while my guitarron gently weeps

[chuck3]

anyone played one of these? They don't seem too expensive. I could see how they might be useful in some acoustic situations.

But I'm really just wondering about them.

[LaklandBass]

look like a big oud with less strings

[Lazylion]

My brother has one. He likes it. I've tried it a couple of times, and I find it awkward, due to the deep-dish shape. Also, I tend to beat my plucking fingers and thumb to death trying to get some volume out of it. Those nylon strings just don't get very loud.
He got a pickup for it so he can amplify it, that helps.

It's great on Halloween, when he dresses up as a Mexican and plays it!

[Munjibunga]

They aren't tuned like a bass guitar and they are played in octaves.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

http://www.google.com/custom?domains...ORID%3A1&hl=en

Regards
Sam

[Dvidae]

Well, I want to try one too Im from mexico and I have hear them a lot in the Mariachis bands and they sound verry good, I also see that it plays like popping

[Byzcat]

I've mentally kicked around the idea of a guitarron. Haven't worked up the nerve yet to try one, but I do likes me some low frequencies.

If you pick one up, let me know how it works out for you.

[Pacman]

That's a bajo sexto, I believe.

[Jack Clark]

That's a guitarrón, alright.

It's my only bass instrument. But mine has been highly modified by a luthier so that it has a longer fingerboard that extends down to the sound hole and also reduces the normally very-high action. I have it strung with GHS short-scale flatwounds tuned E1-A1-D2-G2-C3-F3. It has an endpin so I can play it upright, sitting behind it.

Chuck3, if you're interested in playing it like a regular Mariachi guitarrón, you'd probably want to know that it is strung A1-D2-G2-C3-E3-a2, same note relationships as a guitar, but with that high a2 sounding lower than the C3 and E3. It's generally played by pulling up (away from the top) on two strings an octave apart, which gives each note a louder, fuller sound. (Except G# is often played on only one string.) The fretless fingerboard ends at about where the 7th fret would be. Unless you're a listening to a guitarrón virtuoso, you probably will hear only 12 different-sounding notes, rather oom-pa style, and sometimes with a flourish in the intro and at the end. A regular guitarrón has very high action and the strings vary greatly in size--the net effect of which is that each string seems to have its own set of "imaginary frets" that often do not align with those of its neighbors--you just have to get used to that. The instrument itself is very light, but it takes a good bit of hand and finger strength and endurance (and calluses) to play it well.