A guitarist is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar by singing or playing the harmonica, or both.
The Music of Puerto Rico has evolved as a heterogeneous and dynamic product of diverse cultural resources. The most conspicuous musical sources of Puerto Rico have primarily included African, Taino Indigenous, and European influences. Puerto Rican music culture today comprises a wide and rich variety of genres, ranging from essentially native genres such as bomba, jíbaro, seis, danza, and plena to more recent hybrid genres such as salsa, Latin trap and reggaeton. Broadly conceived, the realm of "Puerto Rican music" should naturally comprise the music culture of the millions of people of Puerto Rican descent who have lived in the United States, especially in New York City. Their music, from salsa to the boleros of Rafael Hernández, cannot be separated from the music culture of Puerto Rico itself.
A tiple, is a plucked typically 12-string chordophone of the guitar family. A tiple player is called a tiplista. The first mention of the tiple comes from musicologist Pablo Minguet e Irol in 1752. Although many variations of the instrument exist, the tiple is mostly associated with Colombia, and is considered the national instrument. The Puerto Rican version characteristically has fewer strings, as do variants from Cuba, Mallorca, and elsewhere among countries of Hispanic origin.
Aguinaldo It is a genre of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan traditional and cultural music, popular in several Latin American countries., based on Spanish Christmas carols or villancicos which is traditionally sung on Christmas itself or during the holiday season. Aguinaldo music is often performed by parrandas - a casual group of people, often family or friends, who merrily go from house to house taking along their singing. The instruments used are the cuatro, maracas and drums. Some popular aguinaldos are Burrito Sabanero (Venezuela), El Asalto, Feliz Navidad, and De la Montaña Venimos.
Puerto Rican migration to Hawaii began when Puerto Rico's sugar industry was devastated by two hurricanes in 1899. The devastation caused a worldwide shortage in sugar and a huge demand for the product from Hawaii. Consequently, Hawaiian sugarcane plantation owners began to recruit the jobless, but experienced, laborers from Puerto Rico. In thirteen separate groups, 5883 Puerto Rican men, women and children traveled by ship, train then ship again to the islands of Hawaii to begin their new lives in the sugar plantations.
The Bordonua (Bordonúa) is a large, deep body bass guitar which is native to Puerto Rico. They are made using several different shapes and sizes.
The cuatro is a family of Latin American string instruments played in Colombia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and other Latin American countries. It is derived from the Spanish guitar. Although some have viola-like shapes, most cuatros resemble a small to mid-sized classical guitar. In Puerto Rico and Venezuela, the cuatro is an ensemble instrument for secular and religious music, and is played at parties and traditional gatherings.
A person who is specialized in the making of stringed instruments such as guitars, lutes and violins is called a luthier.
Víctor Guillermo "Yomo" Toro was a Puerto Rican left-handed guitarist and cuatro player. Known internationally as "The King of the Cuatro," Toro recorded over 150 albums throughout a 60-year career and worked extensively with Cuban legends Arsenio Rodríguez and Alfonso "El Panameño" Joseph; salsa artists Willie Colón, Héctor Lavoe and Rubén Blades; and artists from other music genres including Frankie Cutlass, Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt and David Byrne.
The seis is a type of Puerto Rican Jíbaro dance music closely associated with the décima. It originated in the latter half of the 17th century in the southern part of Spain. The seis is influenced by Spanish, African, and Taino cultures. The Arabian aspects come from Spain, where the Muslims or the Moors had ruled for over 700 years. Like other Jíbaro music, the seis is associated with Christmas, folkloric festivals, concursos de trovadores, and other large celebrations. The word means six, which may have come from the custom of having six couples perform the dance, though many more couples eventually became quite common. Men and women form separate lines down the hall or in an open place of beaten earth, one group facing the other. The lines would approach and cross each other and at prescribed intervals the dancers would tap out the rhythm with their feet.
Tito Vicente, 1959 born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, is a pianist, keyboardist, and a one man band.
Guitar bracing refers to the system of wooden struts which internally support and reinforce the soundboard and back of acoustic guitars.
The Puerto Rican cuatro is the national instrument of Puerto Rico. It belongs to the lute family of string instruments, and is guitar-like in function, but with a shape closer to that of the violin. The word cuatro means "four", which was the total number of strings of the earliest Puerto Rican instrument known by the cuatro name.
Tomás Rivera Morales, simply known as "Maso Rivera", was a Puerto Rican musician and a major exponent of Puerto Rico's Jíbaro music. Rivera composed over 1,000 instrumental compositions for the Cuatro, Puerto Rico's national instrument.
Ladislao Martinez a.k.a. "El Maestro Ladi", was a master cuatro musician. He became the first Puerto Rican to play a cuatro solo on the radio.
The tiple is the smallest of the three string instruments of Puerto Rico that make up the orquesta jibara. According to investigations made by Jose Reyes Zamora, the tiple in Puerto Rico dates back to the 18th century. It is believed to have evolved from the Spanish guitarrillo. There was never a standard for the tiple and as a result there are many variations throughout the island of Puerto Rico. Most tiples have four or five strings and most tiple requintos have three strings. Some tiples have as many as 6 strings and as few as a single string, though these types are rare.
Edwin Colón Zayas, is a Puerto Rican cuatro player from Puerto Rico. He joins a large number of Puerto Rican artists, "innovative tradition-bearing," who focus their talents in extolling the virtues of the Puerto Rican creole and Jíbaro way of life.
Gurian Guitars was a manufacturer of high quality acoustic guitars based in New York City, then Hinsdale, New Hampshire and finally West Swanzey, New Hampshire, from the 1960s to 1981. The instruments were designed by luthier Michael Gurian who also supervised production of the instruments bearing his name. The company was one of the earliest "boutique" acoustic guitar makers in the United States, offering an alternative product to those of the larger, factory-based makers of the day, with instruments characterized by a distinctive shape, features and sound.
Michael Gurian is an American-born guitarist and luthier of Armenian descent. He had some initial furniture making experience when he became a guitar teacher at the Guitar Workshop, Roslyn, New York in 1961.
Cachi Cachi music, also spelled Kachi Kachi, Kachi-Kachi and Katchi-Katchi, is a term that was coined to refer to music played by Puerto Ricans in Hawaii, after they migrated to Hawaii in 1901.
