What is this ukulele-like instrument please?

[BEBEb]

Hello. Just rejoined here after a few years in the Phantom Zone.

I remember an instrument that seemed the size of a tenor ukulele, possibly re-entrant tuning, with five strings. It wasn't a five string ukulele and the nearest two strings weren't the same note an octave apart. I regret not buying one I saw for £130. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a charango. cuatro, tiple or vihuela. It didn't use courses and I think the strings were nylon. The only video I remember of it involved quite serious-sounding classical music, I think, nothing light-hearted or strummy.

Thanks.

 

[Oldscruggsfan]

Hello. Just rejoined here after a few years in the Phantom Zone.

I remember an instrument that seemed the size of a tenor ukulele, possibly re-entrant tuning, with five strings. It wasn't a five string ukulele and the nearest two strings weren't the same note an octave apart. I regret not buying one I saw for £130. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a charango. cuatro, tiple or vihuela. It didn't use courses and I think the strings were nylon. The only video I remember of it involved quite serious-sounding classical music, I think, nothing light-hearted or strummy.

Thanks.

Cavaquino, though I may be misspelling.

Hello. Just rejoined here after a few years in the Phantom Zone.

I remember an instrument that seemed the size of a tenor ukulele, possibly re-entrant tuning, with five strings. It wasn't a five string ukulele and the nearest two strings weren't the same note an octave apart. I regret not buying one I saw for £130. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a charango. cuatro, tiple or vihuela. It didn't use courses and I think the strings were nylon. The only video I remember of it involved quite serious-sounding classical music, I think, nothing light-hearted or strummy.

Thanks.

Cavaquinho, likely, which I’d never heard of until I saw a UU member play one, beautifully.

 

[BEBEb]

Cavaquino, though I may be misspelling.

Cavaquinho, likely, which I’d never heard of until I saw a UU member play one, beautifully.

Ah, well you were able to lead me to what it is, the rajão.

The cavaquinho tunings on its Wikipedia page were an interesting first stop though, and that instrument was another I was trying to remember from seeing earlier in the year. I'd actually put a magnetic pickup and steel strings on one bad baritone ukulele and tuned it DGBD.

Looks like a rajão will be tricky to find.

Thanks.

 

[Peter Frary]

The timple has 5 courses: lower 4 tuned like an ukulele with a high D as the first course. I think it is Spanish in origin via the Canary Islands.

 

[Oldscruggsfan]

Ah, well you were able to lead me to what it is, the rajão.

The cavaquinho tunings on its Wikipedia page were an interesting first stop though, and that instrument was another I was trying to remember from seeing earlier in the year. I'd actually put a magnetic pickup and steel strings on one bad baritone ukulele and tuned it DGBD.

Looks like a rajão will be tricky to find.

Thanks.

You taught me something today. Thank you. Until now, I had never heard of a rajao. Also referred to as timple canario, perhaps?