Charango: The South American Super Ukulele!

Coleton33Music

Coleton33Music

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Look! In that guys hands! Is at a Ukulele? Is it a Mandolin? No! It's Charango: The South American Super Ukulele!

Lol, jk.

Over the weekend someone handed me a charango. It's a 10 stringed instrument from Bolivia, South America. Tuned in courses. (double notes)

Tuned: (g,g) (c,c) (e,E) (a,a) (e,e)
lower case = high
upper case = low

Which is why it's known as the South American Super Ukulele, because of its similar tuning.

Some pics:
http://i1246.photobucket.com/albums/gg608/Coleton33Music/Instruments004.jpg

Some Audio:
COMING SOON
(same as above)

So, What do you think?
Where would I get strings? (I'm in Canada, Eh)
Would you play it?

From a fellow uke player, and new found charanguista,

Coleton33Music: OUT
 
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Aquila makes 'em. I have two sets on hand. I will have to check my invoices to find out what I paid for them. I am considering making my churrango into a tiple as
Gg CcC EeE aA.

2012-11-03 I still have two sets of charrango strings. Someone fell in love with my instrument, so it now lives somewhere else. Hmmmmmmm......how would a tiple sound strung as a charrango? wdt
 
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I am sorry, I look at the photos on the web....I think the armadillo back is really disgusting.
 
I have a wood-backed (not armadillo-backed) charango. I love it. It has a very unique voice and can be a bit of a bear to tune, but it sounds really cool.
 
It's weird but I've been surrounded by charangos all my life (I live in Chile :p) but I haven't thought about getting one until I got my first ukulele :/ Now I'm trying to control myself by thinking "yooouuu shoouuuld leaaarn to plaaay the ukuleeelee first!" but this threads don't help at aaaall :)

Just like RevWill said, they hardly use armadillo to make them nowadays, so I think that's not an issue anymore :)
 
Once I read this:
A Charango player wastes half of his life for tuning his instrument.
The other half he plays a Charango which isn´t in tune.
 
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Just like to let people know that yes the Charango is GCEA tuning but the C string is an octave higher than the Ukulele C string. So you cannot transpose necessarily in the same way. I have been tackling translating a song made for the Charango to Ukulele and found this was a problem when I came to the C string and the sounds not matching. However, perhaps this probably is just more of a problem when you a fingerpicking and perhaps less when you are strumming. Unfortunately I don't own a Charango but would like to get one when I can afford it.
 
fan1322 said:
I am sorry, I look at the photos on the web....I think the armadillo back is really disgusting.
Click to expand...

Do you ever wear leather shoes?
 
To each their own. I have an armadillo shell ukulele and I couldn't be happier.
 
I bought a cheap charango on ebay and pluck away on it from time to time. Has decent tuning gears so it's not awfully hard to keep in tune. I like the loud tinny sound that they have.
Ernest

 
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