Official Luthiers Forum!

I was browsing around on youtube and i found an interesting video about the bigest guitar in the world. This guitar happened to be a Portuguese guitar. I've never seen one before and i was wondering if anyone around here knew anything about them or ever built one before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC-49Gnj ... =rec-fresh

Absolutely fascinating stuff. Thanks for posting.

I have no idea what the instrument is, but the tuners are very beautiful.

We spent a lot of time backpacking round Portugal. Porto is a beautiful city...the people are wonderful. Fond memories!!

Gotta love Portugal!!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Well, the guitar to the left (my avatar) is a Portuguese guitar I bought in Lisbon. There are two basic styles of Portuguese guitar, which differ primarily in the headstock design - the one shown here is a Lisboa (Lisbon) style - the video shows one from Porto. They are 12-string guitars (duh!), and are usually not played fingerstyle as the video shows. I have seen them played almost exclusively along with Spanish guitars to accompany Fado singers. They aren't tuned like Spanish guitars, but I can't remember the tuning right now.

I'll try to post a better picture of my guitar in a few days - I'm away from home, and don't have access to my computer where I have pictures.

The 2 main Portuguese guitars are the Lisboa style and the Coimbra style. Both mainly used to accompany Fado musicians along classical or flamenco guitars. While the flamenco players play rythm the Portuguese guitar is responsible for the melody which is played mostly in a fingerstyle technique with long nails or individual finger picks, this technique is called "dedilho" which means fingering.
The common tuning is called natural and is C4C3 E4E3 G4G3 C4C4 E4E4 G4G4.
I do not know how to play it but have been around many of them and would love to learn to play and eventually build one.
It is an amazing instrument...

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

For you guys that are interested, the person to listen to is Carlos Paredes (no longer with us) who is considered to be one of the most talented Portuguese musicians to date.



Here you can heaqr what this man can do:

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Peter,

Thanks for taking the time to provide the information and the sound clips. A truly fascinating instrument. I hope you do get the opportunity one day to build one.

Thanks Sam. I am still wrestling with the measly 24 hours we get per day.... and to top it off we have to waste a bunch to sleep....
But if I ever get the extra time I will build one.

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

wow that is cool! It reminds me of a mando with guitar qualities. The headstock design is fascinating too. Thanks!