southcoastukes
Well-known member
I just received an e-mail that prompted me to post here. It's not exactly about Ukulele, but the Cuatro (Venezolano). If you don't know much about the Cuatro, it's the Ukulele's older American cousin and they are so similar in tuning that any Ukulele player can pick up a Cuatro and play it straight away. The larger Ukuleles (especially a light built Baritone) are candidates for Cuatro stringing as well.
At any rate, it's players are technically brilliant, and the best known today is a fellow named Jorge Glem. A website called "tucuatro" just e-mailed that private skype classes will now be available from Jorge Glem. To put it in perspective, this is the equivalent of private Ukulele classes from Jake.
Here's the link:
https://tucuatro.com/es/cursos/clases-de-cuatro-por-skype-con-jorge-glem/
Now of course this doesn't mean these classes are for everyone. Don't worry if you haven't played a Cuatro before, that's no big adjustment, but don't take the classes if you aren't pretty advanced in general.
Coincidentally, we were just about to publish the revised edition of our String Tips letter on the Cuatro. If you've signed up for the newsletter we'll let you know when it goes out (within the week). Otherwise just check our Tips & Info page. The letter will put the Cuatro in historical and cultural context go into detail about similarities and differences in play from the Ukulele, will have a short page on Calypso and highlight a couple of contemporary players, one of whom is the same Sr. Glem from whom you can now receive instruction. At least it appears you can.
The page is in Spanish, and it says he teaches in Spanish only, but it also says to inquire about an online assistant translator, and after all, most video lessons don't need much translation to see what's going on.
Tucuatro also has a large English site (not as large as the Spanish site though) so you could make inquiries through that portal.
And finally a disclaimer. We offer Cuatro "add-on" strings to selected Ukulele sets. We don't ever expect to sell a lot of those sets though, so there's really no self-interest at work here. What we offer, and even this post, are simply because we are big fans. You might be too and just don't know it yet.
At any rate, it's players are technically brilliant, and the best known today is a fellow named Jorge Glem. A website called "tucuatro" just e-mailed that private skype classes will now be available from Jorge Glem. To put it in perspective, this is the equivalent of private Ukulele classes from Jake.
Here's the link:
https://tucuatro.com/es/cursos/clases-de-cuatro-por-skype-con-jorge-glem/
Now of course this doesn't mean these classes are for everyone. Don't worry if you haven't played a Cuatro before, that's no big adjustment, but don't take the classes if you aren't pretty advanced in general.
Coincidentally, we were just about to publish the revised edition of our String Tips letter on the Cuatro. If you've signed up for the newsletter we'll let you know when it goes out (within the week). Otherwise just check our Tips & Info page. The letter will put the Cuatro in historical and cultural context go into detail about similarities and differences in play from the Ukulele, will have a short page on Calypso and highlight a couple of contemporary players, one of whom is the same Sr. Glem from whom you can now receive instruction. At least it appears you can.
The page is in Spanish, and it says he teaches in Spanish only, but it also says to inquire about an online assistant translator, and after all, most video lessons don't need much translation to see what's going on.
Tucuatro also has a large English site (not as large as the Spanish site though) so you could make inquiries through that portal.
And finally a disclaimer. We offer Cuatro "add-on" strings to selected Ukulele sets. We don't ever expect to sell a lot of those sets though, so there's really no self-interest at work here. What we offer, and even this post, are simply because we are big fans. You might be too and just don't know it yet.
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