I've been enjoying all the small luthier shops around this area... this afternoon / evening we were walking through the San Blas area, and found another one.
Marimacho - a 16 stringed instrument with 4 courses
This luthier has all sorts of instruments, but the one which impressed me the most is a 16 string variant of the Bandurria with 4 courses (4 strings in each course) which the luthier calls the "Marimacho", seen above.
Apparently this variant is native to the Cusco area. This particular one is tuned the same as I tune my 6 string baritone ukulele (DGBE) so I could just pick it up and play it. The sound is very rich, with lots of overtones.
16 strings in 4 courses
Here's a Youtube video that I found showing the Marimacho in use - I am not sure if this is the same luthier or not (I didn't catch his name - given my lack of Spanish and his lack of English all communication was via Monica), but it does look like him, and the building style seems similar.
Some other instruments he has in his shop include some charangos, mandolins, guitars, a harp, etc.
A finished Charango
Terran holding an unfinished Charango
It was pretty cool to see a charango in progress - it is carved out of a single chunk of wood:
For our last Saturday here in Arequipa we decided to visit the Santa Catalina Convent. The convent is located in the historic center of Arequipa and it is considered the most important and impressive colonial structure in the city. Constructed from Sillar, a white volcanic stone quarried locally, the convent was founded in 1579, and is truly a city within a city. The nuns constructed private cells within the convent where they could lead isolated lives, protected by high walls sheltering them from the surrounding city. Most museums, or tourist sites here in Peru encourage you to have a guide, normally we prefer to do it without one, but this structure was so large, and with so much history, that I am glad we opted to have a guide show us the place. One of the many alleys within the Convent. Each street within the convent is named after a Spanish city, I think this one might have been Malaga.
Well, it is almost December. Now you are probably thinking about Christmas, because it is only 26 days away today. To me it seems closer and at the same time further because it is 3 houses away. Close, but far. We went to see The Crimes Of Grindelwald in Spanish. It was really cool. I would not recommend going to that theatre in Cusco, it was small and stuffy. Also it was a mall. Chinook centre kind of. Not so big! I would suggest just turning on Spanish subtitles in you own home. If you know me, you know how much I love Harry Potter movies and books, so of course I am going to end up getting myself the play script when it doesn't cost $81.51 so I can see what happened because I didn't really understand very much in the Spanish movie... 😭 It costs SO much! We went to some Catacombs yesterday. We were not able to take any pictures of the bones, but it was really cool. We saw he...
Another site on our Boleto Touristico is the Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo . This is a theater which performs traditional dances from various cultures around the Cusco area. They have a live band providing music, which play all sorts of traditional instruments, including flutes, violins, guitars, and mandolins. The dancers wear traditional outfits from the area in which the dance originated. The same dancers perform each song - I can only imagine how fast they need to change in between acts! I took a couple of videos during the performance... the quality is not great but it hopefully gives you a feel of what the experience is like.
These are cool! You took notes? ;)
ReplyDeleteSo neat! Can’t wait to see Wyatt make one! Björn is drooling over here!
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