String/metal Instruments



Music in Cuba is basicly composed of percussion and string instruments. Percussion is mostly wooden drums with a leather top for echoing sounds. Whereas string ones reffer mainly to different types of guitars. The design of these are based on Arabic and African instruments.

Cuban Laúd

 

These string instrument are made almost entirely of wood. The sounboard is a teardrop-shaped resonant wood. In all laúds the soundboard has a single decorated sound hole under the strings called the rose. The design of these instrument was actually influenced by arabic guitars. 

The cuban laúd has actually 12 strings to get a high range of different tones.

Strings are made of animal gut, usually from the small intestine of sheep. However these strings can be made with a synthetic substitute,metal windings

  Cuban Tres

The Cuban tres has three groups of two strings each for a total of six strings. From the low pitch to the highest, the principal tuning is in C Major: G, C, E. A tres player is called a tresero in Cuba

Even though it looks like a guitar, the actual playing of it is rhythmic with melodic tunes. Chords are strummed by the tresero, and it strengthens the melody.

 

Marímbula

The Marimbula is a large wooden box with holes on the front. There is a bridge where the metal fingers are put. On top of them, a pressure bar holds them in place. By plucking the metal fingers, sound vibrations are transmitted through the bridge and into the whole body of the instrument. The body acts as an  amplifyer of the sound produced.

To tune their instrument, the player loosens the pressure bar on the marimbula and moves the metal fingers up or down. This changes the pitch to the desired tone.

Its origin is from sub-Saharan Africa.