The parts of a cavaquinho
A cavaquinho looks like a thin little classical guitar with steel strings. The body is small and shallow; the neck is narrow with a guitar-style fretboard; the bridge is a fixed pin or pinless bridge glued to the soundboard; and a single round soundhole faces the audience. Everything is built for clean, percussive chord work rather than melody.
- Soundboard (top): a thin softwood plate — spruce, cedar, or in older Brazilian builds Brazilian pine (pinho de Riga). It does most of the projection work.
- Back & sides: hardwood, traditionally jacarandá (Brazilian rosewood) on Brazilian builds and mahogany or rosewood on Portuguese ones. Modern builders use cedro, pau ferro, ipe, and many CITES-friendly substitutes.
- Neck: short, narrow, and slim — almost always nylon-friendly width but strung with steel. Usually mahogany or cedro with a rosewood or ebony fingerboard.
- Bridge: a fixed glued bridge with a bone or synthetic saddle. Brazilian builds typically use a pin bridge; Portuguese builds often use a tie-block or pinless style.
- Soundhole: single round port. The small body and small soundhole are what give the instrument its tight, focused mid-range.
- Tuners: 4 individual geared tuners on a slotted or solid headstock. Brazilian builds usually use guitar-style sealed tuners.
- Frets: 17–19 frets, all standard guitar height. The 12th-fret octave usually sits well clear of the body for upper-position chord work.
- Bracing: light fan or X-bracing on the top. The Brazilian style favours minimum mass under the bridge to keep the percussive snap.
Variants & family tree
“Cavaquinho” covers a small family of Portuguese-Brazilian-Atlantic instruments. They share the four-string layout and a small body; tuning, body shape, and string material vary by region.
| Variant | Origin & build | Tuning & use |
|---|---|---|
| Brazilian cavaquinho | Slightly bigger body, deeper voice, jacarandá back & sides on premium builds | DGBD — the rhythmic engine of choro, samba, and pagode. Played with a plectrum. |
| Cavaquinho de Lisboa | Smaller body, more figure-of-eight shape | Often DGBD or DAEB. Used in Portuguese popular and folk music. |
| Cavaquinho do Minho | Northern Portuguese folk variant, narrower waist | Commonly tuned CGAD or GGBD. Drives village dance music in Minho province. |
| Machete (Madeira) | Tiny Madeiran cousin, ~17″ long | Tuned DGBD or ADF♯B with gut/nylon strings. Carried to Hawaii in 1879 by Madeiran immigrants and re-emerged as the ukulele. |
| Braguinha (Braga) | Mainland Portuguese cousin of the machete | Tuned DGBD with steel or nylon. The other direct ancestor of the ukulele. |
| Cavaco / cavaquinho elétrico | Solid- or thin-body electric, magnetic or piezo pickup | Studio and stage variant for samba and pagode — same DGBD tuning, plug-and-play. |
Tonewoods
Cavaquinho woods follow the small-body steel-string playbook: a softwood top for response, a hardwood back for projection, and as little mass as the design will allow.
- Spruce top: bright, articulate, and percussive. The default on most modern Brazilian builds.
- Cedar top: warmer, slightly compressed — preferred by some choro players who want a sweeter melody voice on top of the chord work.
- Brazilian pine (pinho de Riga): the traditional top wood on older Brazilian instruments. Light, resonant, and very characteristic of vintage cavaquinhos.
- Jacarandá (Brazilian rosewood) back & sides: the historic premium choice. Rich overtones, long sustain. CITES-restricted today — legal modern instruments use older stock or substitutes.
- Pau ferro / Indian rosewood: the modern substitute — close in voice, far easier to source legally.
- Mahogany or cedro back & sides: warmer, drier, and less expensive. Common on student-grade instruments and many Portuguese builds.
Scale length & neck
The cavaquinho is one of the shortest-scale steel-string instruments in common use. The short scale and narrow neck make compact, fast chord changes easy — central to its choro and samba role.
- ~340 mm (13.4″): the Brazilian standard scale. Light tension, fast response, sweet chord voicings.
- ~330 mm: common on Portuguese cavaquinhos and on the Madeiran machete. A touch tighter feel, slightly higher pitch “snap.”
- ~360 mm: a few Brazilian luthiers build long-scale variants for players who want stronger projection at the cost of slightly stiffer feel.
- Nut width: typically 28–32 mm — very narrow. Comfortable for fast chord changes; tight for fingerstyle melody.
- Frets: 17 to 19 standard. The neck joins the body around the 12th fret on most builds.
Tunings
Brazilian cavaquinho is overwhelmingly tuned DGBD — a re-entrant tuning where the lowest-pitched string is the one closest to the floor, not the closest to the player’s face. Portuguese variants run a wider mix.
| Tuning | Strings (4th → 1st) | What it’s good for |
|---|---|---|
| DGBD (Brazilian) | D G B D | The standard. The top three strings spell a G chord, the bottom D adds a fifth below — perfect for choro and samba comping. |
| GGBD | G G B D | Used on some Portuguese cavaquinhos and northern folk variants. Brighter than DGBD with a doubled-G drone underneath. |
| DAEB | D A E B | Fifths tuning — same intervals as a tenor banjo or mandola. Used by some Portuguese players for melody work. |
| CGAD | C G A D | Heard on cavaquinho do Minho. An old folk tuning shared with mandolin variants in northern Portugal. |
| ADF♯B (machete D) | A D F♯ B | A Madeiran machete tuning — the same intervals as soprano ukulele in re-entrant gCEA, transposed up. The direct lineage to the modern uke. |
Set any of these with the String Warrior tuner — choose “cavaquinho” from the instrument list. The cavaquinho chord, scale, and progression pages default to Brazilian DGBD.
Bridge & setup
Almost all modern cavaquinhos use a fixed glued bridge with a compensated bone or synthetic saddle — the same engineering as a steel-string parlour guitar but at a much smaller scale.
- Pin bridge (Brazilian): guitar-style bridge pins anchor each string. The most common build on Brazilian instruments.
- Pinless / tie-block: common on Portuguese cavaquinhos. Strings tie to a small block at the rear of the bridge.
- Compensated saddle: staggered to keep the high D and the third B in tune up the neck — important when the same chord shapes get played at the 5th, 7th, and 12th frets in choro.
- Action: low — typically 1.6–2.2 mm at the 12th fret — for fast, light chord work.
- Truss rod: almost universal on modern factory builds. Optional on hand-made traditional instruments where the neck is built stiff.
Strings
Modern cavaquinho is a steel-string instrument — that’s the single biggest difference from its ukulele descendants. Strings are light, plain-steel on the top and wound on the bottom.
- Plain steel trebles: the top strings (D and B) are plain nickel-plated steel — ~.010 and ~.012 are typical.
- Wound bass: the lower G and D are usually phosphor-bronze or nickel-wound — ~.022w and ~.028w on Brazilian DGBD sets.
- Phosphor bronze: the standard wound choice. Warm, balanced, long-lasting.
- Nylon (Portuguese / machete): some Portuguese and almost all Madeiran machete players use nylon or fluorocarbon — more uke-like in feel and tone.
- Ball end vs loop end: Brazilian pin bridges use ball-end strings; tie-block bridges use plain end. Cavaquinho-specific sets are sold both ways.
A typical Brazilian DGBD set runs roughly .010 / .012 / .022w / .028w. Move up or down only if you’ve changed scale length — the small body of a cavaquinho can be over-driven by heavy gauges, killing the percussive snap.
Picks & technique
Brazilian cavaquinho is almost always plectrum-played — the steel strings, the small body, and the percussive choro/samba role all favour a single plectrum and a fast, syncopated wrist.
- Standard plectrum: 0.6–0.8 mm is the cavaquinho sweet spot — thin enough to flex on fast samba strums, stiff enough to articulate single-note choro lines.
- Choro chord melody: thumb-and-index palmar grip, fast alternating up-down strokes outlining bass-and-chord patterns underneath the bandolim and clarinet.
- Samba strum (batida): a syncopated 16th-note strum with the back of the hand muting between accents. The cavaquinho keeps time the way a high-hat does in a drum kit.
- Pagode comping: a tighter, more rest-heavy strum that leaves room for the surdo and tantan drums. Looser wrist, more dynamic shading.
- Fingerstyle (Portuguese): some Portuguese players fingerpick the cavaquinho for accompaniment songs and folk dance — rare in Brazilian playing.
A short history
The cavaquinho descends from the medieval European cittern family by way of 18th-century Portuguese folk lutherie. Variants spread along the Atlantic trade routes — to the Azores and Madeira, then to Brazil, Cape Verde, and (via Madeiran immigrants in 1879) Hawaii, where the closely-related machete became the ukulele.
In Brazil the cavaquinho became central to choro in late 19th-century Rio de Janeiro — a syncopated chamber-popular music played by small groups of cavaquinho, flute, and 7-string guitar. Joaquim Callado, Pixinguinha, and Jacob do Bandolim built the choro repertoire that cavaquinhists still play today; Waldir Azevedo (“Brasileirinho”) made the instrument a soloist’s voice as well as a rhythm one.
In samba and pagode the cavaquinho is the batuqueiro’s harmonic clock — the high, percussive chord layer that locks with the surdo’s low pulse. Players like Almir Guineto, Henrique Cazes, and Marcello Gonçalves have kept the instrument central to Brazilian popular music through the bossa, MPB, and contemporary pagode eras.
FAQ
- Is a cavaquinho the same as a ukulele?
- No, but they’re cousins. The Madeiran machete (close cousin of the cavaquinho) was carried to Hawaii in 1879 and became the ukulele. The modern cavaquinho is bigger, has steel strings, and is tuned DGBD; the ukulele is smaller, has nylon strings, and is tuned gCEA.
- What’s the difference between Brazilian and Portuguese cavaquinhos?
- Body size, scale, tuning, and use. The Brazilian cavaquinho is slightly larger, tuned DGBD, and built for choro/samba/pagode rhythm work. The Portuguese cavaquinho de Lisboa is smaller and may be tuned DGBD, GGBD, or DAEB; the cavaquinho do Minho is a folk-dance variant in CGAD or GGBD.
- Can I play guitar chords on a cavaquinho?
- Mostly no. Even though DGBD shares notes with the top of a guitar, the re-entrant tuning and four-string layout mean cavaquinho chord shapes are their own family. The shapes look most like 5-string banjo open-G chords with the drone removed.
- Should I use steel or nylon strings?
- Steel for Brazilian playing — the percussive snap is the whole point. Nylon for Madeiran machete or for Portuguese folk repertoire if you want a softer, ukulele-adjacent voice.
- Why does the lowest-pitched string sit at the top?
- DGBD is re-entrant. The top D and the bottom D are tuned to the same pitch (or an octave apart depending on set), and the lowest pitch (G) sits in the middle. This creates the “chime” effect choro players use to outline harmony — the same trick the high g on a soprano ukulele uses.
- Do I need a special pick?
- No — a regular thin guitar pick works. Most cavaquinhists pick something around 0.6–0.8 mm. Try a few until your wrist feels relaxed at samba tempos.