Charango

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Charango from Bolivia
Charango from Peru

The charango is a small plucked instrument from the Altiplano of the South American Andean region , which originally used the dried shell of an armadillo as a sound box . Nowadays the sound box is mainly made of wood. After construction, the charango is one most like the guitar at the box necklace loud rare to the shell necked lutes, whose body is made of a hollowed-out wooden block. With a body length of 23 cm, the usual instruments are smaller than a ukulele . The length is then approx. 35 cm. Larger instruments, even those with a lower pitch, can often be found in music groups.

origin

The roots of the charangos are believed to be in the Bolivian silver city of Potosí in the 16th century, when people from all over the world came together in this city and brought instruments such as guitars, vihuelas and hurdy-gurdy . So they are not originally from South America, where string instruments were very probably not known in pre-Hispanic times. Numerous images in local churches suggest this. The name comes from the two words charanga (for example "music with brass instruments") and charanguero ("raw, coarse, uncouth"), perhaps interspersed with the word Chajhuancu , which in Quechua , the original language of the Altiplano, means "noisy" or "seditious" means. In 2006, Bolivia declared the instrument as "the musical heritage of Bolivia". On September 4, 2007, the Instituto Nacional de Cultura of Peru declared the Charango to be the “cultural heritage of Peru”.

The mood of the Charango, its ten strings (five double strings) and the position of the lowest string ( octave ) in the middle (third pair of strings) make (acting similarly to the Jarana Jarocha ) its origins from the baroque guitar clear. Virtuoso touching techniques of the baroque guitar, which was used as a chord or accompanying instrument in European folk music, have also been preserved in the play of the charangos.

Originally, armadillo armor was only used as a sound box in remote regions of the Altiplano , while wooden sound boxes were used in the cities. Today, many professional Charango players prefer instruments with a wooden body made of laurel or ash wood because of their better statics, although the sound of the armadillo instruments is unmistakable, clear and authentic. Armadillos are eaten with pleasure. Instruments from their armor are sometimes still sold to tourists, although some armadillo species are endangered.

Design

Charango with a body hollowed out of rosewood

Basically, one can differentiate between charangos made of armadillo (Quechua: Khirkinchu, Quirquincho), hollowed wood block and guitar-like construction. The latter type of construction is often found in Peru (especially Ayacucho, but also Cuzco and Arequipa), while in Bolivia one sees more often charangos, which are carved from a single piece of wood and sometimes decorated with artfully relief images on their curved underside.

Armadillo charangos are often considered to be inferior in sound to wooden instruments or even inferior. However, it must be taken into account that in the rural areas where the armadillo charangos are still often played, a different style of music is used than what is commonly referred to as "Andean music". There the charangos are played with metal strings and a direct comparison of quality is therefore not permitted.

Depending on your needs, the fingerboard is provided with 5 to 17 frets (or a few more).

Style of play

The left hand is used to grip the five double strings (originally made of gut, now made of nylon , more rarely made of metal, or nylon and metal strings mixed with different strengths). The pitch is not in ascending order, but crossed. The most common tuning, the Charango Tipo or A minor 7 tuning, is e "e" -a'a'-e "e'-c" c "-g'g '( Spanish : MI LA MI DO SOL) from the first and thinnest to the fifth and thickest double strings. This makes it relatively difficult for players who are used to guitar to pluck the instrument. The third (middle) double strings are tuned octave apart, a low e (the string closest to the second string) and a high e (the string closest to the fourth string) All other double strings are tuned in pairs in unison (the same height).

The rhythmic striking technique, in which all strings are played together as a chord , is very common . The traditional Andean music is accompanied , such as B. Cueca , Takirari or Huayno . The Charango is held relatively high with the sounding body on the right chest, or alternatively sitting on the right thigh.

distribution

Due to the development of a folklore style throughout the Andes, the Charango spread far beyond its original range in modern times, so that today the instrument plays a major role in the not only in Bolivia and Peru , but also in Ecuador , northeast Argentina and Chile Folklore music plays. It became known worldwide through numerous street musicians.

Well-known Charango farmers

  • Mauro Núñez ( Sucre , Bolivia )
  • Eduardo Torres (Argentina)

Well-known Charango players

literature

  • Thomas Turino: The Urban-Mestizo Charango Tradition in Southern Peru: A Statement of Shifting Identity. In: Ethnomusicology. Vol. 28, No. May 2, 1984, pp. 253-270.
  • Thomas Turino: Charango and the "Sirena": Music, Magic, and the Power of Love. In: Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana. Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring-Summer 1983, pp. 81-119.
  • Guitar and charango. The Brazilian José Rogério in conversation with the Argentine Charango player Jaime Torres. In: Guitar & Lute. Volume 4, Issue 3, 1982, pp. 164-167.
  • Julio Mendívil (ed.): El Charango. Historias Y Tradiciónes Vivas . Hollitzer, Vienna 2018, ISBN 978-3-99012-512-0

Web links

Commons : Charangos  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Charango  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ also the Charango and the Charango
  2. ↑ Jaime Torres: Guitar and Charango. The Brazilian José Rofério in conversation with the Argentinian Charango player Jaime Torres. In: Guitar & Lute. Volume 4, Issue 3, 1982, p. 165.
  3. ↑ Sounds of the Past. In: Epoc. Heidelberg 2009,2.15. ISSN  1865-5718
  4. ↑ Jaime Torres: Guitar and Charango. 1982, p. 165.
  5. ↑ James Tyler: A Guide to Playing the Baroque Guitar. Indiana University Press, Bloomington / Indianapolis 2011, ISBN 978-0-253-22289-3 , p. 25.
  6. ↑ Jaime Torres: Guitar and Charango. 1982, p. 166.
  7. ↑ Wildlife Lexicon: Armadillo. on: herz-fuer-tiere.de
  8. ↑ Jaime Torres: Guitar and Charango. 1982, p. 166.