Tres Cubano With Gig Bag

AA1572

Tres Cubano

Made by Guitarras Esteve in Spain

Top: Solid Cedar

Back And Sides: Mongoy

Fingerboard: Indian Rosewood

Scale: 535 mm.

History:

The tres is a Cuban three-course, six-string chordophone.

By most accounts, the tres was first used in several related Afro-Cuban musical genres originating in Eastern Cuba: the nengón, kiribá, changüí, and son. Benjamin Lapidus states: "The tres holds a position of great importance not only in changüí, but in the musical culture of Cuba as a whole." One theory holds that initially, a guitar, tiple or bandola, was used in the Cuban Son. They were eventually replaced by a new native-born instrument, a fusion of all three, called the tres. Helio Orovio writes that in 1892, Nene Manfugas brought the tres from Baracoa, its place of origin, to Santiago de Cuba. Fernando Ortíz asserts a contrary theory that the tres is not actually a Cuban invention at all, but an instrument that had already existed in precolonial-era Spain. There are variants of the instrument in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

The Cuban tres has three courses (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. However, today many treseros play a step up A, D, F# or D Major.

A musician who plays the tres is called a tresero.