The viola caiçara is a guitar-like plucked stringed instrument from

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. It has between 5 and 8 strings, with one string being a short string which goes to a peg at the body-neck join or half-way on the neck, like a

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

. It is otherwise built much like a

viola caipira The ''viola caipira'', often simply ''viola'', (Portuguese for ''country guitar'') is a Brazilian ten-string guitar with five courses of strings arranged in pairs. It was introduced in the state of São Paulo, where it is widely played as the b ...

, with the strings attached to a fixed bridge on the soundboard, then going over a small floating bridge. It usually has wooden pegs for tuning.

References

{{reflist Acoustic guitars Guitar family instruments Brazilian musical instruments