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Why is it called a cuatro ) if it has ten strings?
Where did the cuatro come from?
Why is the modern cuatro shaped like a violin?
Are all cuatros shaped the same?
Were earlier cuatros tuned differently from modern cuatros? Why?
Why are modern cuatro strings placed in pairs and when did it change over from single strings?
Were there other stringed instruments in Puerto Rico besides the cuatro?
How was the cuatro used by the jíbaros in ancient times?
How is a modern cuatro strung and tuned?

Why is it called a cuatro (which means "four") if it has ten strings?
The answer may lie in the fact that the earliest cuatros had but four strings. This would seem to be a sufficient answer, except that it has been pointed out to us that the ancient Moors (who occupied most of Spain for almost 800 years until 1492) had a word, al-qatr that meant "stringed instrument," and there was an ancient four-string Persian stringed instrument called the Chartar (pronounced kar-tar). So the word cuatro may not derive originally from Spanish "four" but from an ancient word meaning something else altogether.

Where did the cuatro come from?
Certainly, the antecedents of all the stringed instruments of Hispanic Latin America can be ultimately traced to 16th- and 17th Century Spain, which, according to Cervantes, abounded in plucked stringed instruments of all shapes and sizes. We also know that they came to America in large numbers: solemn edicts from the Catholic kings of Spain are still archived which command the colonizers to take stringed instruments with them to help them observe and spread the faith. Going even further back, however, the stringed instruments of Spain were themselves derived from Moorish and Persian stringed instruments of great antiquity. Indeed, we have found an illustration of an ancient plucked (not bowed) Persian Dotar, dated 1000 AD with approximately the keyhole shape of the cuatro antiguo-and medieval images of angels in cathedrals plucking violin-shaped instruments that recall the cuatro moderno!

Our research points us to at least two specific Spanish instruments that may possibly have inspired the early jíbaros to make their own cuatros:
·    Small, four-string Spanish bandurrias of the 17th century. These had the same tuning intervals as the earliest four-string cuatros made in the hilly center of the Island. These rustic instruments were seen in Puerto Rico as late as the 1950s.
·    Ten string Spanish bandurrias of the 18th century A hundred years later the bandurria had evolved to ten (5 double course) wire strings. Since these were tuned and strung identically to the cuatros of the 19th century and the modern cuatro we feel that these were the models for the cuatros which abounded on the northern coast of the island, particularly in the large cities of Arecibo and San Juan. The modern 10-string cuatro is still called the cuatro español by some old-timers, who recall its Spanish antecedence.

Why is the modern cuatro shaped like a violin?
Like the violin, the cuatro has two incurved cutouts in its' sides. The violin needs these cutout to allow clearance for the bow when playing its' outer strings. The plucked cuatro clearly doesn't need these characteristic cutouts, so they can be assumed to be purely decorative--to give, perhaps, an "upper class" Europeanized look to the folk instrument. We may never know for sure, but we have evidence from our research that perhaps the earliest violin-shaped cuatros may have been made in the region of the northern-coast city of Arecibo, by an artisan named Miguel Hernández who made the earliest cuatro aviolinado that we have found a photograph for, dated 1916. The Arecibo area was a highly Europeanized cultural center in Puerto Rico at the turn of the century, where several violinmakers worked. It is possible that Hernández was inspired by the high-class look of the violins that he saw in Arecibo during the early 20th century.

Aren't all cuatros shaped the same?
Indeed, there is no "universal" cuatro shape. Although the most familiar shape is characterized by the two incurved cutouts at the instrument's waist, the precise shape of these-as well as the rest of the instrument's outline-vary considerably from maker to maker and from region to region. Until the 1950s, you could find two other distinct cuatro configurations on the Island:
·    the keyhole shape of the four gut-string cuatro (known variously as the cuatro antiguo, cuatro cuadrao, or cuatro araña). A similar keyhole shape can be seen on ancient Persian and early European instruments such as the citarra
·    the tulip shape of eight-string cuatros made early in the 20th century in the southern region of Puerto Rico, near Yauco and Ponce, notably by the world-renown Franquiz family of woodworking artisans. Several Yauco cuatro makers also built instruments that featured a single point projecting from the middle of their elegantly-curved outline, reminiscent of the outlines of some 19th century cellos and mandolins that we have seen.
·    Cuatros with soundboxes made from large, domed gourds are fairly rare on the island but have been used in recordings by some of our greatest old cuatristas. The making of plucked stringed instruments from gourds was and still is fairly common in West Africa, suggesting that this was the configuration of cuatros originally made in the 19th century by enslaved Africans on the Island, and called cuatros de higüera or gourd cuatros.

Why were earlier cuatros tuned differently from modern cuatros?
Many factors affect how a particular instrument is to be strung and tuned. Instrument stringings and tunings vary according to the range they are required to play; the harmonic complexity of the music that they are required for; the amount of tensile . <OVER> strength and resiliency of the strings available to the makers of the day; and the intended musical function of the instrument--whether for playing individual-note melodies, for plucked chords or strummed accompaniment. Thus a researcher can make intelligent guesses as to the provenance, history, musical utility and playing techniques of a given stringed instrument for which little is known by paying close attention to the way it was strung and tuned.
Where the earliest forms of a folk instrument may have only two, three or four strings--and thus, a rather narrow musical range-they may have served well because the music played on them originally was very simple. As the culture evolves, however, the same instrument may either evolve over time to play more complicated music--by the addition of more strings and changes in their open-note intervals. Or, it may not change-and thus become obsolete and slowly vanish, to be replaced by another instrument that due to its size, sonority or stringing is more suited to the evolving changes in the music and in changes in the preferences of the audiences. In Puerto Rico, as the once-isolated jíbaros were exposed to city music and thus became more sophisticated, their four-string cuatro became more and more unsuitable and cumbersome to play (particularly since two of its strings were tuned the same!). So it slowly lost favor and vanished over the first fifty years of the 20th century. The far more versatile and appropriately-tuned ten-string cuatro (which was being played at the same time as the four string cuatro, but in other regions of the island), with its expanded range, became ascendant and eventually, became universalized as the "national instrument."

Why are modern cuatro strings placed in pairs and when did it change over from single strings?
It is a prevalent myth in Puerto Rico that the four-string cuatro evolved to ten strings. The myth even names the person and date of the changeover: the same myth affirms that it was the great Yauco cuatrista Heriberto Torres who first doubled the strings on his cuatro during the twenties to achieve "greater sonority." Actually, as mentioned previously, both single and double-string cuatros coexisted on the Island as far back as the nineteenth century. But the singly-strung cuatros vanished because they didn't change. Yes, we have found evidence that shows that, as the myth goes, double strung cuatros were indeed being played in the Heriberto's southern city of Yauco during the twenties, but in fact, double-string cuatros were being played concurrently on the northern coast since the previous century. Indeed, the pairing of strings is an extremely ancient configuration that doubtlessly was prevalent in Spain and other European countries during colonial times--many double strung instruments must have landed in Puerto Rico since a very early time. But it was likely that few jíbaros saw them until late in the 19th century, due to isolation caused by the scarcity of passable roads and the difficulty of travel. Sometimes just going to the nearest large city on this 100-mile island was an all-day affair.

Were there other stringed instruments in Puerto Rico besides the cuatro?
There were indeed many other distinctive stringed instruments made and played on the Island since the establishment of the colony. The Puerto Rican Cuatro Project has identified almost a dozen-indeed a veritable bouquet of native stringed instruments-that once flourished in Puerto Rico. The Canary Island farmers that the early Spanish kings sent to the island to develop it, brought their tiny timples, which were transformed into the family of tiples that once thrived in the mountainous interior regions of the island. There was also musical traditions surrounding a large, deep, guitar-shaped instrument called the bordonúa, which varied in shape and stringing from region to region. At one time the bordonúa played the low voice in jíbaro instrumental groups, but later it was restrung as a higher-pitched melody instrument. Alas, this wonderful bouquet of instruments all but vanished during the first fifty years of the 20th century-leaving the modern cuatro as the sole surviving native stringed instrument. The Puerto Rican Cuatro Project is working to revive the bordonúa grave, or the instrument as was used as the bass voice in 19th string ensembles but forgotten, as it is working to revive the tiple mayor, a tiple tuned in its earliest form, in intervals that actually makes it much easier to play than the way it has evolved into the 20th century.

How was the cuatro used by the jíbaros in ancient times?
The cuatro and these other Puerto Rican stringed instruments played a significant role in the jíbaros daily life and social behavior since the Island's earliest history, and thus was crucial to the development of a unique national culture on the Island. From the earliest days of the colony, the cuatro and the diminutive tiples were used to accompany the observance of both festive and solemn religious rites, of which there were so many. Among the many religious rites that relied on the native stringed instruments were the rosaries cantaos [sung rosaries], velorios [wakes], promesas [vows], visitas de la virgen, florones and aguinaldos [musical "gifts" sung during the Christmas and Epiphany seasons].

The many families of Puerto Rican stringed instruments were often busy accompanying the island's many secular festivals and musical genres. It was customary to end the harvest with a great festival called the acabe, or "ending." The numerous social dancing forms like the cadenas and the caballo were also done in accompaniment with cuatros, tiples and güiros. Indeed, the centerpiece of secular jíbaro music was the seis, which was derived from cheery church dances in Spain during medieval times, and when combined with another ancient Spanish tradition, the ten line poetic form called the décima, the jíbaro created the wonderful seis con décima. This archetypal form featured a singing troubadour or trovador, who made up, on the spot, clever lyrics that conformed to the complex rhyming rules of the ancient décima. The troubadour was always accompanied by a cuatro and a guiro, the traditional Puerto Rican scratch-gourd percussion instrument.

How is the present-day cuatro strung and tuned?

The modern-day cuatro is configured with ten metal strings arranged in 5 pairs, or courses (a "course" can either be a single string or two (in some instruments, sometimes three) strings placed close together and played as one). The 5 courses are tuned, from bass to treble, bB  eE  AA DD  GG . The B and E course strings are tuned an octave apart, and the D and G are tuned in unison. The A is usually tuned in unison but is rare occasions is tuned in octaves also, usually by older players.

During the first several decades of the twentieth century, the only metal strings that were widespread in the small villages on the Island were sets imported from the United States with gauges (or thicknesses) that were appropriate for steel-string guitars. So for many years cuatristas had to select from those gauges the ones that would be most appropriate for the particular size and tuning of their cuatros. The older cuatristas referred to these American strings as "Cuerdas Campana" undoubtedly because the string wrappers carried the image of a bell.

That was because the strings were made by the Chicago Musical String Company and their logo was a bell. Cuerdas Campana could be purchased cheaply in virtually any town on the island, usually in small shops near the plaza of each town. So when you ask a cuatro player what the strings are on the cuatro the answer usually is: "I use two firsts, two seconds, two thirds (or a third and a first it was the unison or octave tuning of the A), a fourth and a second, and a fifth and a third" referring in each case to the corresponding guitar string that was placed in sequence from treble to bass on the cuatro. This custom is disappearing now that the large American string companies are making available string sets gauged specifically to the specific needs of the cuatro in modern times.