What Is a Cuatros

There are at least two kinds of cuatros, one from Puerto Rico and one from Venezuela. The Puerto Rican one is five courses, double strung and is played mostly with a plectrum. The Venezuelan cuatro, which we presume is the one Gustavo Colina played with Carlos Barbosa-Lima, has four strings, mostly tuned like the inside four strings of the guitar, that is A D F# and B. This tuning is more like what we see in the Vihuela tuning of the 1500's in Spain, in the music of Milan, Narvaez, Valderabano, etc., and is simply the lowering of our g string (string 3) to F#. I am not sure if they are all tuned up an octave or what to expect, but I think it is conventional pitch orientation.

I fielded a call the other day from a fellow who has written a treatise on the cuatro. He was calling because we had written the word "Quatro" on the website and he wanted clarification. He asked what a "Quatro" was. I told him "...apparently a mistake." In the meantime, just to show you that grass doesn't grow under our feet over here, we have corrected this malaprop and are now more secure in our guitar presentations.

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