The ukulele has four strings, the taropatch has eight – why stop there?

In 1919 the Martin company, in its never-ending quest for louder instruments, borrowed an idea from South America. The national instrument of Colombia is the tiple, a triple-strung guitar slightly smaller than the regular guitar. Since ukuleles were much more popular (and therefore much more profitable) than guitars at that time, Martin decided to shrink their version down to about the size of the tenor ukulele and tune it accordingly.

The tiple has ten strings, with the first and fourth courses being double and the second and third triple. The second, third, and fourth courses are tuned in octaves, while the first is in unison. In addition, Martin decided to string their tiple with steel strings rather than gut, which, combined with the double and triple courses, gives the instrument a rich, jangly sound.

Other companies soon jumped on the tiple bandwagon, but the tiple eventually faded from sight, perhaps because the multiple stringing made tuning more difficult. Tiples are still being made, but on a very limited scale.

By the way, the word “tiple” is related to our English word “treble”; high-pitched. It’s pronounced “tee-play”, but is frequently mispronounced “tipple”.

Fred Casey