OK. If we squeeze the aramadillo any more we are likely to get something much less pleasant than amusement.
I seem to recall a thread a while back discussing whether or not one could legally bring a charango into the country from Mexico or Peru, so you might actually not want to go down that road....or you might want to.. :wink:
It was so long ago back when nobody really cared what you brought back from Peru as long as it wasn't nose candy. (An aside from Bill Cosby: A - So why do you use coke, man? B - Because, like, it intensifies your personality. A - But what if you're an asshole? -- Reinforces my generally, albeit somewhat non-judgemental, anti-drug stance - there are better ways of dealing with self-medication issues/needs - get help. Seen way too much damage done. Too many friends and acquaintances in early graves.)
Thanks. :happy:
Anyway time to close this thread down.
Story begins ....
I was in Peru on and off over a period of time in the 1970s. I loved watching street groups playing Andean folk music. Some of it was considerably, shall we say, less European in character than the nice, tame El Condor Pasa and was more like Pow Wow meets detuned Ornette Coleman at his most outside, played with charangos, reed flutes and pan pipes - (depending upon your tastes) it was pretty interesting. There were John-McLaughlin/Bela-Fleck-chops-level charango players. Being a lover of fretted instruments, I wanted a charango.
But everywhere I went, I found that the ones on sale in shops and artisanal markets were for tourists and were never intended to be played. Some of them were extremely well made and had the modern convenience of machine heads, but none of them had its bridge properly placed - not even close.
In Cusco, I stayed in what was (distantly) once a high end luxury 19th century hotel. It had been reopened by a couple of enterprising young Peruvian hipsters, who were fixing it up as they could afford to. My room did not have a toilet seat, yet, but it was clean. I do not know what went on in the wings of the hotel that had not yet been re-opened, but there was often a strong scent of sex in the air. Being young and speaking good English, and more than passable German (I was told by another traveler), the hipsters catered to the budget minded young traveler. They went out of their way to make sure that their guests got to see what they wanted to see, were not ripped off, and did not get into trouble. Nice guys. I told them I was looking for a charango and explained the problems I was having in finding a playable one. They took me to see a musician who was working at his day job as a street vendor. He said that if I returned the next day, he would have something to show me. We went back. The musician hauled out the armadillo and proceeded to demonstrate it with considerable technical flair - it was quite large, had 16 strings, 4 courses of 4 strings, rather than the more common 4 courses of 2 or 3, and had a chorus pedal-like sound (Aside: Why does the 12-string player/lutenist/mandolin/charango player spend 50 minutes of every hour tuning? So he can play the other 10 minutes out of tune. - funny, yes - fair, no, since the whole point of these instruments is choral dissonance - or more generally - How do you get two guitarists/violinest/etc or two of anyone to play in perfect unison? Shoot one!) . The musician used the armadillo more as a harmonic-percussive rhythm instrument than a single note thing but to great effect. He handed it to me. The bridge was pretty much right on. I fumbled around on it for a bit - it was tuned to an unfamiliar open chord with the strings not ascending in pitch but jumping around a bit, some up, some down- don't remember exactly how. Through the hipsters, I asked if it was a charango. The owner said, no, it wasn't, but got evasive when pressed for a name for it. Thinking I spoke no Spanish at all, he eventually said it was a "Tabaquina." We all smiled. He had made the instrument, and it probably didn't have or need a name - charango family, yes, but charango, no. It may be unique. Anyway, we negotiated a price. I offered American dollars. We re-negotiated a lower price. Everyone left happy.
I was able to play the "Tabaquina" while I lived in Lima with its high humidity, but upon returning to Canada, there were problems. The friction pegs shrunk and would not hold tension. The aramdillo/Tabaquina was relegated to curiosity/project status. I have often thought of taking it to a violin maker to see what can be done about the pegs or to a luthier and having machines installed, but ....
The stowaway termites in the end block (holes visible in pics above) showed up about 10 months back in Canada - the telltale dust on the floor below where the armadillo was hanging was a dead give away. It took multiple doses of Raid, applied with a hypodermic, over time to get rid of the persistent little buggers.
End of story.
