Thursday, September 19, 2013

Jarana Veracruzana repair

This instrument is interesting in many ways. It is made of a nice smelling pine-like wood most likely endemic to the region:


The entire back, sides, neck and pegbox are carved from a single solid piece. The only glued on parts are the soundboard and fingerboard!

In this shot you can sort of make out how the sides were carved out before the soundboard was added:
And here you can see the back, neck all as one piece. It may look like a glued joint, but it is one continuous piece for the entire thing!
The other interesting thing to note, is that although the strings are separated at the nut into 5 distinct courses, for fretting chords, at the bridge all 10 strings are equally spaced:
I think the intention of this design is to have an even sound strumming across all 10 strings. There would be little melody playing done on an instrument like this.

In jarocho son music, the rhythmic strumming is very important. This type of instrument provides rhythmic strumming, and chords, while other instruments and singing would provide the voice.

I love seeing how instruments are built suited to a particular style of music.