The charango is a small stringed instrument of the Andes mountains, played mainly in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia.  It’s double strung and has five courses: GCEAE.  noticed that if you take off the first course (E), you’re left with GCE – our familiar ukulele tuning!  Like the uke, the charango has a re-entrant tuning; but instead of just the G being an octave high, the G and C courses plus one string of the middle E course are all high.  So, the lowest note on the charango is the other string of the middle E course!

The charango has a round back, and in past years was often built with the shell of an armadillo forming the body.  Nowadays it’s more common to see charangoes cared out of a solid piece of wood for the back, sides, and neck, with a separate soundboard, fingerboard and bridge clued on (No doubt the armadillos heaved a sigh of relief over that change!)

The charango in the photo (photographed with Kate’s soprano ukulele for scale) was built by Jorge Laura, a Bolivian musician and luthier that Kate met when her group (Canadian Content Theatre) and his (Rumillajta) played at the same festival.  Notice the strap, woven with typical Andean colours – and its case is equally colourful!