The normal technique for sound production is the use of a plectrum but sometimes the nails are used to achieve special effects. The main role of this instrument is melodic but it can be used as a solo instrument. The normal tuning (in concert key) from highest to lowest course is G D A E B F# and the range is about 2-2/3 octaves with almost 19-fret fingerboard. The first and second courses are made of steel the other courses are made of copper or wound brass.īandolas are usually tuned in concert key but a Bb tuning was used in the past decades. The second one is the most common kind and has its strings grouped in six double courses. In the Andean Region it is possible to find two varieties of bandolas, one with 16 strings and one with 12 strings. Its shape is derived from Peñola’s vihuela (a vihuela with pear shape). The Andean Colombian bandola is a plucked string chordophone of the lute family mostly associated with the Andean region of Colombia (there are other kinds of bandolas in other regions of South America). One ot the most idiomatic sound in the accompaniment role of tiple is named “aplatillado”, that can be translate as “as a cymbal”, and is made muffing softly the sound of the string with nails. In melodic contexts, it can played with plectrum. The normal technique for sound production is with nails of right hand. The main use of tiple is in Andean Colombian music with bandolas and guitars. The role of tiple can be as harmonic accompaniment instrument but it can also assume a melodic or a solo role. With a 19-fret fingerboard, the Colombian tiple has a range of about 2-2/3 octaves. The outer two strings of each of the three lowest triple courses is tuned an octave higher than the middle string in the course. Tiples are usually tuned in concert key but a Bb tuning was used in the past decades. The normal tuning from highest to lowest course is E B G D. The other two groups have a copper string (or wound brass) in the middle of two steel strings. The first group consists of three steel strings. It is slightly smaller than a guitar, with 12 strings grouped in four tripled courses. MarkThe charango is a small Andean stringed instrument.The tiple is a plucked string chordophone of the guitar family mostly associated with Colombia, and considered the national instrument. We were fortunate to get a ringside table and I hope these images captured some of the emotion of his performance. The dancers were fantastic, as you will see in future posts, but the star of the show was Rodolfo Coya Ruiz who played the charango 'from the heart'. One of the most memorable events on our trip was the farewell dinner at Gala Tango in the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires.

A charango player is called a charanguista or charanguero. The charango was primarily played in traditional Andean music, but is more and more frequently being used by other Latin American musicians. It typically has ten strings in five courses of two strings each, but many other variations exist. The instrument is widespread throughout the Andean regions of Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, northern Chile and northwestern Argentina, where it is a popular musical instrument that exists in many variant forms.Ībout 66 cm (26 in) long, the charango was traditionally made with the shell from the back of an armadillo (called quirquincho or mulita in South American Spanish), but also it can be made of wood, which some believe to be a better resonator. The charango is a small Andean stringed instrument of the lute family, which probably originated in the Quechua and Aymara populations in post-Colombian times, after European stringed instruments were introduced by the Spanish during colonialization.

Small andean stringed instruments