Cuatro (Venezuela)
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The cuatro of
Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
has four single nylon strings, tuned (ad'f#'b). It is similar in shape and tuning to the
ukulele The ukulele ( ; ); also called a uke (informally), is a member of the lute (ancient guitar) family of instruments. The ukulele is of Portuguese origin and was popularized in Hawaii. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and con ...
, 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 (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...
lower. Consequently, the same fingering can be used to shape the chords, 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 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 ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
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 Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string (music), string instrument with strings made of catgut, gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the ...
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, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...
, 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 Flowering plant, angiosperm trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostl ...
. 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 in the Llanos, Gaita in Zulia, Galerón 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. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
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 dance, ballroom and folk dance, in triple (3/4 time, time), performed primarily in closed position. Along with the ländler and allemande, the waltz was sometimes referred to by the ...
, joropo, parang, 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 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 orchestras or ...
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 interval (music), 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 int ...
* strings 2 and 3 –
major third In music theory, a third is a Interval (music), musical interval encompassing three staff positions (see Interval (music)#Number, Interval number for more details), and the major third () is a third spanning four Semitone, half steps or two ...
* 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 de ...
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, Fredy Reyna 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, comprising the main islands of Trinidad and Tobago, along with several List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, smaller i ...
to accompany musical bands at
Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...
time singing about the birth of Christ. This type of music is called parang, 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 ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
country. The language used in the songs is mostly Spanish but
Patois ''Patois'' (, 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 sl ...
and English 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, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná Peninsula, Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. In 19 ...
,
Curaçao Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (specifically the Dutch Caribbean region), about north of Venezuela. Curaçao includ ...
and
Bonaire Bonaire is a Caribbean island in the Leeward Antilles, and is a Caribbean Netherlands, special municipality (officially Public body (Netherlands), "public body") of the Netherlands. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west (Windward an ...
, where it is used for different types of music, including the traditional tumba, waltz, danza, polka, calypso, bolero, march and several others.


Notable players

*
Simón Díaz Simón Narciso Díaz Márquez (August 8, 1928 – February 19, 2014), also known as tío Simón, was a Venezuelan singer, actor, TV host, comedian, and Grammy Award-winning composer of Music of Venezuela, Venezuelan music. Some of his most popula ...
– Venezuelan singer and cuatro player. While not a cuatro virtuoso "Uncle Simón" is the face of the
llanero A (, 'plainsman') is a Venezuelan and Colombian 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 b ...
folksinger. His is the composer of "Caballo Viejo" and "El Becerrito" * Hernán Gamboa – Founding member of Serenata Guayanesa. Left in the 1980s to pursue a solo career. Invented a method to play the cuatro called "rasgapunteo" (Spanish) * Fredy Reyna – 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. * Roy Jelinek * Cheo Hurtado * Hernan Gamboa *Jorge Polanco * Jorge Glem *
Miguel Siso --> Miguel is a given name and surname, the Portuguese and Spanish form of the Hebrew name Michael. It may refer to: Places * Pedro Miguel, a parish in the municipality of Horta and the island of Faial in the Azores Islands * São Miguel (disam ...
* Edward Ramirez * Luis Pino * Hector Molina * Proto López * Daniel Requena * Nil Lara * 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 and Phil Beer – Form the great British Folk duo Show Of Hands. Both can play the Cuatro with Steve writing and arranging classic British folk songs on the Cuatro. *Dominic Thompson in Trinidad and Tobago * Abraham Sarache in The Netherlands.


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 Venezuelan folk music