Museumofworldmusic.com

Peru / South America

Instruments

Name: Ronroco.

Region: Peru / Bolivia > South America.

Specimen: Made by "Tico" in Lima, Peru.

Dimensions: Length 83 cm.

Acquisition Date: 2009.05.16 Saturday.

Acquisition Source: Rene Hugo Sanchez.

RonrocoDescription: The ronroco is a 10 stringed lute found in Peru and Bolivia. In appearance it is slightly larger then the charango yet similar in construction. When comparing the tuning and size of the two instruments of the ronroco to the charango One can use the analogy like the mandola is to the mandolin. The ronroco is played either solo or with other instruments, charango, guitar and percussion. Often the ronroco is tuned to a fourth, fifth or an octave below. The ronroco does very slightly in size. The body of the ronroco is hand carved from a tree trunk. It is then roughly shaped into the body. The body is then sculpted into detail and then sanded down. The body and neck are carved from the same pieces of wood, they are separated during the process then re-attached together. The fingerboard is of some tropical hardwood, ironwood or rosewood with slightly angled strips of bamboo in the neck for ornamentation. In my specimen a sound hole is drilled into the behind of the neck, as an acoustic means to amplify the instrument apparently a recent method. Other specimens of ronroco may have a couple small sized grooves carved into the neck before the finger board is carved. On the front of the sound board its cut from two pieces of wood a hardwood and what appears to be pine. The same string-set available for charango may also be used for the ronroco.


Ronroco Tunings
Standard for charango C-G-E-A-E
2 cemitones below D-G-B-E-B
4 cemitones below from charango C-F-A-D-A


Citations: Rene Hugo Sanchez (My Space Page) > Construction of the Ronroco (Spanish language web site) via google translate >