Cuatro (Puerto Rico)
A Puerto Rican cuatro
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| String instrument | |
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| Classification | String instrument |
| Hornbostel–Sachs classification |
(Composite chordophone) |
| More articles | |
| Tiple (Puerto Rico), Bordonúa | |
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 of strings of the very first Puerto Rican cuatro.
The current cuatro has ten strings 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.
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.
Note that cuatro is a name also applied to a number of other somewhat differently-configured instruments, including the Venezuelan Cuatro, the Cuban cuatro and some small Spanish instruments.
Very little is known about the exact origin of the cuatro. However, most experts believe that the cuatro has existed on the island in one form or another for about 400 years. The Spanish instrument that it is most closely related to is the vihuela poblana (also known as the Medieval/Renaissance guitar), which had four courses, two strings each for eight strings in total as well as the Spanish Medieval/Renaissance four course and the Spanish laúd, particularly in the Canary Islands.
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