Comentarios | cuatro

The cuatros usage arguably changed with compositional styles from the 1930s onward. The creation of two-part harmony of two cuatros by Maestro Ladi, and occasionally with three voices, gave rise to larger linear compositions. This trend broadened with solo composers such as Francisco "Panchón" Ortiz Piñero, Maso Rivera, Nieves Quintero, Yomo Toro, Pepe Rodríguez, Arturito Avilés, Iluminado Dávila, Pascual Meléndez, Nicanor Zayas, and the new strain of composers during following two generations.

Cuatro players also emerged with a unique touch in their instrumental interpretation as lead voices: Panchón Ortiz Piñero, Yomo Toro, Nery Orta, Pascual Meléndez, Iluminado Davila, Sarrail Archilla, Juan Montalvo Cruz, Baltazar Rodriguez, El Cano de Vega Baja, and others like the great Nieves Quintero (among many others whose space leaves us short to mention), who influenced both the compositional and performance styles. The accompanying guitarists such as Don Felo, Polo Ocasio, Carlos Martínez, and Maneco Velazquez,, performing the bass voices, created an interesting new harmonic movement. It is notable that a similar bass counterpoint accompaniment is emphasized in the Cape Verde Islands, Portugal, and other African regions.

There are a number of emerging voices in sounds, fusions with flamenco, jazz, classical, pop, trova, experimental, rock, blues, and new age, that will raise the volume of our string instruments. An open mind is needed in the consumer market and the mainstream, one that fosters and encourages greater freedom. Not only is participation necessary, but also the relentless search for timbral and harmonic colors. So far, there has been a very profound virtuosic development in the cuatro played in a melodic-linear manner. It is possible that in the future, it will find the paths left behind, as a post-medieval instrument that characterized these instruments mostly as accompaniments. Pepe Rodriguez, Nieves Quintero, Modesto Nieves, Neftali Ortiz, Pablito Hernandez, Eddie Lopez, Joe Torres, Pedrito Guzman, Victor Echevarria, Ramon Vazquez and Saul Martinez, Carrasquillo, Bengie Laboy, (and others that I do not remember), have created styles and other roles for the cuatro in their roles as accompanists-soloists. It is necessary to clarify that the making of the cuatro in other aspects has had the contribution of better luthiers who have improved the

tuning, action, and who have opportunely created better instrumental tools. The theoretical education of different music departments in high schools and private schools, such as the Rondalla de Humacao led by Professor Jorge Camacho, Frankie Meltz, and Neftalí Ortiz, who has done tremendous work in publishing music written for cuatro at an intermediate and advanced level, has also contributed. The adjustments made by some prospective players, when venturing into jazz, flamenco, nueva trova, bomba, and plena, open up new dimensions to their technique and sound. The construction and strings available on the market, the microphones, and the altered forms of its physical appearance, will also profoundly alter and stimulate its role on the global stage. Making adjustments to demonstrate the capacity of an instrument with characteristics that different groups can share, orchestrations are daily challenges for the performer. Looking at the cultural ancestors of the cuatro and its eventual development should significantly impact living with the contemporary cuatro.

To my father, the cuatrista, Juan Montalvo

A mi padre

Each turn left me aching, bleeding between the puddles.

It entered my balcony, my dream, and stuck in my eyelids before descending through my body.

It was impossible to define what this melody of old cedar and jagüilla with weed flowers smelled like...

Raised among the yagrumal, rosaries, and promise trees;

cedars twined with the long aguinaldo, lorenzillos, and sanvirones;

each foot of clay brought a scent of his childhood.

The water running over the skins and the yagrumo leaves damming the stream...

A very tall guamá tells of a time when a child climbed its branches, searching for melodies.

It saved him from death when a branch cushioned his fall.

Then the trees chased him. Another lent him his body and only insisted on extracting lifeblood from his spirit.

The mountain was his confidant, and the device of a string was his Soul-Lover.

He was born to make the cuatro smile and leave a laugh in the tune of others, when he moves his fingers

on the tuning fork of life.

Entrevista Kacho

Interview with Kacho Montalvo: cuatrista, poet, folklorist

Interviewed by John Sotomayor (1994)

Transcription and writing by William R. Cumpiano

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[My nickname is] Kacho. [I was born] on December 28, 1960, in Ponce. I grew up in Peñuelas all my life. My father is Juan Montalvo, National Cuatro Prize winner, and my mother is Alma Cedeño Román. My father is from Utuado. He grew up in Adjuntas and then moved here to the Peñuelas area, and my mother is from Ponce.

I once worked as a Fine Arts teacher. I worked with young people, teaching them cuatro. In addition to that, I'm working with some colleagues; we're integrated and looking for ways to promote the playing of the tiple.

Prior to that, I'd been working with isolated communities, and for a few years I've been doing research on music that hasn't been recorded, meaning it remains unpublished in these communities. I've been looking for information on village composers, village musicians, and promises: sung rosaries, etc. A bit complicated, a lot of things.

The sung rosary is a form that... there are very few versions left, although it was sung in different ways in different parts of the country. The sung rosary is a form of carrying the rosary that is commonly prayed in the Catholic Church, but in a sung form. I studied in some [rented?] communities where some of the chants have medieval melodies. After the sung rosary, which has different parts, Christmas carols are sung, and the sung rosary begins to [arrogar?] as if it were a promise. It begins to take on a change, as if it were a promise, in the final part. And then Christmas carols begin to be sung with themes [adduced?] to the Virgin.

People generally do the sung rosaries once a year, not necessarily during Christmas. They do it at different times. Now, coming up on Saturday, on the 21st, there will be a sung rosary in one of the isolated communities I study, in the Naranjo neighborhood of Yauco, between Lares and Yauco.

[During the rosaries] the common traditional instruments of today are used: the cuatro, the guitar, the guiro, and a choir and a troubadour. The prayer leader leads; in this case, it will be a woman, a troubadour; a singer is the one who sings the rosary. And a chorus of people respond to her.

I have some Christmas carols compiled from isolated communities that have disappeared. Here in Peñuelas, there was a community called Corozal. I'm talking about a road that could only be reached on horseback or on foot, because cars couldn't go up. And within that neighborhood, in the highest part of the neighborhood, there was a church, and in this church, they had a Christmas tradition where they held special masses and sang a Christmas carol called "El Aguinaldo del Pastorcillo," and they used the cuatro. It was accompanied by the music available in the community, by community musicians. As far as I understand, Puerto Rican folk instruments have always been integrated.

Religion is closely linked to our traditions. And it is, in fact, what produces cohesion in the community: culture and religion. Young people still use the Puerto Rican cuatro in churches. In fact, right next door, I passed by a Pentecostal church, and the gentleman who accompanies the religious hymns uses a cuatro. And before the service begins, he plays traditional music. Sometimes he even remembers many old Christmas carols that I sometimes collect from other communities, and he plays them, and I hear them here.

It's very interesting that the Protestant Church of Puerto Rico made translations of different hymns that are used in the Protestant church in the United States. And they are hymns that originally belong to the genre of "Gospel Rules," etc. So here they make translations into Spanish and sing them in their style, and they always include the cuatro. It's interesting because there's a mix.

Currently, I've done some research on the tiple because it motivated me, number one... I grew up in the environment of traditional music. My father, as I told you, Juan Montalvo, always instilled in me the values of our music, and I accompanied the man I consider my teacher, Idelfonso Coto, who is a great troubadour, the Ciegito de Cidra. On a program on WISO radio station, which was called Ondas Criollas, that program began in the 1960s, and in my early childhood, I began playing the guiro, guitar, and cuatro. One of the things that motivated me to investigate our music was that I understood that in the traditional music that we hear, that has been recorded, there are many genres and many things that were not taken into account for different reasons that I did not yet know. So that motivated me to begin studying isolated communities and to discover the tiple.

In Peñuelas, there are two types of tiples used. The tiple con macho (sharp) and the tiple requinto. The requinto is a tiple that has three strings and is tuned the same as the tres. One of the interesting things is that some people thought the instrument had disappeared in Puerto Rico. In Peñuelas, there are still tiple artisans. I can take you right now to a tiple artisan named Don Pablo. Don Pablo makes some tiples, gives them to his family, his children play tiples, and at Christmas they party with the tiple. With the three-string tiple. They tune it with the same type of interval used in the Cuban tres, but in a different key. They tune it in G. The tuning is B, G, D. Now, there is the Cuban tres.

The Cuban tres has different dimensions than the requinto. The requinto is small, and the Cuban tres is a transformed guitar, where they add three pairs of strings. Sometimes now they add three triple strings, since Arsenio Rodríguez. But in the past, the tres was a guitar that was transformed with three pairs of double strings. I was recently interviewed by curator María Teresa Linares of the National Museum of Havana, and she told me that the tres used in Puerto Rico has its own configuration, its own shape. I believe that the tres, of those used in Puerto Rico, that was used by Mario Hernández, Justo Rivera, and the tres used in Puerto Rico, has its own shape. The original [where the original shape of the Puerto Rican tres came from] is unknown. There are some famous artisans who were very good and who were known for making that type of tres. Apparently some artisan used that shape, which was the one the public liked, and it became established.

[Regarding the shape of the cuatro] Puerto Rican artisans are very imaginative and adopted the shape of the violin in the cuatro... I've found many elderly artisans whose parents also made violins. In other words, here in the countryside, we could find people who made violins. Here, for example, there's a man named Don Daniel Maldonado, who was the quintessential virtuoso of the tiple with macho, and he made violins too.

Also here in Puerto Rico, there's a very famous violin luthier, some of whose violins are on display in European living rooms. His name is Agapito Acosta. He made cuatros in his youth, as well as mandolins and guitars. He lives in Ensenada. He must be in his seventies.

My father is a great cuatro player. He's a renowned cuatro player in the Puerto Rican community of Orlando, Florida. In 1971, he won second place in the national cuatro award from the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture, and in '74, he won first place. Modesto Nieves came in second. The first year he came in second, the first prize went to Pascual Meléndez. He had been playing in the Ponce region since 1970. He accompanied Toñin Romero and Idelfonso Coto, with the Conjunto Típico Ponceño. He was a man with a long history as a cuatro player in this area.

I lived through a great time that I want to tell you about. I started high school around 1975, and at that time, the resurgence of traditional music from our country was taking place. At that time, Nueva Trova also entered the [radio?] scene with the group PoniendoPunto en otro Son, which I consider to be the group that has most motivated the music of the cuatro and traditional music to reach the youth. One of the things that has made a deep impact on the youth in Puerto Rico, on people appreciating our work, is the work of Haciendo Punto en otro Son, where some young people played the cuatro with rhythms different from how people were used to hearing it, in a more formal way. One of the things that motivated me was that my father has always played avant-garde traditional music on the cuatro. My father has never limited himself to playing traditional music; rather, he is more or less from the school of Neri Horta, the school of Ladí, the school of Nieves Quintero... a person who has always proposed to put together difficult pieces and pieces of execution that take a lot of practice. With that influence, I grew up alongside him, accompanying him on the guitar. And then I was lucky that when I entered the Interamerican University in San Germán, I stayed with someone who I consider one of the greatest precursors of the cuatro in Puerto Rico, Neftalí Ortiz, and Angel [Sanabria?]

I wanted to make a parenthesis here because the modern cuatro in Puerto Rico has many influences, but from the last precursors between Neri Horta, Nieves Quintero, Neftalí Ortiz and Modes emerged

aguinaldito de escalera

Aguinaldito

Notes by musician/musicologist Juan "Kacho" Montalvo

Added 9/25/2016

Music is a love affair with life, an easy search for the difficult and its conversion to utopia. Every time marvelous notes emerge from an instrument and mysterious hands, a different world is created.

When life imprisons you and pushes you with all its might, a melody comes to your rescue. When the strings of my father's cuatro rang out that early morning in that silent, rural night before my mother's smile, something told me I was witnessing the goodness of the world. The fact that my spirit was filled with joy that midnight gave meaning to my eyes being alert to everything that happened during that moonlit night. My eager gaze scanned the clear gloom, seeking to identify the warm and shimmering timbres that the night had chosen. That magic took me many years to decipher, and I was able to touch and feel its silhouette to define it in other moons with other oscillations. Whatever content I read never satisfied me and I only found amorphous traces. One day I was able to delve into its vitality. Each harmonic is an echo of the root energy of the world, I became aware of it again. Its genesis transforms senses and swims through the bloodstream of our spiritual ear. Our shell is activated resonating at every moment. In that vibration you can see stains, paintings, indefinite and tangible that create beings, open worlds, and define abstractions. All the sadness in the world ends in sounds, as do the joys and moments that invade your interior. That sound already brings the rhythm and if not, it is rescued by any heart.

This transhumance makes the spirit go out into the world. It goes to your ancestors and touches them. There it can dance, sing, cry, laugh, dream; it finds green pastures in its soul and mornings that nourish feelings. That's when I discovered that reverberation that reciprocates the receiver and began to taste that passion that fills my veins, I realized its risks.

You are born standing up every time you face that desired danger. That space finds you with life every time you need it. You face it with transparency, and then the diaphanous nature of your being emerges and manifests itself. That urgent physiological desire is based on passion and discards the artificial and simulated forms that they try to create every day.

We must find our own voice. Curiously, that search is not produced by the vocal cords. It is a breath that manages to be tempered with a simultaneous warmth and freshness. It comes from the internal diaphragm of your soul, irreplaceable. It only feeds on frequencies sympathetic to your temperament, feelings, soul, spirit, and nobility, and can delve into your entire intimacy with precise resonance. There's no coercion to your traumas; let the tunes take over. Remembering a troubadour taking pain from his chest to turn it into joy, and seeing how the cuatro tinged my childhood, making sounds from a staircase, has accelerated my heartbeat to this day. It's hard to find the melody, but once you find it, it saves you. Just make it, play it, live it, and listen to it with passion.

El que lo hereda

he who inherited it

Notes on his great-uncle, the famous decima writer Cándido Silva Parrilla by Vieques native Victor Manuel Silva Casanova, a versatile writer, journalist, musician, and decima writer

He who inherited it did not steal it,

says a proverb on the back,

and now my verses will tell

from whom I inherited it.

It was an uncle who bequeathed me

his inspiration and eloquence,

he instilled in me the wisdom

to rhyme perfectly,

Cándido Silva Parrilla,

thank you for such a noble inheritance!

---MSC

As you know, the title of this article is the beginning of the proverb "He who inherits it, does not steal it." And today I thought about my great-uncle, Cándido Silva Parrilla, the uncle of my father, Goyo Silva, who was the son of Ramón Silva Parrilla. My brother Mon and I, who have cultivated the décima for years, have said that we inherited that gift from Uncle Cándido. So, to learn a little more about my great-uncle, a decima singer, I called Joaquín Mouliert, a troubadour, composer, and historian of the décima, who, with his great eloquence, memory, and mental agility, gave me these details.

' Cándido Silva Parrilla was born in the Quebrada Vueltas neighborhood of Fajardo in 1873. He had a sister who was a lawyer and troubadour, whose name is unknown. As an adult, in the early 1900s, Cándido gained fame as a troubadour and improviser, and this reached the ears of the governor of Puerto Rico at the time, who was appointed by the United States.

Cándido practiced the art of the assonant décima, meaning his rhyme wasn't perfect or consonant. But his talent for improvisation allowed him to perform in many towns on the island under the governor's auspices.

Manuel Silva Casanova

Although he had completed eighth grade in school, Cándido worked as a plumber and did not pursue university studies. It was then that the governor took him to live in San Juan, and from there, Cándido traveled to many towns on the island, where he displayed his extraordinary writing and decimal improvisation skills. During that time, he wrote and published two books in décimas: 'Canto a Susana' and 'El Tiple Puertorriqueño'. At the time when a rustic wooden bridge connected the islet of San Juan with the main island, Cándido Silva Parrilla wrote some brilliant assonant décimas (approximate rhyme), the last stanza of which reads:

As testimony are

the streets and their beauty,

San Justo, La Fortaleza,

El Sol, La Luna, Tetuán.

San Jorge, San Sebastián,

San Francisco and La Caleta

a full mile and a half

that San Juan will not widen

unless the sea shrinks

or the islet stretches."

Notas aguinaldo

notes about the aguinaldo

Comentarios del folklorista puertorriqueño
José Gumersindo Torres

Aguinaldos are typical songs inherited from the ancient Christmas customs and traditions of Spain. The word aguinaldo means "gift" during the Epiphany. They are mostly heard during Christmas, feasts of the cross, and during sung rosaries dedicated to the deceased of close relatives. Aguinaldo genres are sung by troubadours in ten-line décimas using hexasyllables, that is, six-syllable verses that the singer from the interior sings in each stanza. They are also sung in quatrains during the revelry of trullas (parrandas) during the Christmas season. The decimists who sing Seis, in contrast to the Aguinaldo, use octosyllabic verses when the word ends in a flat word; seven syllables with the acute accent and nine syllables with the proparoxytone.

Example:

Aguinaldo Pie Forzado: “Beautiful Mountain”—6 hexasyllables;

Seis “From My Beautiful Mountain”—octosyllables

The folkloric syncopated harmonic circles used in ancient times by the peasant jíbaro for the Aguinaldo Cagüeño (in C Major) were '(F major---- C Major-- G Major-- C Major-); Subdominant- Tonic- Dominant- Tonic. The criollo guitarists with typical pure peasant strain expression referred to the plucked tones in chords as -Prima- -Segunda- -Tercera-

The instrumentation of the jíbaro ensemble that opens the groove in lyrical conversation is the cuatro, beginning with an anacrusis[1] that presents the musical theme in four bars, which is repeated in a harmonized melodic sequence in the interludes until ending with a coda, giving a final point to the forced foot. Following in the progressive harmonic aspect is the secondary guitar in a habanera rhythm, accompanied by the rhythmic puyero of the güiro, which adorns the zesty voice of the cantaor of brava music.

Modern cuatristas have expanded and extended the rich and vast repertoire of the Puerto Rican cuatro fretboard, combining the old routine harmonic melodies with new arrangements added to the taste of today's sophisticated populist milieu.

Example: Varied Modern Harmonized Guitar for El Aguinaldo Cagueno in C Major

D Minor- C Major- G Major- C Major- Subtonic Tonic Dominant Tonic

Innovative string players such as Nieves Quintero and Edwin Zayas have added syncopated notes with seventh-augmented-diminished-flat-sharp-ninth-third scales—jazz-Andean-classical notes—with brilliant mastery, like great creative musicians who have taken our rustic, indigenous national instrument from the basic everyday limited accompaniments of—"se matan dos"—"café con pan" repetitive. The Aguinaldo Cagüeño, popularized in the city of Turabo de Caguas, has the characteristics of being sung in four different styles, demonstrated by Flor Morales Ramos, the greatest interpreter of the Aguinaldo Cagüeño, who showed off her vocalizing, sweet, velvety, powerful voice, creating a masterpiece of the pioneering styles of: Vicente Vazquez, Justino Vega, Juan Morales, and Guillermo Estrada.

The four Cagüeno styles can be appreciated in the recorded numbers titled by Ramito with Ansonia:

(San Juan Bautista-with Nieves)

(Jesús Nazareno-with Maso)

(Luis Miranda-(Isla del Encanto-with Nieves)

(-Ramito-(Guillermo Estrada Style)

Artilleria Records 1031

The Aguinaldo Cagüeño serves as a harmonious foundation for the Aguinaldo Manola, the slow golpe of Gurabo, the binary compass of the Aguinaldo de Aguas Buenas, and is the common denominator of the habanero guitar strumming of the Seis Pampero-Aguinaldo Cagüeño—masterfully combined by Marcelino Ortiz and Jerry Rodríguez in the fruitful composition—(Spanish, That's My Language), a CD sponsored by Trova Incorporado, with similar backed-up drone variations of the Aguinaldo Cagueno.

Florencio-Juan Maria-Luis-Morales Ramos joined their voices to capture their lyrical songs on the LPs-(De Los Trece Tres-)(Tres de Los Trece-)(Los Tres Hermanos). P.S. LONG PLAY HAPPY EASTER 1968.

On the LP Felices Pascuas left on acetate by Florencio Morales Ramos with the virtuoso Victor Yomo Toro in 1968, the Aguinaldo Cagueno - Al Nacer La Aurora - was heard for the first time, a composition by José Antonio Ramos, son of Clemente Ramos, one of the thirteen three foster brothers of Los Morales Ramos. The peculiar arpeggiated picking of the Puerto Rican cuatro in this reviewed aguinaldo is totally different from all known introductions or preludes, because the introduction was taken by Tono Ramos: a guitarist-requint player from the La Veinticinco sector in the Bairoa neighborhood. For this reason, the aguinaldo originally has a melodious rhythm with a requinto or lead guitar flavor played on the first note and not the usual arpeggiated straw melodic scale of the Puerto Rican cuatro.

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[1] Anacrusis - note or group of notes that precede the first strong beat of a phrase, therefore it is placed before the barline.

Correpondenciua

correspondence about the seis and the aguinaldo

Correspondence betweei William Cumpiano y and the Puerto Rican folklorist

Prof. Luis Manuel Álvarez

January 9, 2011

Dear Mr. William Cumpiano:

I'll answer your questions with the following:

Is the seis a tradition in itself, or a complex of traditions?

Regarding this first point, it's important to know how to define and/or distinguish a tradition from a musical genre. For me, tradition, or better yet, traditions, are a series of learned and modified uses and customs that define the culture of a community, a people, a region, or a nation.

From the diversity of European, African, Spanish-Arab, and Native American heritages, we have learned to utilize those cultural elements that, by choice or selection,

We have incorporated natural elements into our environment and our daily lives. It is the continued use and custom of these transculturalized cultural elements that ultimately becomes tradition. This continuous way of life becomes a collective memory with a particular style of doing things, cooking, speaking, singing, and dancing, which defines the very essence of who we are. Tradition, in short, is the cultural memory or folkloric memory that we have formed and cultivated collectively and that defines us as Puerto Ricans.

A musical genre, however, is a composition that is used with a specific musical function within one or more traditions. For example, there are mythical-religious traditions such as "Las Fiestas de Cruz de Mayo" that use sung genres classified as waltzes, guarachas, and aguinaldos de Cruz de Mayo. There are sung wakes that use waltzes, guarachas, aguinaldos, seises, merengues, dances, etc., within a different context.

Traditions can also be associated with the different social classes or strata that make up our sociocultural environment. Depending on the social group and geographic area, the selection of musical instruments in ensembles varies. For example, throughout the history of our dance, social dances often used violins, clarinets, euphoniums, double basses, sometimes celos, a snare drum, and the güiro, an orchestra quite similar to the Cuban charanga. However, the jíbaros have always preferred ensembles such as the cuatro as melodic instruments, and its relatives the tiple and the bordonúa, and the guitar as accompanying instruments, the güiro, and the bongos.

We generally associate traditions with celebrations, carnivals, festivals, and rituals associated with our mythical world and our pagan popular world. These traditions can be defined by casual events such as a wedding, a quinceañera, a birthday, the death of a child (a baquiné (see: The Wake of Angelito or Baquiné), or the death of a distinguished person or an ordinary person. A country wedding is not the same as a wedding in a high-society casino.

Beyond the casual, we frame the rest of our traditions within a calendar. Christmas, for example, although in my article "Christmas Music: Testimony of Our Present and Historical Past" I mention the pagan components of old Christmases such as roasted suckling pig, we associate it with a Christian religious festival that begins on December 16 and ends with the Epiphany. Sung rosaries are associated with promises sent to saints or mythical beings to whom a particular favor is asked with prayers, sacrifices, offerings, and especially music. Promises are Calendar traditions. For example, you can choose the date of July 16th, associated with the Virgin of Carmen, to send a promise to the Virgin. The same occurs during the Fiestas de la Santa Cruz, which begin on May 3rd, or the rosaries on January 6th, where promises are sent to the Three Wise Men. All patron saint festivals are calendar festivals in honor of a saint. The tradition of Las Fiestas de Santiago in Loíza Aldea is celebrated on July 25th and must begin on the first Friday before the 25th. The tradition of this patron saint festival, like all others, must last nine days, that is, a novena. A Friday is chosen to end on Sunday. In Loíza, there are three Santiagos: Santiago de los hombres (Men's Santiago), Santiago de las mujeres (Women's Santiago), and Santiaguito (Little Santiago), which is Santiago de los niños (Children's Santiago). A novena is celebrated for each of these saints, that is, nine days of chanted rosaries. In total, the Fiesta de Santiago is a tradition that involves four novenas of celebration, that is, chanted rosaries to the three Santiagos. and the ninth of the patron saint festivities, which include machinas, hiring of artists, traditional foods and dancing in the plaza, masses, etc. This complex of celebrations coincides with the bomba dances, a musical calendar tradition that begins on the night of San Juan, that is, June 24, and must end at the end of August. This coincidence makes the Fiesta de Santiago a glimpse into the blending of the bomba dances with the three comparsa celebrations of the three Santiagos, where the saints are taken to the town church accompanied by a float of musicians who accompany each Santiago with the official music of the saints, which, curiously, is not bomba as a musical genre, but the Puerto Rican dance. Promises are sent to each of the Santiagos, and this is the main mythical ritual that underpins this entire festive calendar tradition.

This word, ritual, is extremely important in defining the components of a tradition. Ritual is each particular event that accompanies a festive celebration. For example, each comparsa or procession of one of the saints must return to the house of the person in charge of caring for the Saint. This person is responsible for maintaining the tradition. At the end of the ritual for the celebration of each Saint, there is the closing street party ritual with dance music, drinks, traditional food, and gifts in front of this house. From the perspective of the convergence of two traditions, there are several musical genres that are part of the rituals: the chants of the sung rosaries, dance as the main genre that accompanies the procession of the Santiagos, and the dance music of guarachas, salsa, merengues, calypso with steel bands, and other dance genres at the end of the ritual for the celebration of each Saint. The intercalation of the seises de bomba (bomba sixes) that filter through the tradition of the Fiesta de Santiago. Note that I used "seises" for the first time, which is how the bomba touches or dances are called in Loíza. Each genre group uses different ensembles: dance uses band instruments; guaracha, salsa, and popular music mix wind instruments with guitars, basses, congas, bongos, maracas, timbales, and cowbells, among others; bomba uses bomba instruments, the maraca, and the güiro. From this perspective, tradition defines regional tastes, even down to instrumentation and genre preferences.

Let's talk about Christian Christmas:

If we compare this tradition of the Feast of Santiago with the Christian Christmas Festival, there are similarities. Christian Christmas begins with a novena that runs from December 16th to the 25th. Then follows the celebration of the Holy Innocents, whose magical number is three days: December 26th, 27th, and 28th. The 28th is a day of promises and trullas. Then comes the pagan celebration of the Old Year and the New Year, followed by the celebration of the Epiphany with the novenas of the Three Kings and the novenas of the octavites.

Within Christmas traditions, the rituals of formal promises with chanted rosaries, formal promises of Christmas bonuses, wakes for the Three Kings, and promises as part of an informal Christmas cultural commitment of compadres or friends and "Christmas assaults" stand out.

The basic or fundamental component, present or hidden in all the rituals of these formal or informal promises, is to bring Baby Jesus a gift of prayers and primarily music in exchange for a mythical gift of protection for the family, healing from an illness, or prosperity that Baby Jesus is asked for and is expected to be granted. Music becomes the primary resource for gift-giving, either directly or through saints or mythical intermediaries such as Santa Claus, the Three Wise Men, or the Virgin Mary, to whom the same can be requested, or indirectly during parties and celebrations.

From the perspective of calendar traditions, each tradition is framed within a theme that defines what is sung, why, and which musical genres are representative of the celebration. Generally speaking, song themes are divided into two: "To the divine" and "To the human." Human themes deal with everyday matters, whether philosophical or non-philosophical: love, pain, death, nature, the sea, the sky, fauna, flora, and even religious themes, such as whether God created the world, man, the Bible, history, astronomy, astrology, science, biology, and, above all, humor, jokes, jocularity, mockery, etc. Popular song can speak of all things human, but the main theme is love, its sorrows and joys, jealousy, and disenchantment. Dance, bolero, ballad, guaracha, rumba, son, and trova jíbara belong to this world, and trova jíbara exploits human themes year-round. Within the humorous themes are the seis chorrea'o, the seis del dorado, and all the fast-paced dance seises, and those of controversy between men and women. The seises are identified with many human themes, such as the seis mapeyé, which is tragic, death-defying, and cuts veins. The best example is Ramito. The seis villarán and the mariandá can be humorous, and Chuíuto el de Bayamón is a good example. The guaracha is humorous, like the rumba. So genres and occasions go hand in hand with the themes framed within a tradition.

Returning to Christmas, the Christian Christmas tradition demands the theme 'a lo divino'. In these songs to the divine, the main theme of the songs associates everything with the birth of its characters, and the animals and objects associated with the birth become characters represented in the Christmas songs of adoration to the Child. The expected Messiah, the manger, the donkey, the star of Bethlehem, the pregnant Virgin asking for shelter, Saint Joseph, the straw of the manger, the adoration of the Three Wise Men, etc., are favorite themes of the troubadours within the context of Christmas. The preferred seises and aguinaldos are joyful, lively, and full of life. But within the Christmas tradition, 'a lo humano'

human' with aguinaldos and seises.

Origin of Christmas songs and genres and the socio-cultural and mythical value of music:

From a functional point of view, these musical gifts to Baby Jesus were considered Christmas carols or villancicos. Villancicos in Spain means the songs of the villagers that we associate with shepherds, which in Puerto Rico would later be equivalent to jíbaro or peasant songs. On the other hand, the word aguinaldo means gift, or in this case, the music given to Baby Jesus at his birth. From the point of view of the origin and development of these functional songs of divine gift, several musical genres of songs to the divine developed. Many of these genres inherited from Spain are waltzes such as "Venid Pastores" (Come Shepherds), "Pastores a Belén" (Shepherds to Bethlehem), "Hacia Belén va una Burra" (Toward Bethlehem Goes a Donkey), and "Alegría, Alegría" (Joy, Joy). However, they are not identified as waltzes but rather as carols. Many of these waltz-style songs were functionally perpetuated in school dramas and sacramental plays originally associated with shepherds as historical figures from the villages, known as villancicos. These carols retained their musical function as mere casual or occasional Christmas songs, alluding to the divine thematic context of worship, the manger, and its characters. Already in Puerto Rico, the carol developed Creole styles in the form of dance, even with the structure of a parade, such as the carol-dance "De tierra lejana," among others.

In Puerto Rico, however, Christmas carols began to develop with a specific function associated with promises. Since the promises sent to the characters associated with Baby Jesus must be repaid, they must be repaid with music and prayers. Thus, singing during the promises entails a spiritual payment function with music as part of a mythical commercial exchange, that is: You grant me the favors I ask of you, and I will pay you with music. At Christmas, music culturally takes on a framework of values of incredible spiritual power.

The musical genres used to repay these promises transformed from what were known in Spain as "villancicos de aguinaldos" (Christmas carols) into simply "aguinaldo" songs in Puerto Rico. It is from these Christmas carols that a specific musical genre called aguinaldo emerged. Many of these Christmas carols serve the same purpose as the musical genre known as aguinaldo. Their main musical purpose is to arrive at a home with music, similar to arriving at a home to bring a musical gift. In peasant or Jíbaro traditions, this musical gift is most commonly given with the genre known as aguinaldo. These Jíbaro Christmas carols are generally sung with a hexasyllable tenth, also known as a decimilla. In urban areas, however, urban Christmas carols are developed that use hexasyllabic quatrains instead of the hexasyllabic décimilla, using melodies similar to those of the jíbaro Christmas carols. These Christmas carols, consisting of hexasyllabic quatrains, are accompanied by a choir, maintaining a responsive solo-chorus structure. An example of this urban Christmas carol is "Saludo, Saludo," an Isabelline Christmas carol that has two versions: the Isabelline Christmas carol with decimillas and the Isabelline Christmas carol with quatrains, the latter being the most popular.

Greetings, greetings

I come to greet

the Isabelinos

beautiful song

In addition to these two types of Christmas carols, there are urban Christmas carols used to welcome a home during parrandas, such as the "guaracha" Christmas carols, like the famous "Alegre vengo" (Happy I come) and "Hermoso bouquet" (Beautiful bouquet).

Happy I come from the mountain

from my cabin

how happy it is

I bring my friends flowers

of the best

from my rosebush

Beautiful bouquet

here we bring you

beautiful flowers

in the New Year

Of the old Christmas carols in danger of extinction, whose function is to sing to someone's arrival at a home, are the "cadenas" (chains) and the "caballos" (horses). The "cadenas" (chains) are Christmas carols that use the sung verse of the seguidilla composed of 7 and 5 verses successively:

CONTINUES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NEXT COLUMN

CONCLUSION OF TEXT FROM END OF PREVIOUS COLUMN

These are the chains (7)

that my mother used to sing (5)

my mother used to sing (7)

when she was washing (5)

I sing my chains

at Christmas

to wish everyone

happy holidays.

El caballo is an octosyllabic sung couplet that sometimes mentions the word "horse":

Open your mouth, horse

and swallow that woman

whose head is broken

and won't mend it

Just as within Christmas traditions, bringing music as a gift implies receiving a gift in return. This practice is transferred to the robbery. Literally, the tradition of robbery is a "musical robbery" that doesn't ask for, doesn't solicit a gift with music, but practically demands it as if it were a "gunslinger" robbery. So, the house is unexpectedly arrived, preferably when the people in the house are sleeping, and is suddenly awakened by thunderous Christmas carols. Open the door for me

I'm on the street

and people will say

this is a snub.

In this tradition, any popular song functionally becomes a Christmas bonus, since the purpose is to arrive and demand a Christmas bonus by assault. This Christmas gift demanded is primarily alcoholic beverages and food. Although on the surface, the assault is unrelated to religious promises, as might be the case with parties with friends or compadres, which, unlike robberies, are promised and fulfilled, the element of religious celebration lies hidden as part of the Christmas spirit of giving and asking for Christmas bonuses, even if the bonus is a shot of rum, beer, wine, or sprit of wine.

If they don't give me a drink, I cry.

If they don't give me a drink, I cry, etc.

Once you arrive at a house with a Christmas bonus, whether it's a promise, with a group of friends partying, or in a robbery, the immediate objective is to enter the house. In the countryside, the Jíbaro tradition is to give a piece of music, and upon acceptance, everyone enters the house and rewards the owners with another musical gift. This second musical gift is performed with the sixes. Thus, within the musical tradition, two types of Christmas carol music exist as an offering or Christmas gift: the Christmas carol songs upon arrival at the house, which, according to the old Jíbaro custom, are performed outside the house. No one enters until the carols are finished singing. So, the function of the peasant Christmas carol is to reach the door of the house and give away Christmas carol music outside. Upon entering, there are the sixes songs, which are performed exclusively inside the house. These genres can be a fajardeño sixes, an Andean sixes, a sixes with a tenth, etc. This ancient peasant ritual is known in Jíbaro slang as the Christmas carol outside and the sixes inside. Thus, aguinaldo and seis are mythically connected in the Christmas musical tradition.

In urban areas where aguinaldo and seis have been modified with rhythms and other genres of arrival and entry into the house, such as parrandas and assaults, the rhythms of the old guaracha genres of aguinaldos and seises have been transformed into bomba and plena rhythms. Just a plenera or two is enough to set off a parranda or assault, and the party and revelry begin.

The merriment is here,

the merriment is here,

for the flowerpot,

let's sing,

wepa, wepa, wepa...

Outside of Christian Christmas, the article "Christmas Music: Testimony of our Present and Historical Past" mentions the Christmas of the sun god, and the ancient Roman Christmases associated with the winter solstice, the roasted suckling pig, the origin of the Christmas tree, the pagan tradition of the Old Year and the New Year represented by the birth of a child who represents the hope of humanity, and the fear of death as a consequence of the harsh European winter. All this heritage is reflected in fragments of popular songs that coexist with the celebration of Puerto Rican Christian Christmases within the thematic context of "a lo humano."

Francisco López Cruz suggests that the seis derives from an ancient dance. Is it true, then, that the tradition of the seis includes—or rather, part of the dance? If this is true, does the choreography, or rather the specific pattern of the seis dance (or dances) survive? When we see on television a dance group of men dressed in white with a red scarf and a pava, accompanied by women with a large skirt on their heads and colorful costumes with many petticoats—is this a faithful copy of a specific tradition of the seis dance—or an imaginative contemporary choreography invented for the audience's delight?

On this point, I invite you to reread my article "Christmas Music..." (http://musica.uprrp.edu/lalvarez/trayectoria/musicanavidena.html) the chapter that deals with: "Peasant Tradition: The Promises." This chapter deals with the origin of the seis and the tradition of trullas and parrandas. The seis as a musical genre originates from the Sevillan seises, a group of six children trained to dance and sing before the Almighty. Francis George Very in his book "The Spanish Corpus Christi Procession" speaks extensively about the seises of Seville and even shows copies of their chants, including décimas. In fact, it speaks of the religious structure of the procession, which later became parrandas and trullas in Puerto Rico, part of the origin of the Christmas carol rituals outside the home, and then of the function of the seises as songs and dances to be performed inside the temple, which later became the same for the home. And I quote myself:

“Francis George Very, in his book The Spanish Corpus Christi Procession, is more precise in his description of the Corpus Christi ritual, classifying the dances as processional dances and temple dances. The seises were temple dances, performed by a group of six children who were initially called "niños cantorcicos" (cantorcicos children). By 1570, they were already called seisicos, and by 1574, seyeses. The number "six" was chosen purely for convenience, and the children were trained in song and dance. These dances had different choreographies and were known by distinctive features specific to each dance, such as "six de cascabel" (six of the bell) (just like our seises: "six chorrea'o" (six of the handkerchief)," etc.), distinctive features that identified the choreographic aspects of the dances.

During these celebrations, it was customary to leave the temple in a procession and make several stops. Upon arriving at the temple, the with the arrival ritual, which in Puerto Rican tradition corresponds to the Christmas carols chanted outside the home. The practice of dancing before the Almighty became so popular that even nuns, mulatto blacks, and free blacks would dance, the latter leading to the dance's suppression.

"On Corpus Christi, the custom originating in Seville, still practiced by choirboys called seises, is observed in Puerto Rico: a group of free mulattoes gather at the cathedral at Vespers to dance several dances, without removing their hats, while the Blessed Sacrament is revealed. In 1684, Bishop Don Fray Francisco Padilla expelled the dancers from the streets, and although there was no shortage of complaints, dancing in church was suppressed.

This custom is continued by the people, replacing the house with the temple and maintaining the same structure of arrival chants and temple chants, especially during vows....”

In Puerto Rico, the danced seises retain the same Sevillian choreographic principle of describing the main choreographic feature of the dance with a distinctive surname, such as ‘seis del machete amarra’o’, ‘seis del juey’, ‘seis chorrea’o’, ‘seis del pañuelo’, where the dancers use a machete, or gesticulate like a juey, or use a handkerchief as part of the choreography.

Puerto Rican seises evolve and develop with different functions. In addition to the mythical function of the promises, trullas, and Christmas parrandas as a mythical gift or musical offering, the musical tradition of the rhymed controversial country trova emerged with the espinela structure cultivated by Vicente Espinel, Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, and later the cultured and popular poets of Puerto Rico, the rest of the Caribbean, and Latin America. Although this country trova tradition remains alive with distinct musical genres in the New World, in Puerto Rico it uses two types of trova as its distinctive genre: the country trova with the hexasyllabic aguinaldo, and the country trova with the octosyllabic espinela tenth sung with the fajardeño six, mapeyé six, Andean six, and many other regional variants. This trova tradition converges with other traditions such as Christmas. Trovadores readily join in the Christmas promises and parrandas, and begin improvising "espinelas de aguinaldos" (Christmas songs) and "seis" with the "tema a lo divino" (divine theme) incorporating themes from old European Christmas songs as part of the payment for the promise.

As a dance, the "seis" uses distinctive choreographic surnames; as a jíbara trova tradition, the "seis" uses surnames distinctive to trova styles associated with trovadores such as the "seis mapeyé" (mapeyé) associated with Ramito, the "seis villarán" (villarán) associated with Chuíto from Bayamón, and the "seis yumac" (yumac backwards) associated with German Rosario from Camuy. Trova "seis" also include distinctive trova styles associated with Latin American genres such as the "seis tango," the "seis milonga," the "seis joropo," the "seis llanera," the "seis habananero," and the "seis veracruzano." or the seis bolero, the seis cante jondo of Vieques, and others that add up to well over 100.

The dance seises copy some of the attire of the seises sevillanos described in his book by Francis George Very, and which are preserved in several Latin American dance traditions. In Mexico, a similar style of attire is preserved in the fandango, a similar style that has something to do with the ancient Puerto Rican fandanguillo, the sonduro, and the seis zapatea'o, which exhibits a choreographic dance style.

It is similar to the Mexican fandango.

In summary, there are several styles of seises with distinct functions, including seises de trova, seises de promesas or parrandas, seises de bomba, and seises bombas. Seises de bomba are the black seises sung and danced to the beat of a drum called bombas. Seises bombas are those played by instrumentally interpreting a seis chorrea'o. While dancing, the word "bomba!" is shouted, and couples throw bombas at each other, that is, loaded octosyllabic verses. (See: The Décima in Puerto Rico as a Symbol of National Identity)

Is the aguinaldo a tradition in itself, or a complex of traditions?

We have access to the most extensive collection of old jíbaro music records. Among them, we find a large number that are classified as aguinaldos, but their lyrics deal with secular themes—that is, without any connection to Christmas or Three Kings' Day—but rather cover the same range of themes we see covered in the seises. Are they considered aguinaldos even though they are not Christmas songs? Is the term aguinaldo, then, not strictly a category of sacred music? It seems not to be. It's confusing to us.

In short, both the aguinaldo and the seis, being part of different traditions and becoming genres adapted to other traditions, functionally the thematic text of their songs will be committed to the contextual objective of the trova "a lo humano" that emerges in traditions other than Christmas. The theme associated with a particular tradition or event is therefore imposed within the cultural context of the celebration or event by a forced foot. Outside of Christmas, where the main themes are classified "a lo divino," the themes of the aguinaldo and the seis are classified "a lo humano." That is, a human theme can be about everyday life, Mother's Day, or it can be imposed in a troubadour competition that can take place casually on any date of the year, such as a recognition ceremony, a graduation, etc. One or more troubadours can be invited to any of our cultural events, even to a conference on Puerto Rican music or culture, or to purely polite acts. The troubadours immediately create their décimas (ten verses) on the occasion's theme. During the Christmas season, since "Navidad Vieja" (Old Christmas) is associated with the origin of the foods and drinks associated with the pagan practices of the ancient celebrations, these "human" themes become part of the Christmas celebration. Thus, the troubadours also sing of the coming year and the year that is passing, of cakes, rice pudding, and cañita rum.

Regarding the country folk songs that dominate various events throughout the year, and particularly those related to competitions, the "seix" (six-style folk song) has established itself as the fundamental genre for these competitions. The problem is that the institutions that organize these trovas have forgotten or are unaware that trovadores also improvise hexasyllabic aguinaldo espinelas in addition to the octosyllabic seis espinelas. From what I recall, the only aguinaldo and seis trova competition organized by the Institute of Culture was organized by me as Director of the Music Division of the Institute of Culture, and it was a resounding success.

Best regards.

Luis Manuel Alvarez

Department of Music, University of Puerto Rico

Postscript: I actually enjoy these songs, and as a professor and friend, I hope I haven't overwhelmed you with this essay.

Significacion

the significance of the Cuatro Project

Commentary by Prof. Nestor Murray Irizarrary, director and founder of the Centro de Investigaciones Folklóricas de Puerto Rico de la Casa Paoli, Ponce PR.

I met Juan Sotomayor, William Cumpiano, and Wilfredo Echevarría on one of my regular visits to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1998, when I was invited by Guakía Inc. to give talks on Afro-Puerto Rican culture. I fondly remember that these trips were always organized by professors Glaisma Pérez, Ludy Soderman-Román, and guitarist Val Ramos.

It was in Hartford that we agreed to hold, in 1999, at Casa Paoli, the first Competition for the Making of the Old Cuatro, the Bordonúa, and the Tiple. And we succeeded: the jury was composed of William Cumpiano; Myrna Pérez, who at the time was the coordinator of the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project; professor Néstor Hernández Guzmán; musicologist Orlando Laureano; luthier Miguel Acevedo Flores and Engineer Francisco (Paco) Pagán, executive director of the College of Engineers and Surveyors.

Sotomayor was the advisor, and I served as general coordinator. Sponsorship was provided by the College, the Puerto Rican Endowment for the Humanities, and the Basic Grant for the Arts program, part of the Arts Support Office of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. Other benefits of the event included the preparation of an educational brochure and a poster by maestro José R. Alicea. Around fifteen artisans participated. Aurelio Cruz Pagán was the grand winner of the three prizes for the acquisition of each of the instruments, worth one thousand dollars each. Even with the limited competition for Cruz, the event was a success. Fourteen years later, Casa Paoli organized a sister event at the Juan Morel Campos Music Institute in Ponce: The Gathering of Researchers and Scholars of Traditional Musical Instruments of Puerto Rico. Hernández Guzmán, Sotomayor, Cumpiano, Laureano, Benjamín Laboy, and myself, as coordinator, participated. Cumpiano and Sotomayor summarized the results, indicating that they hoped to publish a book titled "Strings of My Land." Their summary, based on research they had been conducting for more than twenty years, was widely applauded. (When you read the book, you will see how valuable their work was.)

In support of the research results related to the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project, Casa Paoli coordinated a report with journalist Tatiana Pérez Rivera of the newspaper El Nuevo Día, published on January 8, 2013. Tatiana interviewed Sotomayor and me. The research conducted by the members of the Project, and especially that of its founder and principal investigator, Juan Sotomayor, is more than in-depth enough to merit a national award anywhere in the world.

Their study was comprehensive, and the elegance with which they rectified many of our previously held beliefs about the instruments represents a unique contribution. Their research into these aspects of our folklore—and forgive me for the redundancy, it's fine—enriched folklore. The resulting book—or the book-result—more than justifies the hours, days, months, and years they dedicated to the intense search for bibliographic material, and to its study and analysis. People need cultural researchers like Sotomayor and Cumpiano, as they are indispensable to the development of each community's quality of life. This type of research is equivalent to the pillars on which both identity and collective self-esteem are sustained.

Young people must be called upon to take over from these more mature researchers and to continue studying and rescuing our musical traditions. There are a large number of local creators who have contributed significantly to national culture, and who need to be rescued from oblivion with seriousness and urgency. After all, the continuity of a culture is also the continuation of social life.

Most of the instruments studied have been restored thanks to the hands of maestro Aurelio Cruz Pagán of Orocovis. His magnificent instruments can be seen in the Sotomayor collection in Moca and in the Casa Paoli in Ponce. We also congratulate filmmaker Myriam Fuentes for her painstaking translation work. I wholeheartedly recommend this important book, which will make history among our people.

in praise of the guitar

Néstor Murray Irizarry is the founder and president of Casa Paoli, the Puerto Rico Folklore Research Center, Inc., and a professor of history at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, Bayamón Campus. murraynestor@gmail.com

The following essay is a chapter from Irizarry's book, In Praise of the Guitar, which features articles and interviews with the great Puerto Rican guitarists and instrumentalists of the twentieth century and the present.

“…between the history of metaphysics and the history of music there is a link, which is not so artificial, which is internal…”

Marc Jean—Bernard

In this short article, we hope to present a panoramic view of the various aspects that adorn our musical culture, and particularly that of one of the most widespread and beloved instruments in the world and on the island: the guitar.

There is no doubt that in Puerto Rico—as in most countries—music explicitly plays a unifying social role. The late 19th and early 20th centuries seem to have marked the height of the social passion for music, which became, then and to this day, an expression of the search for a collective identity. Interest in musical events is common to all sectors of society. As Aristotle said, the world is made up of a proportion of music.

Puerto Rico is an inexhaustible source of artists. Two good examples are Antonio Paoli, our most important dramatic tenor, and the great actor José Ferrer. Paoli was the first tenor in the world to record, in 1907, a complete opera: Los payasos, by the Italian composer Ruggero Leoncavallo; Ferrer was the first Latino to win an Oscar, in 1950, for his excellent performance in the film Cyrano de Bergerac. However, we consider that, among artistic experiences, music is the most preferred by Puerto Ricans; and, among the various musical instruments, we prefer the stringed ones: the guitar and the cuatro.

Rafael Avilés Vázquez (Florida, April 20, 1937), a cultural scholar and luthier of cuatros, tiples, and bordonúas, who is preparing a Manual for Traditional Luthiers, recounts that in 1998, while he was representing the country at an important world fair in Germany, he had a very curious experience. A group of Italian musicians appeared at his kiosk. One of them showed him a violin made by Agapito Acosta, a native of Guánica. The musician asked Rafael if he knew Acosta, and Avilés responded negatively. Upon his return to Puerto Rico, Rafael visited Agapito and told him what had happened. To Avilés's surprise, our Agapito (almost 100 years old and still working) is considered, among experts, to be one of the greatest violin makers in the world.

The first historical record of the arrival of stringed musical instruments on our shores dates back to Christmas 1516: on December 11, barely eight years after the beginning of the European conquest. In his unpublished history of the Puerto Rican Conservatory of Music (Las mieles del alba [2003]), Rafael Aponte Ledeé, citing Aurelio Tanodi and his Documentos de la Real Hacienda (Documents of the Royal Treasury), points out the importance of this historical event. He also draws attention to the considerable number of rolls of strings that arrived on that occasion, along with typical Spanish Christmas sweets and other additional stringed instruments. So it is not surprising that from that early period, the interest in music of the island's new inhabitants gradually merged, over time, with the musical tastes and preferences of the indigenous people and, later, of the Africans. According to Magnus Mörner, Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a racial—and, more accurately, cultural—intermingling as enormous as any other part of the world.

In his research studies on Puerto Rican musical folklore, Teodoro Vidal highlights this racial intermixture and the hybridization and evolution of string instruments. Vidal mentions that during his travels around the country, he came across and owned a cuatro with a soundboard made of fig trees. It is striking that, historically, the fig tree has been used by African ethnic groups for similar purposes. Errol L. Montes Pizarro, drawing on the research of Fernando Ortiz, indicates that the fig tree has also been used in the manufacture of the Cuban tres. He also reminds us that the origin of the guitar is associated with the African musical instrument known as the ud, and that in our time, the influence of the guitar made in the Americas has traveled to Africa as a result of the exchange that has remained alive to this day.

The 19th century brought us several renowned guitarists. Ernesto Cordero, a prominent musicologist, has taken care of updating the bibliography – inherited from Fernando Callejo, in Música y Músicos Puertorriqueños (1915) – and identifies Josefino Parés (Morovis, 1862-1908) as the first Puerto Rican guitarist, who was also a pianist, calligrapher and draftsman. Parés studied in Barcelona with Ferrer Esteva, who described him, quite simply, as a virtuoso; he also studied with Francisco Tárrega. He even performed works by Schubert, Beethoven, Tárrega, Tavárez, and Balseiro.

Ramón Morel Campos indicates that in 1895 Juan N. Ríos (1853-1919) stood out in Ponce as a concert guitarist (in addition to being a musician, he was an excellent stage designer, painter, and engraver). Ríos published the New Theoretical and Practical Guitar Method for Learning Without a Teacher. He also had two musician brothers: Ramón, a violinist; and Pedro, a string orchestra director.

The same year of Ríos's death, Jorge Rubiano (Bogotá, 1890-1964) arrived on the island. For forty-five years, he cultivated music as a performer, teacher, director, and composer. From the moment he arrived, he taught cello, Spanish lute, mandolin, mandola, bandurria, cuatro, tiple, and, above all, classical guitar, of which he is considered its great promoter at that time. Cordero indicates that Jorge created the first important school of plucked string instruments on the island. In 1940, Rubiano organized the ensemble called La Rondalla de Puerto Rico, which, according to Juan Sorroche, became the best group of plectrum and pulse instruments of that era. Among his disciples, Rubiano left Manuel Gayol, Leonardo Egúrbida, Ernesto Cordero, Sorroche, Gustavo Batista (an excellent historian of Puerto Rican music), Jaime Camuñas, José Morales, Carmen M. Suárez, and Emma Iris Negrón, among others. Maestro Rubiano's work was complemented by the creation of public and private institutions that today disseminate and enrich the teaching of classical guitar, such as the free music schools, the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture, government radio and television stations, the Conservatory of Music, the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Pro Arte Musical, the Symphony Orchestra, the Casa de España guitar competition, the Yauco Casino, the Ponce Museum of Art, and, more recently, the Interamerican University (San Germán and Metro Campuses) and the activities organized by Dr. José Antonio López at the Mayagüez Campus (UPR). Other private organizations and events that have also contributed to the knowledge of the guitar are the Puerto Rican Guitar Society (1970), the First Puerto Rico Classical Guitar Festival (1977), the International Guitar Festival (1980), and the National Classical Guitar Competition (2007). The works of local composers dedicated to the classical guitar—among which are worth mentioning those of Ernesto Cordero, Egúrbida, Rubiano, José Ignacio Quintón, Luis Manuel Álvarez, Miguel Cubano, José Rodríguez Alvira, Federico A. Cordero, Moisés Rodríguez, Carmen Matilde Suárez, Luis Antonio Ramírez, Amaury Veray, Jack Delano, Francis Schwartz, Carlos Ovidio Morales—along with the presentations on the island of international figures such as Andrés Segovia, Regino Sáinz de la Maza, Agustín Barrios Mangoré, and José Rey de la Torre, offered local guitarists the opportunity to experience other styles and creations firsthand, and stimulated in the new generations the attraction to learn to play the instrument.

It is important to note that in the 1960s, two guitar factories were established on the island with private capital and subsidies from the Industrial Development Administration. The first, Guitar Velázquez, Inc. (1963), was located in Caguas—according to Fidencio Díaz Nieves (Patillas, November 16, 1934)—under the technical direction of Manuel Velázquez (Barrio Pugnado, Manatí, 1917), who had returned from New York very excited about the project. The second, Guitar Industries, Ltd., (1966), was located in Bayamón. The Caguas company built "Spanish" guitars, while the Bayamón company specialized in a "North American-style" instrument. Both failed financially, although the first company contributed to the refinement of the techniques of the many artisans who worked with the master Velázquez.

After the United States invasion of Puerto Rico in 1898, our people were forced to abandon their homeland. The living conditions, famine, and economic and social dislocation that bankrupted hundreds of landowners and forced thousands of Puerto Ricans to emigrate to Hawaii and New York curiously created a new setting for our music: New York became the new workshop for Puerto Rican musicians. The highly sophisticated musical refinement of Manuel I. Martínez Plée (1861-1928), for example, had its cradle in New York. Luthiers and violeros (that is, artisans who make string instruments) also stood out in New York. Juan Sotomayor and William Cumpiano, in their long career as excellent researchers and creators of the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project, have studied the life and work of two famous and beloved string instrument manufacturers who emigrated to the City of Skyscrapers: Efraín Ronda (San Germán, 1899-2003) and Tito Báez (Yauco, 1934-2002). I will write an article about Cumpiano and Sotomayor soon.

The guitars that Puerto Rican luthiers made in New York weathered that city's winter well. However, when the guitars made in Puerto Rico arrived there, the wood dried out and cracked; the bridges fell out of place. This situation generated a continuous repair service, which greatly helped the Puerto Rican artisans living there. The first guitars that Fidencio Díaz Nieves and Soriano Correa made in New York were crafted on the dining room table of their apartment: they would clear the space after lunch and get to work right there.

After training as a musician on the island, Efraín Ronda emigrated to the City of Skyscrapers in 1926. There, in 1930, he published La Antorcha, his bilingual method for learning to play the Puerto Rican cuatro. He lived for many years in El Barrio, and later on Lexington Avenue. He bought a small printing press to publish his Method, and made guitars, cuatros, and “requintos” or “requinted guitars” (it is the first guitar in a trio, and is used to “…advance the melody.” According to Manuel Rodríguez Feneque [Añasco, October 29, 1947], a luthier living in Rincón, it is small in size and scale). Ronda made a guitar for the master concert pianist Manuel Gayol, which he used on April 2, 1950, in a concert at Carnegie Hall. Gayol was, along with Moisés Rodríguez, one of the most prominent Puerto Rican concert pianists of the 1950s and 1960s. Cordero notes that Gayol

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He also performed at the Town Hall Theater, receiving high praise from New York critics. Rodríguez, for his part, studied in Spain with Daniel Fortea. Upon his return, he dedicated himself—according to Cordero—to private teaching and giving recitals. Leonardo Egúrbida, our celebrated teacher, composer, and classical guitarist, points out that Gayol was a disciple of Jorge Rubiano. In 1948, he emigrated to New York, where he lived for fifteen years. There, he recorded a long-playing record.

Ronda's fame reached such heights that on one occasion, Andrés Segovia himself brought him a guitar (made by the renowned Spanish craftsman Francisco Ramírez) for repair. Segovia, according to Sotomayor, later gave many recitals with that same instrument. Another immigrant to New York was Tito Báez (Yauco, 1934-2002), who played guitar and cuatro and also had a workshop in Brooklyn, where he made cuatros, guitars, and requintos. In the 1970s, Báez recorded several albums with Nieves Quintero for the Ansonia company.

In 1946, the Society of the Classical Guitar was founded in New York, aimed at promoting interest in the instrument. In 1927, maestro Andrés Segovia gave a concert tour that included New York, creating an atmosphere conducive to enthusiasm for the classical guitar. In 1972, Sotomayor founded the New Jersey Classical Guitar Society in New Jersey.

In 1947, Sotomayor comments, a new group of three voices and an equal number of guitars appeared: Los Panchos. They established themselves with greater enthusiasm internationally, particularly in Latin America, at a time of abundant trios. This enthusiasm translated into very good harvests for the Puerto Rican luthier. This was a time of boom in mass media, and radio, in particular, transformed the lives of the poor, especially poor housewives, as no other medium had done before: it brought the world into the home. It was simply a medium, not a message, as Eric Hobsbawn said.

Music was the artistic manifestation most directly influenced by radio, as it eliminated the rustic or mechanical limitations on sound dissemination. In this way, radio became an excellent resource for the dissemination of minority music (including classical music) and the most effective medium for promoting record sales, a condition still maintained in many places. The forces that dominated the popular arts were, therefore, already technological and industrial: the press, the camera, cinema, the record, and the radio.

Such was the environment that Manuel Velázquez and Fidencio Díaz Nieves—the pillars of classical guitar making on the island—found in New York. Also prominent on the island were Rafael Rosado Martínez (1933, Corozal), Miguel Acevedo Flores (Chicago, July 7, 1953), and Rodríguez Feneque; and William Cumpiano (San Juan, April 30, 1945) in Massachusetts. The latter excelled in the manufacture of the North American guitar (with metal strings), along with Sotomayor and Myriam Fuentes. A group of Puerto Ricans also collected and analyzed the oral tradition of stringed musical instruments. The results of this research will be published this year under the title Buscando nuestro cuatro (Searching for Our Four), tracing the features of Puerto Rico's iconic native string instruments: the cuatro, the tiple, and the bordonúa. Jerónimo Berenguer, New York correspondent for the newspaper El Mundo, interviewed Manuel Velázquez in 1962. In the August 25th edition, under the title "Jíbaro de Manatí, Manufactures a World-Famous Guitar," he noted that several of the world's most famous concert artists used and recommended Manuel's guitars. He comments that they rivaled those made in Spain in quality and perfection; they were the favorite instruments of guitarists such as Rey de La Torre, Sabicas, and Richard Dyer Bennett, as well as singers such as Harry Belafonte. Berenguer notes that Andrés Segovia—considered the precursor of the classical guitar—recommended them on his tours of various world capitals. As a result of this publicity, Velázquez received orders from Japan, Austria, Israel, Greece, and other countries. Life magazine and the New York Word, Telegram, and New York Mirror all featured Velázquez in full-page articles, promoting him in other states of the U.S. and around the world. The super-craftsman had the luxury of visiting Mittenwald, Germany, annually to personally select the woods he used in his famous guitars. The son of farmer Manuel Velázquez, his family moved from Manatí to Ciales; then to Florida; and finally to Santurce. He began as a furniture maker, building his first guitar when he was barely twelve years old. He learned some of the skills of the trade from his brother, who repaired violins; and from a relative who made guitars in Spain and who wrote him a letter from there explaining some tricks of the trade.

Hoping to find a better environment and following the advice of his teacher Rubiano, the young man—according to Díaz Nieves—arrived in New York in 1942. Since what he wanted above all was to earn money to support himself and his family in Puerto Rico, he looked for a job in a shipyard. He later opened his own workshop to repair and make guitars. He employed four assistants: Víctor Piñero, from Humacao; Rafael Rivera, from Ciales; Miguel Vissepó, from Mayagüez; and Fermín Díaz, from Vega Baja.

The workshop, Berenguer continues, made two kinds of guitars: one was partially machine-made and sold for three hundred and fifty dollars; The other was handcrafted by Velázquez himself, who took special care to ensure that they met the highest standards of perfection and finish to satisfy the customer's demands. The latter sold for eight hundred dollars. Between twelve and fifteen of the former guitars were manufactured monthly, and ten to twelve of the special ones. Although Velázquez allowed his name to appear on both types of guitars, he was careful to sign only the seal placed on the ones he made himself. Velázquez confessed to the journalist that there were no secrets to his trade, but many tricks. The most important factor was the calibration of the wood, which is very difficult to learn. (When we interviewed various contemporary artisans about the secrets of the trade, they answered the same thing.) On the same day of the interview with Velázquez, he was waiting for Andrés Segovia to try out a special guitar he had just finished. The master was living at that time in Long Island City, with his wife, Beatriz Santiago, from Ponce, and their three children. He currently lives in Orlando, Florida. His son continues his father's work.

Fidencio Díaz Nieves is a Puerto Rican luthier with very special gifts, and a friend of Velázquez. They were coworkers in the factory that the latter ran in Caguas. Fidencio already had his own personality when he met Manuel. However, he acquired new techniques with the native of Manati. Since the 1960s, he began building classical guitars. He trained through his own efforts, and out of his own interest and desire for improvement; or, as he himself says: "...always seeking the top..." He had his own workshop in New York, where he was able to make several guitars.

After moving to his country and joining Velázquez's factory, which failed, he worked in different trades until he decided to establish his own workshop. Today, together with his partner of fifty years—Carmen Domínguez Correa, the eternal spinner and tremendous cook—he continues to practice his craft in Canóvanas. Many point out that his classical guitars are of the same quality and elegance as those of Velázquez. His instruments are used by renowned concert artists from the island, the U.S., and Europe: Luis Enrique Juliá, Iván Rijos, Luis Romero, Dr. José Antonio López. The Fidencio Díaz Foundation (lutier@fidenciodiaz.com), with the sponsorship of the Puerto Rican Endowment for the Humanities, organized a series of excellent conferences in different towns and cities of Puerto Rico on the socio-historical importance of string instruments. They are currently finishing a book on the same subject.

Miguel Acevedo Flores is one of the most outstanding among the crop of master luthiers who in the last thirty years have dedicated themselves to continuing the Velázquez-Diaz Nieves tradition. A disciple of Jorge Santiago Mendoza, Díaz Nieves had his workshop in Canóvanas. He built requintos, Puerto Rican tres, cuatros, violins, Spanish and jazz guitars; and also Venezuelan harps. Acevedo makes violins, cellos, Puerto Rican tres, cuatros and classical guitars. Well-known guitarists such as Juan Sorroche, Ana María Rosado, and Félix Rafael Rosado Martínez began making classical guitars in the 1990s. A group of artists such as Máximo Torres, Henry Vázquez, José Torres, Dr. José Antonio López, Billy Colón Zayas, Iván Rijos and Edwin Colón Zayas use his instruments. (Rosado commented that Edwin knows how to build cuatros and guitars). Rosado also makes violins, cuatros, tiples, mandolins and requintos. Currently retired, he dedicates himself to painting oil and acrylic paintings inspired by the landscapes of his native Corozal. He is a tireless conversationalist and was linked to Juan A. Rosado's workshop in Puerta de Tierra: Sign Shop Rosado Art. It is urgent to publish an interview with him, due to the wealth of information he has. Recently, Dr. José Antonio López recognized Rosado's merits in the National Classical Guitar Competition (2007).

Manuel Rodríguez Feneque, along with Germán Velázquez, undertook the task of studying and researching the construction of the cuatro on his own. He has been making string instruments since 1970. In 2000, he began crafting classical guitars and requintos. Most of his concert guitars are used by Dr. José Antonio López and his students. Iván Rijos, Luis Enrique Juliá, Carlos Quirós, and Dr. Ana María Rosado—the first Puerto Rican female classical guitarist—revealed their confidence and enthusiasm for developing the classical guitar among younger generations. Most—and perhaps all—of the musicians we interviewed display an enormous passion for this wonderful instrument. The fact that it is so portable and allows for the production of music across such a wide range of skills is what has allowed the guitar to travel from the darkest alley to the most solemn concert hall. Its silhouette, moreover, is a proclamation of love, only love.

the cuatro's future

Comments by prominent Puerto Rican luthier Miguel Acevedo Flores during an interview conducted by the Cuatro Project around 1996

Much has been said about the fact that many people have conducted scientific experiments, and that many of these experiments haven't taken the builders very far. But something is always learned. I believe that you can combine science, intuition, and the heart that the craftsman has and use it to your advantage. In this case, it's important to understand the mechanics of the instrument, not only knowing how to glue well, make good joints, decorate the instrument well, make good rosettes, use good tuning pegs, make the fittings well, but also, [which is what makes the

instrument work? And I believe that if we can understand that, we can make modifications to the sound, we can please people who have different concepts of sound: people who want a sweeter instrument, people who want more volume, people who want more projection, people who want more sustain, people who want a whole range of things that musicians look for. And if we can better understand the mechanics, we can make our "recipes" more efficient to achieve the instruments those people want.

It's very problematic for me to think that an instrument I make will turn out the way I want it to. I design my instrument and I can tell you, quite frankly, it turns out the way I want it to. You may give me a little less than what I asked for, but almost always my intuition is correct. It means that the craftsman has the ability to control certain mechanical aspects of the instrument to achieve a particular sound. I believe that comes, naturally, with a little time and a little practice, but it can be achieved, of that I am convinced.

Basically, what we should start doing is preparing workshops where artisans and people who have already worked on these concepts can come together and share knowledge freely, so that the instrument can evolve. Second, start a sound laboratory in Puerto Rico, which is one of my particular personal interests, where we can begin to work from an acoustic point of view. That's why I went to study electronics. I've studied electronics and some acoustics, and I'm going to take some additional acoustics courses at the School of Architecture, so I can better understand how to work these instruments and be able to discover, no, simply reveal some of the things that are currently hidden from us, and that are already well known to other researchers of other instruments. And from which, we will all benefit.

I have a strong personal interest in doing this, and that's why I'm accumulating electronic equipment to be able to do it... and knowledge, which is necessary to understand, in addition to making contact with people who are sound engineers and have much more knowledge than I have so they can also help me in this process. In the long run, it could become a series of articles and documents that could be used as part of a book or as a text for the construction of the cuatro.

I've been thinking about creating a text for years. I know you're already working on it, so it's very good. It doesn't matter who does it; the important thing is that it gets done. I think all Puerto Rican artisans will benefit from it.

As you said, Puerto Rican artisans are very skilled in their work. They are men (and women too, of which there are some) who have made themselves, through personal effort... and I have great respect for all of them. I think the only thing they need is to know certain aspects, which are precisely the ones they're avoiding, so that they can achieve this so that their instrument survives... and endures, and that the instrument requires very little work in terms of maintenance or expensive repairs, simply because there are certain aspects that are simple to understand and that they didn't know about, because they never had the opportunity to be in contact with that type of knowledge.

I understand that we, who have a little knowledge in this area, without trying to see ourselves as better artisans, which we are not, should use this subject as a topic for discussion among everyone, and that it can be useful to all of us. A book would be very important at this point. It's supposed to have been written a long time ago.

It hasn't been done because some people tend to be secretive, but if we realize the amount of knowledge that already exists, there are no secrets at all. What we thought was secret, when we come to see it, someone else has already done it twenty years ago.

The artisan is beginning to look at other instruments... little by little, after many decades of swimming in a sea of darkness, repeating mistakes over and over again. When the Spanish came to our island, they brought their instruments. In a little research I had done, and conversations I've had with different people who know the cuatro, Puerto Ricans began to carve the instrument, as always, very different from the instruments that came to Puerto Rico. All the instruments that came, no matter how old they might be... let's think that some vihuelas came, some figure-eight guitars, Panormo-type, some lutes... which is interesting, which I don't think that many have arrived, because Puerto Rico is one of the few countries in Latin America that has not followed the tradition of building these instruments.

However, it is known that the Renaissance lute, in an altered form, continues to be built in Mexico, and vihuelas and small figure-eight guitars continue to be made in the tradition without a fingerboard, with the frets tied together. These instruments are still being built.

This means that apparently these instruments did not reach our shores in large numbers. They either did not reach Puerto Rico or very few examples arrived, and the artisans never got to observe them. I imagine that the artisans did get to observe certain instruments like the violin, the viola, the cello. And since the Puerto Rican artisan was eminently a carver, it naturally occurred to him to carve the instrument, because that was what he knew. He was a great craftsman of carving: he carved agricultural implements, kitchen utensils, yokes for oxen, and the pestles for coffee and rice peeling. So it wasn't unusual for them to take a piece of wood and hollow it out, making a concave shape. And all that was left was to put a lid on it and play. Well, that's what they did with the cuatro.

This, of course, I can't prove. But it's difficult to prove things for which we have no records. All we can do is speculate. But speculation, sometimes, if used scientifically, can be brought quite efficiently to reality.

When we studied the furniture made at that time in Puerto Rico, we noticed that it was generally carved furniture, where the final art was always carved. And I can't understand any other way that the folding technique was known in Puerto Rico. I don't think the technology of folding was known. I believe the artisan never used it because even the apparently bent pieces used in agriculture were cut from a solid piece of wood. They were never bent. And it's hard for me to imagine that if they knew the bending technique, they wouldn't have used it in tool construction. When you look at it as a person who works with wood, which is the most logical thing to do, you would definitely think, from the structural point of view of the wood, of the strength of the wood... bending. Because that's when we have the grain in its long, full form. When we carve, we have "short grain," which is fragile and easy to break.

So I honestly understand that perhaps the bending technique was known, that some artisans who worked on the coasts on boats, who worked on wooden ships, who bent their wood, who perhaps even cold-bent it, who didn't do steam bending. Steam bending was already known in Spain for a long time, and violin makers in Europe used steam bending. We don't see that in Puerto Rico.

I understand that although the Spanish guitar has enormous advantages, those who build metal-string guitars have already solved structural problems in their instruments. And I think we should be looking more at those instruments, at their internal structure, than at the guitar itself. I don't think the traditional guitar's fan has enough strength to support those ten strings. There's another problem: the cuatro is one of the few brass instruments where a bridge isn't used to hold the strings, or a metal or wooden bridge that holds the strings behind the bridge, so that all that force doesn't fall on the soundboard... where the force falls where the instrument is strongest, which is on the back block. That would be like a natural process: like going in that direction. And seeing if we can achieve an evolved, non-traditional cuatro. Because we're moving away from the traditional cuatro. I'm not saying we should stop building the cuatro the way it's built. But we do need the cuatro to evolve. Forgive me, traditionalists, right...

But we need the cuatro to evolve so that it lasts longer and to achieve more qualities in sound: more projection, more power, without having to use so much amplification, to be able to bring out and maintain the natural beauty of its sound. Naturally, I don't think the classical guitar is the right path. We have to look at jazz guitars, we have to look at the structure of those guitars. The structure. And when I talk about structure, it's the way the tops, the backs, and the soundboard are built. I'm not saying we should carve it, just as the top of a jazz guitar is carved. But certain shapes can be achieved using the beams.

I know a Puerto Rican craftsman, Don Mendoza, who has done extensive experimentation with the cuatro. He's a craftsman who has educated himself greatly. He knows the steel-string guitar, he knows the violin family very well, and he has built those instruments. He's currently experimenting with cuatros using , and doing other things as well. And although his instrument is made in pieces, it's a low-cost instrument for the student who is just learning, it's interesting how he achieves an efficient sound using that technology.

I believe it's important to modify the structure to avoid the loss of very young instruments. Now, I understand that naturally we must always take into consideration the sound of the instrument. We can't turn the cuatro into something else. We can't change its sound, that beautiful sound it has. I don't have a problem with the sound of the instrument. I have a problem with the structure of the instrument. That's what worries me about the instrument. If I could achieve the sound of that instrument and know that it will last me fifty, sixty, or seventy years, that that instrument will be long-lived, well, look, I have no problem with that. I have no problem with that. But these instruments are currently disintegrating. And that's due to structural problems.

The modern Spanish laud is an instrument almost the length of the cuatro, with a slightly smaller body, but with a similar number of strings. The Spanish have already been able to solve the problem we still have with our instruments. Simply because we don't want to make adjustments that would help us. And they are similar instruments in some ways. Many metal strings, with bridges. Our bridge extends out of the guitar, which causes the cuatro to have high tensions and structural problems with its soundboard. They bend quickly. These instruments lose volume. They lose "air," as the soundboard collapses inward, and the instrument has less air capacity to work efficiently. The way they are structurally reinforced and the use of unsuitable wood for braces: they use edge-on wood instead of quarter-on wood, meaning with the grain perpendicular to the soundboard. Another thing is an impressive number of strings for very weak reinforcements. Or fan-shaped bracing, which is inadequate for an instrument that uses ten strings tuned to A... which isn't that low a tuning... We're talking almost two tones above the guitar.

Also, the wood used for the cuatro soundboard, the traditional wood is yagrumo, which is an extremely soft wood. But even so, if it's well reinforced, I believe it's durable, and can be used. Because that wood already gives a specific sound. But we should try using other woods. I would say, for a modern cuatro, perhaps try Alaskan spruce, for example, and European spruce. Also try American cedar, which is a wood similar in hardness to yagrumo. Try redwood, which is the most acoustic wood there is. Many people are already using it in Spain. There's a very famous maker, Contreras, who only uses redwood on his finest guitars, on guitars that cost more than four or five thousand dollars. It's a very reliable wood, something you could start experimenting with. I know some makers, like Gilín, who have experimented in this field. Gilín is a person you should talk to. He knows a lot about the action of stringed instruments and the problems with cuatros, because he's worked extensively in that area and is a specialist: he was a supervisor for Gretsch instruments made with metal strings. Many people use beam number two, the beam below the soundhole. Many people use that beam flat. Therefore, the bridge is flat too. Everything is flat. And what's flat has two ways of moving: up and down. I use a technology used by violin makers. There's a given circumference at the base of the bridge, which will conform to the top. That projection comes from beam number two. If that projection doesn't come from beam number two, then you'll have a flat beam with a curved bridge and terrible tensions. What we do is shape the top. The top will bend however it wants, and it will bend unintentionally. If you put it straight, it'll bend wherever it wants, without any control. Well, since I know that, I control the force; I'm going to do what I want the top to do, not what it wants to do on a whim. I put those curves in there.

The top, then, isn't completely flat. It's convex, like a classical guitar. It's going to be convex laterally and convex longitudinally.

But I think the way forward is with the earliest small steel-stringed guitars from Martin. That's where you should start experimenting. And if not, sit down and design a fan for the cuatro. It'll take a little more time, but I think it can be done. And if not, sit down and design a fan for the cuatro. It'll take a little more time, but I believe efficient bracing can be designed for this instrument. We also have to consider that the cuatro isn't similar in shape to a guitar. It's similar in shape and measurements to a violin. It has its little ears and a little hole, and if we were to put it another way, it's more similar to the violin family than the guitar family. There must be a particular structure for the cuatro. And I believe it can be determined through experimentation, knowing the mechanics and acoustics of the current instrument, and how we can start from there. Perhaps improve it, or perhaps discover that what's being done is fine, and that all it needs are minor changes.

There's no reason, from an acoustic standpoint, why not. Here we're working with two things: first, ignorance of the instrument's mechanics, and second, tradition and prejudice, which cuatristas already have. This happens with guitar players as well: it's a series of prejudices that are very difficult to overcome. The fact, for example, that a guitar is built in Puerto Rico creates problems for some guitarists. If it's not Spanish, they don't play it, because it has to be Spanish. It's like a Spaniard once told me when I went to buy a tool at a hardware store. He said, "Why do you want that?" And I said, "I build guitars." And he said, "But you're not Spanish." These things happen, you know? There are prejudices here too. There are people there who are prejudiced against the construction of native cuatros. And there are cuatristas who won't play a four-piece cuatro for you, or even try it out. But there are others who are more open-minded, and those are the ones we have to work with. I think they're going to be in for a big surprise. I'm sure, sure.

The pieced instrument has a greater capacity to vibrate more efficiently, its parts have the capacity to be tuned, from a tonal standpoint.

In the entire world, there are very few instruments that are made from a single piece. In the United States, there's a small mandolin made by those who make "bluegrass" mandolins, those of the "hillbillies," the American folk musicians. They build them from a block of northern red cedar. The top and everything is made from the same material. The maker told me, "This is a native instrument, but it's never an 'F-5 mandolin.' It's never like a pieced mandolin with carved Gibson tops, a concert instrument. An instrument with much more volume, more power. So it's a somewhat flawed argument. You have to be a little more open-minded.

I'm sure you'll be able to verify it. I know Cumpiano is experimenting with this, I'll be working with it too, and I know other people who are also interested in working with it, and I know we'll discover interesting things together. We don't want to destroy a tradition. We don't want to destroy part of the culture. We simply want the wood to be better preserved; the instrument to be better preserved, and for it to be a higher-quality instrument in every sense of the word.

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Comentarios por nuestros grandes folkoristas

Ensayos sobre los instrumentos nativos de cuerda y su música

Juan 'Kacho' Montalvo: Without our cuatro there is no Christmas

Juan 'Kacho' Montalvo: To my father the cuatro player, Juan Montalvo

Juan 'Kacho' Montalvo: Aguinaldito de escalera

Juan 'Kacho' Montalvo: Interview with the folklorist

Victor Manuel Silva Casanova: he who inherited it

Luis Acevedo Flores: The cuatro's future

LUIS MANUEL ÁLVAREZ: Correspondence about the seis and the aguinaldo

NÉSTOR MURRAY IRIZARRY: In praise of the guitar

NÉSTOR MURRAY IRIZARRY: The significance of the cuatro project

José Gumersindo Torres: Hotes about the aguinaldo

No Christmas without the cuatro