A and B are an

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

lower. Consequently, the same fingering can be used to shape the

chords Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord (as ...

, but it produces a different inversion of each chord. A cuatro player is called a ''cuatrista''.

History

The predecessor of the Venezuelan cuatro is the four-string Spanish renaissance guitar which disappeared in the 16th century after a short period of surging popularity. In the 1950s,

Fredy Reyna Fredy Reyna (April 3, 1917 - March 26, 2001) was a Venezuelan musician, arranger and performer, regarded as the one of the two masters of the Venezuelan cuatro, which he elevated to the level of a concert instrument, and one of his country's mos ...

documented the evolution of the renaissance guitar into the current Venezuelan Cuatro, and reinvented the cuatro as a solo instrument, equally capable of rendering traditional Venezuelan music as well as

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

pieces. The popularity of the instrument in Venezuela and elsewhere may be due to its apparent simplicity, having only four strings, as well as its compact size. The design and quality of its construction may vary widely, from rustic, inexpensive instruments, to the custom-built ''Concert Cuatro'', comparable to the finest

Classical Guitar The classical guitar (also known as the nylon-string guitar or Spanish guitar) is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor o ...

s. The cuatro is often said to be the Caribbean version of the ukulele (although the cuatro was invented three centuries earlier), having a similar sound, looks, and tuning; and being used in Venezuela,

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

, and throughout various other Caribbean spots.

Playing

The cuatro is particularly designed for strumming: the

fingerboard The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The stri ...

finishes flush with the top of the instrument, and the upper half of the sound board is often completely covered by a scratch plate made from

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

. Most of Venezuelan folkloric music relies on the cuatro as its rhythmic and harmonic base. It is used in most genres of the different regions of Venezuela, such as

Joropo The joropo is a musical style resembling the fandango, and an accompanying dance. It originated in Venezuela and is also present in the eastern Colombian plains. It has African, Native South American, and European influences. There are diffe ...

in the Llanos, Gaita in Zulia,

Galerón The galerón are two genres of Venezuelan typical song. The Eastern galerón is sung in improvised ten-line stanzas. Generally, it is accompanied by mandolin, cuatro, and guitar. It is normally played in the Cruz de Mayo celebrations, the improvis ...

in the Oriente or calypso in Trinidad. A recent evolution in playing technique has made the cuatro a versatile instrument capable of handling, on its own, solo parts including both melody and harmony. The technical and musical knowledge and expertise required to be able to play the instrument in this way is astounding. The results have made Venezuelan traditional music leap to a whole new level of complexity, many times encompassing the utilization of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

harmonic structures and melodic phrasing to enrich many traditional tunes. The cuatro is used in

waltz The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position. History There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the wa ...

joropo The joropo is a musical style resembling the fandango, and an accompanying dance. It originated in Venezuela and is also present in the eastern Colombian plains. It has African, Native South American, and European influences. There are diffe ...

parang Parang is a popular folk music originating from Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago that was brought to Trinidad and Tobago by Venezuelan migrants who were primarily of Amerindian, Spanish, Mestizo, Pardo, and African heritage, something which ...

, calypso, and soca.

Tuning

There are several tunings possible on the cuatro, but they are mostly transpositions of the main tuning (below), which may depend on the accompanied singer's range or the tone of the

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...

the cuatro is playing with. The strings are tuned from top to bottom (using the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4), to these intervals: * strings 1 and 2 –

perfect fourth A fourth is a musical interval encompassing four staff positions in the music notation of Western culture, and a perfect fourth () is the fourth spanning five semitones (half steps, or half tones). For example, the ascending interval from C to ...

* strings 2 and 3 –

major third In classical music, a third is a musical interval encompassing three staff positions (see Interval number for more details), and the major third () is a third spanning four semitones. Forte, Allen (1979). ''Tonal Harmony in Concept and P ...

* strings 1 and 4 –

major second In Western music theory, a major second (sometimes also called whole tone or a whole step) is a second spanning two semitones (). A second is a musical interval encompassing two adjacent staff positions (see Interval number for more deta ...

The most popular tuning for the cuatro is A D F B, with the B string tuned to a major second interval from the A string (instead of the more "guitar-like" perfect fourth from the F). In 1948,

altered the way the cuatro is strung and broke with reentrant tuning. His cuatro, called "solista" (soloist), was tuned in strict ascending pitch order. After trying many tunings, Reyna settled on E A C F as the one he used the most. In doing this, he (inadvertently at the time) arrived at the stringing and tuning of the Renaissance guitar. His work has been meticulously documented by Reyna himself, but it has not been widely adopted. A popular way to remember the tuning of the cuatro among Venezuelan cuatro players is to play each string individually from top to bottom, while singing the words ''Cam-bur pin-tón'' in the same expected notes of the four cuatro strings. (''Cambur Pintón'' means ''Ripe Banana'' in Venezuela. The phrase is used mainly because its four syllables are long and because of its easy-to-remember nature). A variation is ''Hi-pó-cri-ta'', playing the strings from bottom to top.

The "Venezuelan" cuatro in other countries

The cuatro is an important part of "música llanera", belonging to the Venezuelan area known as "El Llano". As such, el cuatro is widely used in eastern Colombia. El cuatro is also used in

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

to accompany musical bands at

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

time singing about the birth of Christ. This type of music is called

, from the word "parranda," meaning "to make merry." Parang music mixed with a calypso flavor has found itself deeply rooted in the culture of the people of this

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

country. The language used in the songs is mostly Spanish but

Patois ''Patois'' (, pl. same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or ...

and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

are used as well. This richly adds to the rhythmic sounds of this versatile instrument. The cuatro, under the name cuarta, is also very popular on the Dutch Lesser Antilles,

Aruba Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...

Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...

and

Bonaire Bonaire (; , ; pap, Boneiru, , almost pronounced ) is a Dutch island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west ( leeward) coast of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC i ...

, where it is used for different types of music, including the traditional tumba, waltz, danza, polka, calypso, bolero, march and several others.

Some famous Venezuelan cuatro players

Simón Díaz Simón Narciso Díaz Márquez (August 8, 1928 – February 19, 2014) was a Venezuelan singer and Grammy Award-winning composer of Venezuelan music. Career Díaz endeavored to recover the folklore and musical traditions of the '' llanos'', the Ve ...

– Venezuelan singer and cuatro player. While not a cuatro virtuoso "Uncle Simón" is the face of the

llanero A (, ‘plainsman’) is a South American herder. The name is taken from the Llanos grasslands occupying eastern Colombia and western-central Venezuela. During the Spanish American wars of independence, lancers and cavalry served in both ar ...

folksinger. His is the composer of "Caballo Viejo" and "El Becerrito" *

Hernán Gamboa Hernan José Gamboa Alexis, better known as Hernan José Gamboa Alexis (June 18, 1946 – January 10, 2016) was a Venezuelan musician, composer and singer. He was a member of the Venezuelan fold music group Serenata Guayanesa, and later releas ...

– Founding member of

Serenata Guayanesa Serenata Guayanesa is a vocal and instrumental quartet that plays typical Venezuelan folk music. It is one of the two best known groups that play this style of music (the other being Un Solo Pueblo).Mark Dinneen, ''Culture and customs of Venezuel ...

. Left in the 1980s to pursue a solo career. Invented a method to play the cuatro called "rasgapunteo" (Spanish) *

– took the playing capabilities of the instrument to new heights, and created a method of teaching the cuatro. Famous soloist.
Leonardo Lozano Escalante
Venezuelan master of soloist cuatro "cuatro solista" or concert cuatro, "cuatro de concierto". Lozano has taken this instrument to the well-deserved level of a soloist instrument composing, performing and recording outstanding works for cuatro and piano, cuatro and chamber orchestra, cuatro and symphonic orchestra. *Jorge Polanco * Jorge Glem *

Hector Molina In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...

* Edward Ramirez *

Luis Pino Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...

* Daniel Requena *

Nil Lara Nil Lara (born 1964) is an American musician from Miami, Florida who is a singer, guitarist and songwriter, playing the tres, the six-stringed Cuban guitar, and the cuatro, a Venezuelan guitar. Biography Lara was born in Newark, New Jersey, ...

* Juan Carlos Salazar – Venezuelan singer, guitar and cuatro player. * Henry Linarez – World renowned cuatro player from Barquisimeto that developed a fusion between Afro-American Jazz and Venezuelan Folkloric Music. * Rafael "Pollo" Brito *

Steve Knightley Steve Knightley (born 1954) is an English singer, songwriter and acoustic musician. Since 1992 he has been one half of folk/roots duo Show of Hands along with Phil Beer. Knightley was named "Songwriter of the Nineties" by BBC Radio 6 Music in ...

and

Phil Beer Phil Beer (born 12 May 1953 in Exminster, Devon, England) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, and one half of English acoustic roots duo Show of Hands. Biography Beer first began to play fiddle, guitar, and mandolin whils ...

– Form the great British Folk duo

Show Of Hands Show of Hands is an English acoustic roots/folk duo formed in 1986 by singer-songwriter Steve Knightley (guitars, mandolin, mandocello, cuatro) and composer and multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer (vocals, guitars, violin, viola, mandolin, mandoc ...

. Both can play the Cuatro with Steve writing and arranging classic British folk songs on the Cuatro. *Dominic Thompson in Trinidad and Tobago

External links

News and Videos about Venezuelan CuatroMaterial and HD Videos for learning to play Venezuelan CuatroTuCuatro - Venezuelan Cuatro songs' lyrics and chords (english)TuCuatro in Spanish - Venezuelan Cuatro songs' lyrics and chords (spanish)

References

*"Instrumentos Musicales de Venezuela: Cuatro". ''Diccionario Multimedia de Historia de Venezuela''. Fundación Polar. * Fredy Reyna: ''Alfa Beta Cuatro'' - Monte Avila Editores 1994 * Alejandro Bruzual: ''Fredy Reyna - Ensayo biográfico'' - Alter Libris 1999 {{Reflist String instruments Venezuelan musical instruments