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William Cumpiano makes a
bordonúa enteriza
William Cumpiano is the webmaster of
this website, instrumentmaker, and coordinator of the Cuatro Project
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During the mid nineties, the Cuatro Project traveled to the Ponce Music Museum and the Yabucoa Cultural Museum to measure their collection of rare bordonúas. These instruments were relics, unplayable, and could not be removed from the museums in which they resided. The measuring of the instruments was the first step in the Projects' plan to create a working replica of this instrument in order to recreate as authentically as possible the sounds of the string ensembles of an earlier time. |
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Grants from the Connecticut Council of the Arts enabled William Cumpiano to
train traditional artisan Graciela Quiñones Rodríguez to build a replica
bordonúa from those measurements at Cumpiano's
studio in Massachusetts.
The instrument shown at left was used extensively in concerts and workshops during recreations of an orquesta jibara antigua which was made up of musician members and friends of the Cuatro Project. The performances created great interest on the Island,
whereupon the Orquesta Dr. Francisco Lopez Cruz (Myrna Perez,
director) commissioned Cumpiano to make another replica, but with a modern
neck and fingerboard, a change intended to reduce the considerable playing
difficulty entailed in playing on the traditional thick neck and wide-bar frets.
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The sequence that follows traces the construction of this instrument. The original instruments used seven-inch-thick slabs of wood from which the neck and soundbox were carved in one piece. Material of this dimension being unavailable, Cumpiano built up the body block from several 3-inch slabs of cedro (Spanish cedar). At left, the slabs, not yet glued together, have been bandsawn to the proper outline according to the working plan of the instrument that was derived from measurements taken from the original instruments in Ponce and Yabucoa. |
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The bottom curved body block is taken to the bandsaw and a 1/4-inch thick slice is removed and reserved for the back of the instrument. Then all the body blocks are glued together, and taken to the bandsaw. In order to remove the center of the soundbox, the luthier enters the glued up body block from the rear (see the entry cut at the back of the shell) and the interior is sawn away as a single piece, seen beside the instrument on the left. In the photo, the headpiece and top veneer have been glued to the end of the neck. |
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At this point the luthier carves the contours of the heel. |
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All the surfaces of the instrument shell have been smoothed. The instrument is seen mounted on a plywood workboard, which will later serve to make the instruments soundboard. |
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A rear view of the instrument shell. The bottom edge of the shell has been rounded over with a router. |
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This close-up shows two small holes at the locations where the two almas or "soundposts" will be screwed to the back |
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A thin sheet of spruce is used for the soundboard. The traditional yagrumo is not available in the United States. However spruce provides a lighter and stronger substitute. In the photo, the rosette has been inserted, the soundhole cut out and the clearance holes for the almas. |
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The top braces are glued on. Note the abanico or fan braces. The clamps are gluing on the transversal. |
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Here the fingerboard, made of ebony wood, is being slotted for the frets, the spacing determined by a fret formula called the rule of eighteen. |
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The soundboard is glued to the shell. |
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The fingerboard is glued on to the neck after the two "soundposts" are inserted through the soundboard. The bottom of the soundposts are screwed to the back, and the top of the soundposts are glued to the undersurface of the fingerboard |
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Note how the end of the
fingerboard is lifted from the soundboard, allowing it to vibrate freely,
but the fingerboard end is supported by the "soundposts."
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