The tololoche is a traditional musical instrument from southern

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. Its name comes from "tolo loch", from the Mayan language: tolo (bull) and loch (embraced), which would later become tololoche. It is a variant of the European

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

, though sightly smaller, and is still large enough to produce low-pitched sounds. It has three or four strings, and is plucked with the fingers (

pizzicato Pizzicato (, ; translated as 'pinched', and sometimes roughly as 'plucked') is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument: * On bowe ...

). It is purely a folk instrument, and not used in

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

. In northern Mexico it is used in Fara Fara and norteño music. These styles include the

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

snare drum The snare drum (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often u ...

, tololoche,

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

bajo sexto The bajo sexto ( Spanish: "sixth bass") is a Mexican string instrument from the guitar family with 12 strings in six double courses. It is played in a similar manner to the guitar, with the left hand changing the pitch with the frets on a ...

. It is used by musicians playing in bars and taverns in northern cities, and is also used by university student musicians in

Guanajuato Guanajuato, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Guanajuato, is one of the 32 states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into Municipalities of Guanajuato, 46 municipalities and its cap ...

playing traditional songs for callejoneadas. The tololoche became established in the north of Mexico as indispensable to the interpretation of regional music and less awkward than the classical

double-bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched chordophone in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions such as the octobass). It has ...

to transport. The instrument is purely acoustic, and its role has gradually been replaced by electric instruments such as the

electric bass The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an electric but with a longer neck and scale leng ...

. In the 1950s, modern instruments such as the drum set and the electric bass began to take the place of the '' tambor de rancho'' and tololoche, respectively. However, musicians and composers have returned to the tololoche for consistency within the field of traditional music.

Etymology

Cecilio Agustín Robelo, a Mexican philologist from the beginning of the 19th century, was one of the first to be interested in the origin of this name, and had published the results of his research in his "Diccionario De Aztequismos" (Dictionary of Aztequisms). In this book, he defines the tololoche as “Name that the Indians gave to the musical instrument called « Contrabass » when they saw its rounded shapes, and that it looked like an irregular spheroid". (Tololo Tic: redondo, esférico) Nombre que dieron los indios al instrumento músico llamado « Contrabajo » cuando vieran sus formas redondas, y que era semejante a un esféroide irregular He considered that this name derived from the words, in the

Nahuatl Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

language, “Tololo Tic”, which he interpreted as “round or spherical”. Cecilio Agustín Robelo's explanation is difficult to impose, because from that time on, botanists used the word "tololonchi" to designate the spherical fruits of various species of Passiflora bryonioides, a variety of

Passiflora ''Passiflora'', known also as the passion flowers or passion vines, is a genus of about 550 species of flowering plants, the type genus of the family Passifloraceae. ''Passiflora'' species are widely cultivated for their striking flowers, fla ...

s that grows in Mexican states of

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

, Chihuahua,

Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities, and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales. It is located in northwest Mexic ...

and

, as well as in the American state of

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

Terminology

It is also called ''chicote'' because one playing technique produces a whip-like sound. Some players play the chicote note along with two strokes of the palms to produce a drum beat, while others prefer to strike the body as one would the

cajón A cajón ( ; "box, crate, drawer") is a box-shaped percussion instrument originally from Peru, played by slapping the front or rear faces (generally thin plywood) with the hands, fingers, or sometimes implements such as brushes, mallets, or st ...

of Peru, creating percussive rhythms when there is no drum available.

Construction

The neck of a tololoche is usually made of pine and the body of caobilla, unlike the viol. The four-string tuning is A-D-G-C (La-Re-Sol-Do), a fourth higher than the standard double bass. Strings were traditionally made of gut, giving way to nylon and steel-wrapped nylon.

Sources

* (es)

Notes and references

;Notes ;References {{Authority control Contrabass instruments Mexican musical instruments