Cavaquinho by Luthier

Description

Features and details of construction

Totally handcrafted construction. The headboards on the fretboard not only achieve a greater aesthetic enhancement but also allow a softer and more subtle sliding to the touch. The high elasticity of the luster in natural lacquer rubber, cooked with copal, sandaraca and elemí resins, highlights the sweetness and sound shine that are lost with synthetic finishes.
The structure of the harmonic lid consists of 7 fan spinel, with degraded thickness from the center outwards. Carved in height from 5mm to zero at the ends and with the nodal points (5mm) closest to the harmonic bar in the treble and farther to the bass, this arrangement allows to improve the performance of the lid eliminating unnecessary mass, gaining flexibility and response, according to the bass and acute areas of vibration. The continuous button with the bottom (uncut) allows greater stability of the handle in response to the tension of the strings and provides a better sustain of the vibrations.

History of Cavaquinho

It belongs to a family of small string instruments that had an important development since the sixteenth century, and that had a high-pitched sound. The word "cavaco" in Portuguese means "palique", which in Spanish is "talk or continuous conversation"; and this reminds a little of the way cavaquinho acts as an instrumental part in Brazilian music, hence its name. He was brought to America by the colonizers, achieving great popularity there.
At the end of the 19th century it was introduced to the Hawaiian archipelago by Portuguese immigrants, having mutated into what is now the modern ukulele for the first two decades of the 20th century.