Portuguese guitar
The Portuguese guitar or Portuguese guitarra (Portuguese: guitarra portuguesa, pronounced [ɡiˈtaʁɐ puɾtuˈɣezɐ]) is a plucked string instrument with twelve steel strings, strung in six courses of two strings. It is one of the few musical instruments that still uses watch-key or Preston tuners. It is iconically associated with the musical genre known as Fado.
Models[edit]
There are two distinct Portuguese guitar models: the Lisboa and the Coimbra.
The differences between the two models are the scale length (445 mm of free string length in Lisboa guitars and 470 mm in Coimbra guitars), body measurements, and other finer construction details. Overall, the Coimbra model is of simpler construction than the Lisboa model. Visually and most distinctively, the Lisboa model can easily be differentiated from the Coimbra model by its broader soundboard and the scroll ornament (caracol—snail) that usually adorns the tuning machine, in place of Coimbra's teardrop-shaped (lágrima) motif. Lisboa guitars usually employ a shorter and narrower neck profile as well. Acoustically, the models both have a very distinct timbre and are tuned a major second apart, the Lisboa model in D, having a brighter and more resonant sound, and the Coimbra model in C with a darker timbre. The choice between the both of them falls upon each player's preferences.
As early as 1905 luthiers were building larger Portuguese guitars (called guitarrão, the plural being guitarrões), seemingly in very small numbers and with limited success. Recently, the famed luthier Gilberto Grácio has built a guitarrão, which he named a guitolão instead; this instrument which allows for a wider timbral range, on the low and the high end, than a regular Portuguese guitar.[3]
Notation[edit]
The Portuguese guitar can use Portuguese guitar tablature, sheet music in treble, or a combination of both. The dedilho technique is notated with up and down arrows over multiple notes corresponding to a downstroke or upstroke of the index finger. An "i" is used to indicate a stroke with the index finger, or indicador, and a "p" is used for the thumb, or polegar. The middle finger is rarely used but notated with an "m" for médio.[19]
While one can find many virtuosic Coimbra pieces written out as sheet music, fados are generally improvised and require no music for a good guitarrista to play. The chord progression to each specific fado should be innately understood by the studied guitarrista which allows for ease of improvisation in responding to the fadista. While this skill has traditionally been acquired by younger players playing alongside a more advanced guitarrista in an ensemble, it was only in the early 2000s that the first fado school had been established to formally teach the improvisational style alongside the written version.[6]