El Guitarrón

It was Labor Day weekend and my family decided to make the two hour trek down to good ol’ T-Town to see their daughter. I sped down the corridors and burst out the front doors of Kaibab-Huachuca (my dorm) to meet them in the parking lot just outside. Weeks had come and gone since I’d seen them. My mom, in the true spirit of her Italian heritage, hopped down from the GMC Safari, took one look at me and said, ‘You must be hungry. Let’s get some food.”

And so we did.

We headed to El Charro, a restaurant my Mom and I discovered during my freshman orientation nearly four years ago. As we carefully browsed the menu for something that would silence our starving stomachs, I noticed five brightly dressed musicians stream into the crowd of ravenous, munching spectators. There was a flute player, a classical guitarist, two violinists and a woman holding what looked like a cello that was converted into an exceptionally large, and rather bulky, guitar. It was the first time I ever saw a guitarrón and I was fascinated by its sheer size and smooth, rhythmic sounds.

I noticed the instrument, which seemed to function as an acoustic bass guitar, had no frets and a very short neck. Its strings were so taught that I could have sworn they hovered a full inch above the stocky neck. For all the non-musicians out there, that means the guitar has extremely high action. Basically, the higher the action on an instrument, the more pressure your fingers have to exert to press down the strings and make a clean, crisp sound. Translation: lots of bleeding, calloused fingers. My left hand seemed to curl back in pain just watching the woman’s powerful fingers swoop down methodically and pluck the monstrosity hanging from her neck.


(Video Recording of the Song “La Bella Italia” Courtesy of YouTube)

“Now that,” I thought, “is harcore!” I laughed in spite of myself. I’m sure it was the first time in history anyone ever referred to a mariachi five-piece as “hardcore.”

The guitarrón, I later found, literally means “large guitar.” It is in fact fretless and is known for its heavy gauge strings and incredibly high action. The traditional mariachi bands of the 1800s included a harp, according to a Stanford University Web page. Because of the harp’s cumbersome shape, it took two people to move through the streets while the mariachi musicians played. In the 1920s, the groups decided to downsize and replaced the harp with the guitarrón. I suppose, putting it in perspective, the guitarrón isn’t all that bulky. Since then, the guitarrón’s relatively light frame and deep bass range is a staple of the mariachi music scene. For more on this fascinating piece of Mexican history, check out Stanford’s Mariachi Cardenal Web page. You might also browse the Candelas Guitars business Web site, a company that crafts traditional guitarróns by hand. You may not be a musician, but everyone can appreciate a beautifully crafted instrument.