Charango, anyone?
 

My brother brought me a nice little seemingly well-made charango a few years back that I've never played, and to be honest -- playing guitar and mandolin a bit too -- I'm just not up to learning a new instrument with totally different tuning. So I'm thinking about tuning its five string courses to the same as the top five strings on guitar, A-D-G-B-E (or maybe drop-A!?).
It's sure a pretty-sounding instrument.
Anyone with experience on these and especially with more standard tunings?

I have a Garcia charango - bought from Elderly, but they don't carry them now. Loads better than the one I bought on the street in Quito, which had binding applied with Bic pen.

I play in standard charango tuning, which is similar to uke, or guitar capoed at fret V. The Duran/Pedrotti book is a good place to start with South American styles:

https://www.amazon.com/Charango-Meth...s%2C188&sr=8-1

D.H.

SL, there are nine other threads in this subforum in which charangos are mentioned. Click on the Other Stringed Instruments forum, click "Search this forum," on the right and search the term. Hope one of those helps.

i'm fond of the work Kate Hathaway does on Charango...

I use mine to prop the bedroom window open. It is more of a folk instrument with a very bad fret job.

I enjoy playing charango and have a nice one, although i no longer play it much as I play latin & s american forms on accordions.

I'd like to get a ronroco.

I have a very nice charango given to me by a friend who is an ethomusicologist and spent a year living in Peru and studying the music. I don't play charango, but I may decide to work with it a bit this winter.

Interestingly enough, I've become more interested in the Ronroco after listening to a whole bunch of Los Kjarkas music videos. The Ronroco "inventor" is a member of the band, and I really like the lower register of the Ronroco.

Anyone who hasn't listened to South American indigenous musical form should check out Los Kjarkas:



This "interest" is somewht dangerous for me, as I build instruments often and have already started pulling in specifications to make a CAD construction drawing of an "Americanized" Ronroco. ;)

Thank you!