The Candelario Vázquez vihuela-bordonúa

The late Candelario Vázquez' vihuela-bordonúa held by his son.
Photo Sotomayor

We went looking for Candelario Vázquez' instrument in Juncos, Puerto Rico and found it--a treasured heirloom in the possession of the Vázquez family. Below is the elder Candelario Vázquez (know to all as don Candó) when he was alive and actively playing his beloved instrument:

 Listen to Candelario Vázquez (at an advanced age) playing the melody line of a danza on the instrument that he called bordonúa, while accompanied by a guitarist. 

Candó's instrument is similar in size, shape, floating fingerboard (see photo immediately at right) and over-size frets as the others, but is distinctive in that its soundboard is purposefully sunken and the strings are raised at the bridge by a massively carved bridge platform.
 

The José Velázquez' vihuela-bordonúa

The late José Velázquez' vihuela-bordonúa held by his son Luis Velázquez   
Photo Sotomayor

The Velázquez vihuela-bordonúa appears to share precisely the same template outline and dimensions as both the Vázquez and Font instruments, implying a similar maker. However they are significantly different in detail, suggesting that different makers shared the same template but each built their instrument according to their own tastes, abilities and resources.

They all share the distinctive over-sized frets, but differ in how they are individually attached to the instrument. They share a floating fingerboard as seen immediately below,

..but includes a peculiar series of bicycle-spoke reinforcements cris-crossing the interior of the soundbox. The fanciful differences of each instrument, while strictly maintaining a series of immutable features seems to point to several builders sharing the same set of template shape and measurements passed on from an earlier time, but each displaying variations according to each builder's sensibilities.
 

 The Andrés Font vihuela-bordonúa

Andrés Font's vihuela-bordonúa is a treasured relic housed at the Cultural Museum in the historic Casa Roig in Humacao, PR. 

The vihuela-bordonúa at the Museo de Música de Ponce [Ponce Museum of Music]

This vihuela-bordonúa is housed at the Museum of Music in Ponce. Unfortunately they are unable to provide any information about it. It is of extremely rustic construction, from a template outline different from that of Vázquez and Velázquez instruments. The fingerboard seems to have been replaced after it was completed, perhaps a fingerboard from another instrument: see how it covers the soundhole like an afterthought. 

The vihuela-bordonúas of Vicente Valentín

The vihuela-bordonúas of Cristobal Santiago 

The ICPR/Francisco López Cruz rescue

Francisco López Cruz toca una vihuela-bordonúa de estilo nuevo hecho por Leoncio Ortiz de Corozal

El Dr. Francisco "Paquito" López Cruz (1909-1988) participa en la creación de un inventario de manifestaciones culturales puertorriqueñas emprendido por el Gobierno de Puerto Rico a través del establecimiento del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña en 1955, liderado por Ricardo Alegría. Entre otros proyectos para el ICPR, emprende un rescate del instrumento que el nombra "bordonúa", la cual el mismo declara es descendiente de la vihuela--aunque es a la antigua vihuela española a la que se refiere. Sugiere una nueva encordadura moderna para el instrumento, rechazando las inescrutables encordaduras de las originales vihuela-bordonúas. Bajo su auspicio, el Instituto comisiona a prominentes artesanos como Vicente Valentín (visto arriba), Antonio Rodriguez Navarro, y Leoncio Ortiz a recrear ejemplares modernizadas del instrumento.

 The vihuela-bordonúas of Aurelio Cruz Pagán

The vihuela-bordonúas of Eugenio Méndez

The vihuela-bordonúas of William Cumpiano

The vihuela-bordonúas of the Cuatro Project

The vihuela-bordonúas of Secundino Merced

The very narrow upper and very wide lower bout are distinctive of the vihuela-bordonúas of Secundino Merced (1906-1925) of Aguas Buenas, PR.

These so-called bordonúas are cloaked in mystery: nobody really remembers how to play them, mostly because their odd stringing and string spacing arrangements seems to defy categorization. Curiously, cultural preservationists nonetheless recreated modern versions of the instrument, changing them even further from the original models. They changed them in virtually every regard: in size, shape, stringing, tuning...all in an effort to make them more accessible and easier to play for modern players. Preservation through change: a odd effort, indeed! These present day replicas, these "modern bordonúas," are quite successful on their own terms: many are beautiful in workmanship and beautiful to hear. They have even spurred several excellent players to produce beautiful recordings with them. But these newly minted instruments have very little--only superficial resemblance to the relics whose "tradition" they are supposed to be preserving.

But the curiousity doesn't end here; those old preserved relics in the collections are themselves significantly different from the bordonuas that were in existence during the century before them, the 19th century. All the bordonúa relics have up to ten doubled and single metal strings, tuned to a melodic register--they were strung to play the melody part in string bands. They also had multiple soundholes.

When we researched several old books written in the 19th century about Puerto Rican customs, what they described as bordonuas were large guitar-shaped instruments with six single (probably gut) strings. The name bordonúa itsels appears to derive from the term bordón--which since antiquity actually means "a thick, low-pitched instrument string." So it appears reasonable to conclude that an instrument with bordones be called bordonùa. Indeed, having bordones would have impated to them a deep sound--that is, deeper than the sounds of the other stringed instruments in the traditional instrumental group. We now that these lower-pitched, 6 single string bordonuas were being played around 100-150 years ago in Puerto Rico. None of them physically survive in this form today. Nobody remembers what they looked or sounded like, either, save for a glimpse of them seen in a 19th century painting.

The early-20th century surviving namesake relics are also unplayable, but we could tell from their pegs, nuts and bridges, and some of the surviving strings themselves, that they were made to be strung--not with six single large gut strings--but instead with 8-10 single and double thin gauge strings made of steel. That would have given them a bright, shiny, metallic voice. Also, the children and grandchildren of the old-timers who actually played those 20th century bordonuas insisted that they never played the lower-register accompaniment, rather, they always played the principal melody-line voice in musical groups. They also said they had never heard of them ever having six single strings, either.

This was the puzzle we faced and which confused us for 10 years: two significantly different instruments with the same name, bordonúa. And nobody ever remembering a six-string, lower-register instrument also called bordonúa, either, regardless that they were described that way in the old 19th century descriptions.

Just recently we noted two interesting details: the way the younger bordonúa relics were strung and tuned were all similar to the ancient Spanish vihuelas and later, 17th and 18th-century guitars. These were strung with eight, nine or ten strings and tuned in guitar-like intervals. And all of these were all customarily lumped together with the same name: vihuela. Coincidentally also, those present-day museum relics that came to be called bordonúas had multiple sound holes, just like the ancient Spanish vihuelas. So these so called "bordonúas" carried on them traces of the ancient Spanish vihuelas, and the tunings and stringing arrangements that recalled the later Spanish "vihuelas."

Going back to those old 19th century descriptions, they all included a mysterious fourth member of the family of Puerto Rican native instruments. There indeed existed during the nineteenth century, possibly earlier, another distinctive guitar-like native instrument called vihuela in Puerto Rico--which nobody ever talks about or even has heard about today anywhere in Puerto Rico. It's another "disappeared" or forgotten Puerto Rican stringed instrument that was once described in the Puerto Rican countryside in the 19th century texts--but is completely unknown and unheard-of in Puerto Rico today. And what do those 19th century texts say about the forgotten vihuela jíbara? They had "up to ten strings" and they played the melodic register in musical groups, groups that also included tiples, cuatros, and bordonúas in various arrangements. And that their ancient namesakes, the earlier Spanish "vihuelas" had multiple soundholes and were strung with eight, nine or ten strings in guitar-like intervals.

The only way to fit all these disparate facts together into a reasonable description of what occurred was that there actually were four native Puerto Rican instruments in the 19th century: tiple, cuatro, 6- string bordonúa and "up to ten" string vihuela. Only the tiple, cuatro and vihuela survive into the 20th century, the 6-string bordonúa disappearing at the beginning of the 20th century. The vihuela, with its multiple soundholes and ancient vihuela stringing survives into the 20th century but it's old name is forgotten and Puerto Ricans bestowed upon it the name of the extinct bordonúa. So we can conclude that in modern times 'the complete family of Puerto Rican stringed instruments consistes of the tiple, the cuatro and an instrument called a vihuela which came to be called bordonúa.

There are quite a few historical precedents for name-shifting string instruments and we found several other instruments that were called several names at once, or the same instrument with different names at different times or places, or that instruments physically changed without the old name changing--or similarly, that different instruments in different periods had the same name. In instrument history, instrument names are often fluid in this manner. In Puerto Rico there are other instances of fluid instrument names. Take the cuatro. The cuatro is named because it had four strings. A completely different instrument but with a similar usage appears in the late nineteenth century--with 10 metal strings tuned completely differently--and Puerto Ricans called THAT a cuatro too. In some places the bordonua was called a "large tiple". In Spain the name "vihuela" stuck and remained the name of different twelve, ten, nine, and eight string guitar-like instruments across the centuries.

A stringed instrument called the vihuela existed in 19th century Puerto Rico. We know this because it is mentioned repeatedly in the contemporary accounts of the customs of the time. The poet and playwright Alejandro Tapia y Rivera remembers having seen it when he was a child around 1835; the writer Manuel Alonso described it in 1849 and the newspaper journalist Luis Marín in 1875; and the writer Francisco del Valle Atiles described it in 1887. Today, the instrument does not appear on any list of native Puerto Rican stringed instruments. In other words, Puerto Ricans have forgotten about their vihuela jíbara.

Alejandro Tapia y Rivera remembered having seen a musician playing vihuela in a grouping of “rustic or rural” instruments, which traveled from house to house around the city caroling in the early evening. The writer Manuel Alonso described a vihuela he saw "requintando" (playing the higher voice) in the fields during riotous baile de garabato [a native dance], while the newspaper man Ramón Marín mentioned the “obligatory vihuela," accompanied by a cuatro and a güiro, backing some troubadours during a singer’s contest in Ponce. Fifteen years later, the writer Francisco del Valle Atiles described a diversity of countryside instruments, explaining that “depending on the choice of the maker,” the vihuela could have “up to ten” strings. Without a doubt, vihuelas existed in the 19th century, but today no one talks about them.

It’s probable that the vihuela jíbara was derived from the efforts of native craftsmen to emulate the Spanish vihuelas that were imported into Puerto Rico from the 16th century. During that and successive centuries, the term vihuela included the large six-course courtly vihuela as well as the four-course Renaissance guitar and the five-course Baroque guitar. We can suppose that the vihuela jíbara shared not a few traces of these instruments, including their shape, size and stringing. Indeed, the Spanish guitars of the 17th and 18th centuries were all strung diversely with eight, nine or “up to ten” strings.

Nowadays no one talks about the vihuela jíbara, even though it was identified in 19th century literature. Also, no one speaks of the six-single-string bordonúa although it also was repeatedly identified during the 19th century. What the cobwebs of time yield up to us today consists of barely a handful of instrumental relics in museums and private collections that are generally presumed to be bordonúas. They all share a deep body, a guitarlike shape, they carry multiple courses of single and doubled strings, their arrangement and tuning being quite peculiar. However, when you take into account their use, their musical range; their different stringings and tunings; the musical intervals between their open strings; and other details (the bordonúa is often seen with multiple sound holes cut into its top, just like the ancient Spanish vihuelas), the 20th century bordonúa is more like the ancient Spanish vihuelas and Baroque guitars, than it’s namesake, the “deep-voiced” 19th century, six-string bordonúa.

The similarities between the vihuelas jíbaras described in the 19th century and the bordonúas of the 20th are so striking that the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project recently proposed that the latter instruments do not descend from the 19th century bordonúas, but rather from the old vihuelas jíbaras. The Cuatro Project argues that when the old six-string bordonúa fell into disuse at the end of the 19th century, the vihuela became known as bordonúa.

The phenomenon is not unique. In Puerto Rican musical history—as it is also in the history of European instruments, there are precedents of this phenomenon: not only can one instrument adopt the name of another similar one, but the name of an older or out-of-fashion instrument can also fall upon its successor. This can occur not only when the instruments are similar in appearance, but also if their uses are similar. There are also cultural motives for these instrumental changes. We can infer that the name vihuela brought to mind the resented and deposed Spanish regime and the more native-sounding name bordonúa became available after its old six-string owner fell into disuse.

Memories of the vihuela persisted into the 20th century. Around 1938, the educator María Cadilla de Martínez noted that the vihuela was still being constructed on the island in a rustic fashion, with the same shape as the tiple, but larger; and that it had ten strings. The distinguished elder cuatro-player Roque Navarro (1913-2002), described the vihuela as twice the size of the tiple and “with a little belly...like the bordonúa". The elder cuatro-player Efraín Ronda (1899 - 1995), remembered that the vihuela had the shape of a guitar, but had ten strings, and that its rustic form was disagreeable to look at. Finally, the elder builder and player of bordonúas, resident Yabucoa Tito Ramos (b.1922), said about his instrument, “everybody called it vihuela. That was its name. But to sound better, they gave it the name bordonúa”.

It’s worth noting that in the same way, the name cuatro was originally given in Puerto Rico to an very old instrument with four single gut strings, and that same name eventually was also eventually given to a new instrument with ten metal strings which appeared in modern times in other regions of the Island. These instrumental name changes have been the source of much confusion among musicologists throughout history. The mix-up becomes evident, for example, when someone asks, how is it possible that an instrument with ten strings be called a cuatro? In the same way, any one can wonder how the name bordonúa came to fall upon an instrument so different to the early bordonúas, but so much like the old vihuelas and Spanish guitars.

Summing up, according to the evidence presented by the Cuatro Project, the bordonúa of actual times descends from the vihuela jíbara of the 19th century, and not from its 19th century namesake. A case can be made that the instrument that today we call bordonúa is little more than the old vihuela jíbara. What follows is that the old vihuela still lives among us, but with a different name.

The pianist/composer Luciano Quiñones has sent us this beautiful photograph of his grandfather,  Marcelino Quiñones, after having seen a small copy of the same on our website. For us it is a great achievement to be able to add to our archives an original and pristing copy of this photograph. The cuatro we see in don Marcelino's hands is a magnificent and rare example of the cuatros that were made along Puerto Rico's southern coastal towns during the first half of the twentieth century. With its vase or tulip-shaped silhouette, we have named it the Southern cuatro or cuatro yaucano, [Yauco cuatro]. Cuatros made like this usually had eight metal strings arranged in four unison pairs that were tuned like the early cuatros they were made to replace: A D A E.

This instrument exists to this day, property of one of Luciano Quiñones' uncles, son of don Marcelino. His name is Eleuterio Quiñones from San Germán, who we visited and interviewed around 1996. The interview follows.

Nonagenarian Eleuterio Quiñones of San Germán with the cuatro of his father (seen above this photo). His interview follows immediately below, where he mentions that the instrument orginally was built for eight strings and was later "modernizes" to carry ten. Photograph taken c. 1996 by Juan Sotomayor

Eleuterio Quiñones, cuatrista
Interviewed by Juan Sotomayor in 1996
Transcribed, edited and translated by William Cumpiano

I was born in 1910, October 9th of 1910. Here in San Germán. My parent’s names were José Marcelino Quiñones and Ramona Quiñones Camacho. My father played string bass, saxophone, cuatro, mandolin. He was a teacher of the cuatro and guitar; of both kinds of bases, metal bass and string bass. He was a music director, he knew about music. He learned from Julio Espada of San Germán.

My father played the early cuatro, the one with the squarish shape on top and round on the bottom. The ancient shape. It had wooden tuning pegs. As the instrument evolved, he himself added tuning pegs for ten strings. That is, the instrument was originally four double strings and he added the rest. The makers of that cuatro were the Franquiz family from Cabo Rojo. The neck is mango wood. I believe the soundboox was cedro, a kind that you used to be able to get. The fingerboard was an East Indian wood, I think, Indian [ed.: probably Indian Rosewood, Dalbergia sissoo, often used for fingerboards on fine instruments]. The soundboard—I don’t remember, I don’t know if—cypress. I don’t know what it was called [ed. probably spruce]. It was an aged wood. Not yagrumo. Some ofther kind of wood. That cuatro had eight doubled strings, he put on the fifth around 1916 or 17. When those five [double] string cuatros began to show up around here, he made it into a five [double] string. The Franquiz made different kinds of instrumentos. They made basses, they made guitars, they made mandolins, they made cuatros…wonderful guitars, they made. Many instruments. I think they were of Italian origin, yes.

El cuatro, yo empecé a tocarlo cuando yo tenía por lo menos veintitrés años. Porque yo tocaba primero, yo empecé con mi papá por los campos a tocar güiro, y yo lo acompañaba con güiro y guitarra. Después, que a papá le de por enseñarme el cuatro, y entonces por ahí, por el '22 empecé a tocar el cuatro. El cuatro con cinco cuerdas dobles. Habían otras personas que tocaban el cuatro de cuatro cuerdas: Vicente Padilla usaba cuatro cuerdas, que era en esa misma forma pero un cuatro hecho acá ya, mas pequeño.
Mi papá tocaba toda clase de música. Porque el, cuando venían aquí los españoles con la ópera y zarzuelas, entonces ellos preguntaban si aquí habían músicos que podían leer esa música, y acompañarlos a ellos. Porque entonces en los teatros no habían esos que hay ahora... entonces, había un pianista, violinista, clarinetista, y preguntaban si aquí los había. Y aquí los había. Entre ellos estaban Francisquito Espada, estaba Francisco Nazario Acevedo, estaba papá, estaba Don Nico Zanabria, estaba Mario Milán que era pianista y Pachica tocaba el clarinete muy bien. Entonces estaba, yo creo que era un Moreno que tocaba batería. Don Nico, Don Nicolás tocaba flauta, Mario Milán tocaba piano. Papá el bajo. Entonces Moreno tocaba la batería. Eran como cinco o seis músicos que tocaban. Le daban la música, ellos lo ensayaban por la tarde, y por la noche, eso era... un éxito [rie], la función.
[Yo recuerdo cuando joven entre los mejores cuatristas de por aquí, estaba] Norberto Cales. Conocí también Vicente Padilla. Conocí a Neco Vásquez que era buen cuatrista. Esos mayormente tocaba de oído, pero tocaban tremendo, fenómeno. Neco Vásquez usaba el cuatro de cinco cuerdas dobles, y Vicente Padilla el de cuatro cuerdas. En Ponce estaba este señor que daba clases de bordonúa y cuatro y eso, y un grupo que tenía, se llamaba... Paco López Cruz, el sabía tocar bordonúa. Era un maestro de música y eso. De Ponce. Y de aquí iban a estudiar allá a Ponce. Iban tres, iban unos cuantos. Pero pa' tras no recuerdo [gente que tocaba tiple o bordonúa].
Antes, la música que se tocaba era el One Step americano, bolero, pero de los boleros antiguos esos. Se tocaban mazurcas. Se tocaban pasillos, valses; entre cuando y cuando para esa época estaban también el Fox Trot americano, se tocaba eso desde hace tiempo. Yo tengo los papeles viejos de to' esa música. Estaban la guaracha, estaba la plena: eso es oriundo de aquí porque eso se bailaba, y la bomba y to' eso...
Mi papá afinaba el cuatro, en la primera era Sol, Re, La, Mi. Y después Sol, Re, La, Mi, Qui [?] Tenía tres o cuatro músicos con el cuando tocaba. Estaba Don Juan Olivera que lo acompañaba en la guitarra. Estaba Emilio Gallardo que era otro cuatrista bueno. Estaba otro, el que tocaba guiro con el, Jesús Jaffet. Era francés. Yo tocaba güiro con el cuando era pichoncito. Yo empecé a estudiar música con Francisquito Espada, con mi papá primero. Después Francisquito Espada me empezó a enseñar las notas, mas avanzado que mi papá, porque mi papá sabía de música también, pero como era trombón lo que iba a aprender primero, pues Francisquito Espada me enseñó. Y después, cuando estaba un poquito adelantado, Francisquito Espada dejó de... porque yo empecé en la banda con el, entonces Francisquito Espada se renunció, y se fue, entonces siguió Francisco Nazario Quevedo, y con el terminé de estudiar la música, que me hice profesional con el, porque el tenía una orquesta. Entonces me incorporé en la orquesta con el, que se llamaba Orquesta Euterpe. Y de ahí seguí. Y entonces el se retiró.
Entonces el machinero [?] González hizo un movimiento para hacer una orquesta. Entonces me incorporó en la orquesta, que se llama la Orquesta Happy Hills. Yo estuve tocando en la Happy Hills hasta el 1976, y tuve que jubilarme porque tuve que sacarme los dientes. Y como yo tocaba trombón en esa orquesta, primero toqué primera trompeta y luego toque trombón, pues tuve que dejarla. Entonces como ya yo tuve una edad bastante avanzada decidí retirarme de no tocar mas bailes. Entonces, antes de eso yo trabaje veintidós, veintitrés años en la Escuela de Música en Mayagüez, de maestro de música. Porque yo cogí el examen para maestro de música y lo pasé y entonces me hice maestro de música en la Escuela de Música en Mayagüez. Entonces, pues seguí trabajando en la música, seguí en la escuela, y después de jubilado, ahora trabajo en una academia ahí "part time." Y todavía toco el cuatro. Por música. La música que prefiero tocar es la de nosotros, la danza [ríe]. Yo tengo dos danzas grabadas, ¿quieres que las toque? [las pone a tocar]
Este cuatro [es de los Franquiz]. Si señor, eso es cierto [que la familia Franquiz hacían los mejores cuatros de esta área]. Los cuatros de antes venían con cuerdas de cuero. La primera, segunda y tercera era de cuero, y las otras eran cuerdas entorchadas. Yo, imitando las cuerdas de cuero, para imitar el sonido del cuatro de antes, le tengo cuerdas de nilón. Y es el sonido que oirás.[toca el cuatro]
[El cuatro tiene diecisiete trastes] ¿Los trastes originales? No porque éste cuatro, cuando se hizo, venía con unos trastes de cuero, enlazados, tu sabes, que venían con cuerdas de cuero en forma de trastes. Como de un cuero, de algún animal era eso... español. Después [mi papá] cuando empezó a tocar en la orquesta, entonces los cambió a trastes de metal. El se los cambió, porque el era ebanista también. El diapasón lo trajo. El diapasón es el mismo. Ahora los trastes, el le quitó los de cuero, y le puso de metal. El puente es el mismo. No se de la tapa [parece de pino], hay una madera alemana que se parece a esta, que se hacían los violines. Pero ahora, yo no se de que... El clavijero original era de madera, tenía boquetes y tenía clavijas de madera, entonces ahí papá lo rellenó por dentro, y le puso clavijeros de metal.

Researcher Ramón Gómez reports:

    According to the producer/collector Mariano Artau, in 1934, Isaac Oviedo visits Puerto Rico with the Sexteto Matancero, with their musical director Graciano Gómez.  They performed several times in the Club Escambrón in San Juan, and among the audience was Piliche. As Artau explains it, Piliche, who was from the Barrio Obrero neighborhood nearby, was a very good guitarist who played with the Trío Lírico along with Pompo y Leocadio.  Somehow he learned of the event and was able to attend several performances. He also managed to strike up a friendship with Oviedo while he was in Puerto Rico  and they found themselves in the hotel he was staying at, talking about the instrument. Oviedo taught him the basic positions and how to manage the montuneo, the distinctive repeating pattern which is the tres' role within the son. The Sexteto performed several times, so Piliche was able to see Oviedo in action more than once. According to Artau, the connection was sufficient for Piliche to become our first tresista on the island . However, its quite probable that in New York City, as early as the twenties, other boricuas could already have been learning the tres, but we are still looking for specific details on that.  Artau also affirms that Piliche's first tres was made by a luthier named Medina - whose shop was near Stop 15 in Santurce.  The same builder also converted the cuatrista Joaquinito Rivera, Jr.'s (1910-1995) four string cuatro to eight strings, as he describes in our video documentary Nuestro Cuatro, Vol. 1.

On the other hand...
Commentary by William Cumpiano:
Mariano Artau's assertion that Piliche learned to play the Cuban tres in 1934 during Isaac Oviedo's visit to Puerto Rico, and that was the starting date of the tres in Puerto Rico--presents us with a problem. Upon close examination of a photograph (dated 1934 also) of the Conjunto of Claudio Ferrer, dated to the time he was in New York City, a musician identified as Rovira can be clearly seen, at right, seated while holding a fully-formed nine-string Puerto Rican tres. So how could the Puerto Rican tres have been invented in Puerto Rico in 1934 when it apparently already existed in New York City?

What might help resolve the conflicting information is the following information which reached us recently (12/04) from the Austrian guitarrist and enthusiast Chris Molisch, who was informed by Efraín Amador, professor of tres and laúd at ISA Institute in Habana, Cuba--who knew Isaac Oviedo personally--that the first trip by Oviedo to Puerto Rico fue was in 1929, not in 1934. If this was real date that Puerto Ricans first saw the Cuban tres in the hands of a legendary player of the instrument, it is fully possible that by 1934 the new instrument had migrated to New York City.

Further below, however you can read of later information we received that seems to evidence that the tres Oviedo brought to Puerto Rico was a now-obsolete nine-string tres, which was picked up by Piliche and became the Puerto Rican standard.

¿Quién hizo el primer tres puertorriqueño?

Pellino Medina. En el barrio Trastalleres en Santurce.

¿Y como en qué año murió ese señor?

Ese señor murió como en...yo te digo...que murió como en el...antes del 1950.

¿Y como qué edad tendría él?

Era un señor ya de edad, un señor como de setenta años o algo así. Y entonces quedó el hijo.

¿Y el hacía los tres en ese estilo que vemos ahí, que parece un cuatro?

El fue que dejó sus moldes para hacer el tres, que se lo dejó al hijo. El hijo se llama Hilo.

¿Usted no se recuerda los tres antes en diferentes formas, de diferente estilo?

Pues lo que traían y lo que tocaban era un tres que parecía una guitarra española, con seis cuerdas, que lo tocaba Luís “Lija” Ortiz, después vi al Cieguito de Ponce que tocaba con una guitarra eléctrica, que era bien famoso. Que tenía la guitarra americana, eléctrica. Pero bien prepará, con seis cuerdas.

¿Y como usted sabe que Medina empezó con la forma esa?

Porque después yo conocí al hijo, que se quedó con el taller, y cuando él murió, y entonces el hijo me dijo, “mira, ahí yo tengo los moldes q     ue me dejó el papá. Y ahora yo estoy haciendo tres más de esos. Ya a Mario Hernández le he hecho dos tres,  y el que te estoy haciendo a ti,” porque ya me ha hecho dos a mí, uno que se me destruyó por la vejez, por tiempo, y después hizo este.

¿Desde cuando estaba haciendo treses?

Válgame, desde muchachito. Y murió también. El que me hizo este tres, ya también murió, ya como hace dos o tres años [1991-1992].  Me dicen que en Santurce, el único que queda ahora es uno que llaman Guilín [ed. Guilín luego se mudo a Vega Baja y después al Estado de Florida]  Ese estuvo mucho tiempo trabajando en la Gretsch (compañía de guitarras ubicada en Brooklyn, NY), en Nueva York, las guitarras Gretsch, las buenas que salían. Pues trabajaba allí afinándolas, poniéndole los pickups, y poniendo esas cosas. Y después se vino acá y puso una tienda de esas, un taller. Y hace cuatro, hace guitarras, hace tres.

¿Entonces usted sabe que el estilo ese que se le da al tres, que tiene los cortes de violin, que eso también es de Puerto Rico?

Si, eso nació aquí, si.

¿Y las nueve cuerdas que se le ponen?

También fue de aquí. Porque el tres de Cuba era de seis cuerdas nada más. Dos, dos y dos. Pues aquí se inventaron una y por ahí siguieron de rolo.

¿En dónde usted vio el primer tres?

El primer tres lo vi yo en Santurce, en casa de un señor que se llamaba Zapatero.

¿Como en qué año fue eso?

Como el 51, el 52, por ahí. Zapatero. Que tocaba con el Septeto Puerto Rico.

¿Y como usted encuerda el tres?

Con dos primas [ed., cuerdas de guitarra], una tercera; tres segundas; y vuelve y se repite arriba dos primas y una tercera.

¿La tercera va en el medio?

En la [orden] de abajo, va la tercera encima...de las dos primas. Y la última de arriba, la tercera va debajo de las dos primas.

¿Y se afina en la clave de Re y de Do?

Tiene dos afinaciones, la clave de Re y la clave de Do. Porque como la clave de Re sube mucho hay tres que no aguantan el empuje, como digo yo, y (interrumpción)...más bajita la afinación, pero te queda bastante incómodo para ejecutarlo. Y es más, porque esa es la más genuina de las afinaciones. Entonces los cubanos, y to’ esa gente usaban esa guitarras, antes, y era con una sordina. Puestas, pues la quitaban de aquí pa’ ponerlas acá. La bajaban aquí y la subían acá. No es como ahora, que no se usa.

¿No se usa sordina ahora en el tres?

No, y el que toca tres con sordina ahora, no...no es músico. Aqui esta el huesito. Y más pa’ bajo no le puedes poner más na’. Solo uña y dedos. (ríe).

    It's perhaps easy to accept the proposition that Puerto Rican stringed instruments were descendants of ancient Spanish stringed instruments. But it may be harder to accept the concept that one of them was born in modern times with the sole purpose of playing Cuban music. But that's how it was with the Puerto Rican tres.
     On the other hand, the idea of a Puerto Rican Cuban instrument is not so strange if you consider that during the last two centuries, Cuban and Puerto Rican cultures have frequently and intimately intertwined.
    One of the consequences of this cultural proximity was that the Cuban three-course instrument, created to provide the rhythmic ostinato passages for the Cuban son and changui, was adopted in Puerto Rico, but adapted with a different and distinctive shape and stringing, while keeping the original modal tuning: thus was born the instrument that has become known as the Puerto Rican tres. 



Listen to the Puerto Rican tres:

Carreteros (requires Real Player) Cuarteto Marcano. The tresista could be one of the following: Luis "Lija" Ortiz or Sarraíl Archilla (c.1945-46)

Alma Borincana (requires Real Player) Guaracha by the Quinteto La Plata, c. 1937, thel tresista probably is Cándido Vicenti

     Starting from the time that U.S. citizenship was imposed on Puerto Ricans at the start of the First World War in 1917, boricuas travelled to New York to better their living conditions. Musicians were no exception. From the beginnings of the 1920s to the end of the 1940s, Puerto Rican musicians recorded music that was in vogue for American recording companies. Most of it was music with Cuban roots designed for the North American market, the Latino market and above all for the Latin American market. At the time it was a very concentrated and controlled industry with musical styles and fads dictated by the entrepreneurs rather than by the musicians, and it was more economical to hire local artists in New York than to carry portable recording equipment to Cuba, Santo Domingo or Puerto Rico. This is why so many ancient son and guaracha recordings exist, predominantly performed by Puerto Rican musicians. Later, native recording industries arose in each of the Latin American countries.
     It is within this context, one where Puerto Ricans were obliged to adopt the tres as an instrument in their repertory. Composers like Rafael Hernández, Pedro Flores, Plácido Acevedo, Pedro "Piquito" Marcano, among others, found themselves composing music within this commercial mold, one which permitted them to express their patrotic sentiments, their pain, their feelings of love--but within a musical base that was essential Cuban. That generation of musicians principally composed guarachas, sones, rumbas, congas-all sharing Cuban roots--rather than seises, villaranes, danzas or plenas: Puerto Rican genres. Given this context, it is quite easy to understand the proficiency that many Puerto Ricans reached with the tres and their role with the music.
      What we have not been able to ascertain what happened first--Did Puerto Ricans develop and use the distinctive Puerto Rican tres for the first time in the great city? There is evidence for this, as well as persuasive evidence that the instrument was first created in Puerto Rico first and later it was exported to New York; So which one was it? Evidence for both possibilities is offered here. 

The Puerto Rican tresistas

More or less in chronological order, the Puerto Rican musicians that have stood out on the Puerto Rican tres have been:

• "Piliche" (Guillermo Ayala) 1906-1993, supposedly the first Puerto Rican tresista, originally mentored by the Cuban tresero Isaac Oviedo who first arrived in Puerto Rico on tour with the Septeto Matancero headed by Graciano Gómez

• Yayito Maldonado - Quinteto La Plata; Sexteto de Pedro Flores; Canario y su grupo

• ________ Reyes - Cuarteto Marcano (Los Carreteros)

• Cándido Vicentí - Sexteto de Pedro Flores, Quinteto La Plata

• Luis "Lija" Ortiz- Sexteto Caravan

• Juan Irene Pérez (Figurín)
  See more information here
  

• Mario Hernández - Los Diablos del Caribe, Sonora Borinquen

• Yomo Toro - Larry Harlow, Fania All Stars

• Tuto Feliciano - Cuarteto Yari

• Máximo Torres

• Charlie Rodríguez - Orq. Johnny Pacheco

• Nelson González - Conjunto Folklórico Experimental, Típica 73, Cachao, Marc Anthony. Visit Nelson's webiste

• Tito García - Sexteto Moderno; Pleneros de Truco

• Oscar Ríos - Borincuba Oscar Ríos wrote us to add that he also played with Pete "El Conde"  Rodríguez, Conjunto Clásico de NY, El Sabor de Nacho, Mickey Cora y la Orquesta Cabala, Conjunto Caney, Pacheco y su Tumbao, y Cachao.

• Louis García - Conjunto Canallón, Cheo Feliciano

The marvelous and hard working Puerto Rican tresista Nelson González prefers to play a Cuban tres signed by Cachao. Nelson has won three Grammys and often plays with Marc Anthony. Nelson wrote a great new Tres method.

The Puerto Rican tres has three courses (groups) of three strings each for a total of nine strings.

From the low pitch to the highest, the principal tuning is in

C Major: G, C, E

but often a capo is placed on the second fret, changing the tuning to:

D Major: A, D, F#

The individual strings in each course are tuned in unison or are tuned an octave apart (in this case the higher-octave string has to be a monofilament (plain or unwound string) and the lower octave string has to be a wound string, in order to keep both strings at a similar tension even though one is tuned higher than the other.

However, the precise way the octaves are arranged in each course, or even which courses are in octaves, depends on the custom of the player. The most common arrangement of octaves and unisons within the three courses of the Puerto Rican Tres are: (The capital letters denote the lower octave-and thus the wound--string)

The following alternate Puerto Rican tres tunings were given to us by the expert Brooklyn maker/player Tito Báez:

1- gGg ccc eEe
2. Ggg ccc eeE
3. ggG ccc Eee

The author has also seen the following tuning
4. Ggg ccc Eee

The strings used on the Puerto Rican tres can be purchased in sets from La Bella (#L-730, incorrectly labeled Tres Cubano strings) or selected from boxes of individual steel-string guitar strings available in most music stores in different gauges. The plain or unwound strings are usually high tensile steel monofilament strings, and the wound strings are usually nickel-wound, but can be also bronze wound or silk and steel. A typical set of gauges would be:

High octave g: .011" monofilament
Low octave G: .024" wound
C string: .015" monofilament
High octave e: .011" monofilament
Low octave E: .024" wound

Ken Moore, curator of musical instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, displays the old jíbaro guitar found in the museum's collection as a result of the Cuatro Project's request. It was subsequently taken out of deep archive and placed in a prominent place on display.

Color photos below courtesy Chris Miekle

In Cuba, among the Creole class, the Son arose as a song and salon dance genre featuring the persistent sounds of a plucked string instrument alternatively playing the melodic lead and a four-bar ostinato passage called montuno. This repeating phrase forms a rhythmic foundation for the music. Originally, a guitar, tiple or bandola, played rhythm and lead in the son, but later these were replaced by a native-born instrument, a fusion of the three: the Cuban tres.

The original Son form consisted of melodies derived from the ancient sung coplas of Spain, accompanied by a guitar and an ingenious bass apparatus called marímbola (a hollow box about the size of a television set with an array of attached lengths of clock spring straps that were plucked by a player seated on the box, producing bass tones) or a botija (a large ceramic bottle with a hole in it which is blown like a rum jug). Some experts, however, understand that the direct historic antecedent to the son was a genre called "changúí," still played by some folkloric groups in Cuba.

The son ensemble evolved by growing in size until it included up to six or seven musicians (known correspondingly as sexteto or septeto): guitar, tres, maracas, claves (in the hands of the lead singer) and bongos; variously, one or more trumpets, a second guitarist, and a mar'mbola or botija would complete the grouping. The bass line was provided by the marímbola or the botija, but these instruments would disappear, as the groups became louder and rowdier, in favor of the more sonorous bass fiddle.

The Cuban tres itself began as a rustic native adaptation of the Spanish family of wire-strung instruments that were popular in Spain during colonial times: laúd, bandola and bandurria. The seventeenth century historian Bermudo describes a three-course bandurria which may have set the pattern for the first tres. The earliest are said to have been made from codfish boxes, most likely by African-Cuban dock workers. It was usually played with a tortoise-shell pick. Over time, the tres evolved into an object of refined craft, losing its rustic, mandolin-like form and growing in size, but retaining its bandurria-like pear shaped outline. Perhaps looking for greater sonority, Arsenio Rodriguez and Isaac Oviedo often played tres on a Spanish guitar adapted for three doubled up wire-string courses÷and its neck and scale shortened to ten frets to the body. Today, adapted guitars are the most often-seen form of the tres. When the son was eventually absorbed into the cabaret and dance hall, the instrument's job of playing the montuno over and over was largely taken up by the piano. Since then, the importance of the tres has waned in modern popular music, and can be seen today mostly during revivals of traditional forms.

Great Cuban treseros 

Early in this century, several legendary tresistas [tres players] would emerge: Nené Manfugás, Carlos Godines, Arsenio Rodriguez, Isaac Oviedo, and Eliseo Silveira. They are considered to be national treasures of Cuban music. Known as a bohemian and adventurer, Nené Manfugás brought his music from the hinterlands of Baracoa into the great city of Santiago de Cuba in the late 1880s. He played early, primitive sones that were marvelously rich despite the rusticity of his tres, and in the process propelled the son as a national genre.

Arsenio Rodriguez was a great composer and tresero from Matanzas. Blinded at an early age, he nonetheless developed a unique style that became established as a standard form.

Arsenio Rodriguez

 Listen to an audio fragment of Arsenio playing a solo on his tres, in a 1940 recording with Miguelito Valdéz, titled: Se va el caramelero

Arsenio developed the Son's combo structure, which included the tumbadora drum,  and which would become the indispensable characteristic of the Son and all subsequent derivative forms. During the fifties, his music had fallen out of style in his homeland, and like so many traditional Caribbean musicians, he found a new and eager audience among hundreds of thousands of Cuban and Puerto Rican expatriates in New York City. He left behind a treasury of original compositions when he died in Los Angeles, California in 1972 at the age of 61.

Isaac Oviedo, another great Cuban tresero from Matanzas was born in 1902. During the 1920s he formed the Septeto Matancero, and toured the Caribbean and the United States during the twenties and thirties, leaving a craze behind him as he traveled.

Isaac Oviedo

During the twenties, the Septeto Nacional de Ignacio Piñeiro was another musical powerhouse that spread the Son throughout Latin America. Indeed Piñeiro is credited with having established the Son as a ballroom dance form (most other dances of the time were essentially communal or figure-dances) where a couple danced "solitos" or all by themselves. Around 1977 the surviving members of the Septeto Nacional reunited. The event was documented on film as a tribute to Piñeiro by his now octagenarian band associates.

While all the legendary treseros, sadly, have died off, a crop of top treseros still keep the flame of the son and its derivatives still alive: Three highly regarded living treseros are Francisco "Pancho" Amat, a Cuban with the Adalberto Alvarez y su Son group in Cuba, Also, one of the most technically proficient players on the level of Pancho Amat is Juan "Coto" de la Cruz Antomarchi.  He played w/Elio Reve and is now touring with Cubanismo and his own band.

Other important Cuban treseros are

• Alejandro "Mulato" Rodríguez - Cuarteto Machín
• Félix Ganuza - Cuarteto Machín
• Papi Oviedo - Conjunto Familia Oviedo, Orq. Revé
• Reyes 'Chito' Latamblet es el tresero a quien se le da la mayor responsabilidad por haber implementado el estilo de "changui" de tocar el tres
• Niño Rivera - Estrellas del Areito
• Guillermo Pompa Montero
  tocó con Chito Latamblet, Isaac Oviedo, alumno de Niño Rivera
• Storch - Cuarteto Caney
• Francisco "Pancho" Amat - Manguaré, Adalberto Alvarez
• Juan de Marcos González - Sierra Maestra, Afro-Cuban All Stars
• Guillermo Céspedes - Conjunto Céspedes
• Juan "Cotó" de la Cruz Antoniomarchi - grupo Ecos del Caribe

Stringing and Tuning

The Cuban tres carries three courses (groups) of two strings each, adding up to six strings.

Starting with the string closest to the player, the modern tuning is in C Major:

G, C, E

Frequently a capo is placed behind the the second fret, changing the tuning to D Major:

A, D, F#

Cuban countryfolk use different tunings when playing the genre called Punto Cubano. These are:

F, C#, F#
(This one is called "transportáo al medio" or transposed to the middle)

Otra es:

F,  D,  G
(called "afinación al dos" or double tuning)

  The strings within each course are tuned in unison or in octaves. Within the octave courses the lowest-pitch string is wound (wrapped with a fine metal wire) and the highest is a mono-filament wire string. The mass difference between the two allows them to stay at the same tension while being tuned an octave apart.

However, the precise ways in which the plain and wound strings are configured within each course, or even which courses are unison or octave courses, varies according to custom. The most common configurations of octave and unison string courses on the Cuban tres are as follows: (Capital letters denote the lower-octave--and thus wound--strings)

1-   g/G    c/c    E/e
2-   g/G   c/c    e/e

There are other configurations but they are not seen very often. Among them: 

3-   G/g   c/c   e/e
4.   G/g   C/c  E/e

Las cuerdas para el tres cubano pueden ser seleccionadas de cajas de cuerdas individuales de acero de guitarra disponibles en distinto calibres de tiendas de música-usualmente las más grandes. Las cuerdas sencillas usualmente son de acero ténsil y las entorchadas son usualmente envueltos en hilo niquelado o bronceado, o a veces son una combinación de seda y metal. Los calibres son típicamente los siguientes:

sol octava aguda: .009" sencilla
SOL octava grave: .022" entorchada
do: .011 sencilla
mi octava aguda: .009"sencilla
MI octava grave: .022" entorchada