How it began
The cuatro takes its name from its earliest form, the cuatro antiguo, which had a keyhole-shaped soundbox and four single gut strings. At the end of the 19th century Puerto Ricans along the more urbanized coast, mainly in the north, restrung it with ten wire strings in five pairs. The change followed the tours of Spanish and Italian string orchestras called estudiantinas, whose loud wire-strung bandurrias, laúdes and mandolins were seen as modern.
Around 1915, artisans in the Arecibo region replaced the keyhole body with a shape reminiscent of a violin, which gave the instrument its present form.
Before it existed
The old four-string cuatro was the instrument of the jíbaro, the subsistence farmer of the island's central hills. Its tuning derived from an old modal Spanish tuning and stayed unchanged on the island for centuries. It was quiet and limited in range. In the countryside it led the orquesta jíbara, with the small tiple playing chords and the large bordonúa the bass line. The four-string form survived in rural areas until the middle of the 20th century and then faded away.
How it works
The modern cuatro is smaller than a guitar and larger than a mandolin, with ten metal strings arranged in five double courses tuned in fourths, the same intervals as the Spanish laúd. The paired wire strings give it a bright, nasal twang that carries over other instruments.
It is traditionally a melody instrument and is rarely heard alone. It is usually accompanied by a guitar or a second cuatro and by the güiro, a scraped gourd. Its main role is to accompany singers of the décima, a ten-line verse form, played to the rhythms of the seis and the aguinaldo.
How it spread
The ten-string, violin-shaped cuatro spread across the island in the earliest days of Puerto Rican radio, played by the composer Ladislao Martínez in duo with Sarriel Archilla. It soon replaced the older form. Migrants with rural roots took it with them from the end of the 1800s onward, to Hawaiian sugar plantations and to cities such as New York and Chicago. Musicians including Chuíto el de Bayamón and Ramito made the earliest cuatro records in New York, from where they were distributed back to the island. The instrument also appears in plena, and it was used in 1970s salsa to underline the music's Puerto Rican character.
Where it stands today
The cuatro is regarded as Puerto Rico's national instrument and is its best known stringed instrument, used mostly for música jíbara. It is played in Puerto Rican communities from New York and Orlando to Honolulu. Its most traditional remaining use on the island is during the Christmas and Epiphany season. Some players have added strings for greater range. A cuatro donated by the collector Teodoro Vidal in 1997 is held by the Smithsonian, and groups such as the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project document the cuatro and related instruments like the tiple and bordonúa.
