FAQs on the Charango Charrango

Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 16:54:44 -0000

how are you doin - bit of a wild one here -
if you know you know if not its cool....
i'm irish and am learning trad music.

My father is from Peru.
He brought me back a native peruvian small guitar called a charrango (probably spelt wrong!) the back of the body is made out of an armadillo's shell! - are you familiar?????? - if not im not crazy - its actually true!

Yes, I'm familiar with these...you hear this instrument quite often within Peruvian music settings...supposedly, the melody El Condor Pasa originated centuries ago in South America...what contagious melodies and textures Peruvian artists have created...

i was wondering - as this has 10 strings (5 doubles) can i tune this to a 5 string banjo?

I have no idea...I believe you'll first want to measure its scale length...from the bridge to the nut or O fret...if the scale length is similar to mandolin, I personally would tune it in fifths from C G D A E low to high...and, I would also make sure that I was using gut/nylon strings...I would not trust steel strings due to unnecessary stress on this fragile instrument. With this tuning, you'll be able to relate what you already know on mandolin...

I checked out your site...and, I also have been pursuing some E-Learning mediums...so far, I've been using PDFs and Powerpoint...I'm hoping to get into Macromedia's Director for multi-media presentations.

At your disposal, Mickey

Here's a great resource: http://www.ancient-future.com/