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The name cuatro can refer to any of several Latin American instruments of the guitar family.
The cuatro of Puerto Rico has ten strings in five courses, tuned from low to high B, E, A, D and G, with B and E in octaves and A, D and G in unisons.
The cuatro of Venezuela has four single strings, tuned from low to high A,D, F#, B. This is the same as the traditional D tuning of the 'ukulele. The predecessor of the Venezuelan cuatro is the four-string spanish guitar which disappeared in the 16th century after a short period of surging popularity. In the 1950s, Fredy Reyna documented the evolution of the renaissance guitar into the Venezuelan cuatro, and reinvented the cuatro as a solo instrument, equally capable of rendering traditional Venezuelan music as well as Renaissance pieces. The popularity of the instrument in Venezuela and elsewhere (esp. in Hawaii) may be due to the simplicity of the instrument, having only four strings, as well as its compact size.
Bibliography
- "Instrumentos Musicales de Venezuela: Cuatro", Diccionario Multimedia de Historia de Venezuela, Fundación Polar, ????
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