Charango Gear — Andean tuning & strings

The parts of a charango

A charango is a tiny lute. The body is a deep, oval bowl — carved from a single block of wood or, traditionally, from an armadillo shell — with a flat or lightly arched soundboard glued to the rim. The neck is short, the fingerboard is narrow, and ten strings run the short distance from a slotted headstock to a glued bridge.

Soundboard (tapa): a thin softwood plate — spruce, cedar, or in old Bolivian builds cedro andino. Often only 1.5–2 mm thick on hand-built instruments.
Body (caja): traditionally an armadillo (quirquincho) shell; today almost always a single block of hardwood (naranjillo, jacarandá, walnut, or cedar) hollowed out and capped with the soundboard.
Neck (mango): short, narrow hardwood neck with a wide-radius fingerboard. Joined to the body around the 12th fret.
Bridge (puente): a small glued bridge with 10 individual string slots. Tied or pinned depending on builder; bone or synthetic saddle.
Soundhole (boca): usually one round port, sometimes with a small rosette. Some modern builders fit dual ports for stronger projection.
Tuners (clavijas): 10 individual geared tuners on a slotted headstock — classical-guitar-style. Some traditional instruments use friction pegs.
Frets (trastes): 18–20 frets, all standard guitar height — the charango is fully fretted.
5 courses, 10 strings: all five courses are doubled. The third (middle) course is tuned in octaves — the source of the “chime” sound; the rest are unisons.

Body materials & charango family

The charango is one member of a family of related Andean lutes. They share the 5-course / 10-string layout but differ in size, pitch, and intended musical role.

Variant	Build	Voice & use
Standard charango	Carved hardwood body, ~37 cm scale, 10 strings	The Andean default, tuned GCEAE. Bright, chiming, made for trembling rasgueado strums and quick chord melody.
Charango with quirquincho back	Traditional armadillo shell as the bowl	The original instrument. Drier, more nasal voice. Now legally restricted in many countries (CITES on quirquincho species) — modern collectors seek vintage examples but new builds use wood almost exclusively.
Walaycho / hualaycho	Even smaller body, ~30 cm scale	A higher-pitched cousin tuned roughly a fourth above the charango. Used in highland Bolivian dance ensembles.
Ronroco	Larger body, ~46 cm scale, 10 strings	Tuned GCEAE an octave below the charango. The bass and counter-melody voice in a charango ensemble. Famous outside the Andes via Gustavo Santaolalla’s film scores.
Charangón	Mid-sized, between charango and ronroco	Tuned a fourth or fifth below standard charango. A relatively recent design used to widen the family’s harmonic range.
Electric / electroacústico	Solid- or thin-body with magnetic or piezo pickup	Built for stage and studio use in Andean fusion, rock nuevo, and pop. Same GCEAE tuning, plug-and-play.

Tonewoods

A modern charango is a wooden instrument from headstock to tail block. Builders pick top and body woods for the same reasons guitar makers do, with the added constraint that the body is usually carved from a single block.

Spruce top: the brightest, most articulate option. Common on modern factory builds.
Cedar top: warmer and more compressed — the traditional Andean choice on hand-carved instruments. Many of the great Bolivian luthiers (Mauro Núñez tradition) work in cedro.
Naranjillo body: a Bolivian hardwood from the Andean foothills. The traditional carved-bowl wood — light, resonant, characteristic of the “Bolivian school” sound.
Jacarandá / rosewood body: denser, with longer sustain and a piano-like bass. Used on premium concert instruments.
Walnut / mahogany body: warmer, drier, easier to source. Common on student and intermediate instruments.
Quirquincho (vintage only): the original armadillo-shell body. Limited to legally-held antiques in most countries today.

Scale length & neck

The charango is one of the shortest-scale fretted instruments in widespread use. The short scale plus light nylon strings make for very low tension and a fast, chiming response.

~37 cm (14.5″): the Bolivian standard scale. Light feel, quick response, the small “songbird” voice the instrument is known for.
~38–39 cm: common on Peruvian and Argentine instruments. Slightly longer for stronger projection on stage.
~30 cm (walaycho): the smaller cousin, tuned higher.
~46 cm (ronroco): octave-low cousin, more guitar-sized.
Nut width: typically 35–42 mm to leave room for 10 closely-spaced strings. Players with classical-guitar hands adapt quickly; steel-string guitarists often need a few weeks of fingertip work.

Tunings

Standard charango tuning is GCEAE — a re-entrant tuning where the third course is an octave higher than its neighbours. The result is the chiming, harp-like sweep characteristic of the instrument.

Tuning	Courses (5 → 1)	What it’s good for
GCEAE (standard re-entrant)	g g · c c · e′ e · a a · e e	The Bolivian/Peruvian default. Third course is octave-paired (e′ / e); the rest are unisons. Reading the chord names from the tuning gives an Am7 outline — the basis of most Andean charango harmony.
Natural (afinación natural)	g G · c C · e′ e · a A · e e	All courses tuned in octaves except the top E. A bigger, more harp-like sweep but harder on the bass courses — used by some Bolivian masters.
Temple diablo	e e · a a · e′ e · c c · g g	An open Em-style tuning used in some Argentine and Bolivian folk styles. The reverse course order makes melody patterns sit differently under the hand.
Ronroco GCEAE (octave below)	G G · C C · e e · A A · E E	The same intervals as the charango, an octave lower. Plays the bass voice in a charango ensemble.
Walaycho (a fourth above)	c c · f f · a′ a · d′ d′ · a′ a′	High-pitched cousin tuned a fourth above standard charango. Same fingering shapes, much higher pitch.

Set GCEAE with the String Warrior tuner — pick “charango” from the instrument list. The charango chord, scale, and progression pages default to GCEAE re-entrant.

Bridge & setup

Almost all charangos use a fixed glued bridge. Some traditional builds tie the strings classical-guitar-style; others use a tiny pin bridge. Either way, the setup target is low action and a featherweight feel.

Tie-block bridge (puente con cejilla): classical-guitar style — strings tie at the rear of the bridge. The traditional Andean approach.
Pin bridge: tiny ball-end pins anchor each of the 10 strings. Faster string changes, slightly more sustain, more common on modern factory builds.
Compensated saddle: staggered to keep the wound and plain strings of the third octave course in tune up the neck. Critical — the octave course will sound “wrong” without compensation.
Action: very low — 1.5–2.0 mm at the 12th fret. The light nylon strings tolerate close action and a light touch.
Truss rod: rare on traditional hand-carved instruments (the neck is built stiff). Common on modern factory builds — useful if you live somewhere with big humidity swings.

Strings

Charango strings are nylon, fluorocarbon, or in older instruments gut. Sets are sold pre-packaged for GCEAE and almost always include a wound third-course low octave (E) paired with a plain high octave (e′).

Nylon (clásica): the most common modern set. Warm, balanced, easy on the fingers.
Fluorocarbon: brighter, denser, longer-lasting. Many concert players prefer fluorocarbon for its piercing top end — better for cutting through panpipes and quenas.
Octave 3rd course: the third (E) course is one wound (low) plus one plain nylon/fluoro (an octave higher). The octave is the source of the chime.
Wound bass strings: the lowest courses use silver- or copper-wound nylon cores. La Bella, Aquila, and Medina Artigas all make dedicated charango sets.
Tie or ball end: tie-block instruments use plain-end strings (you tie them yourself); pin-bridge instruments use ball-end charango sets. Buy what your bridge expects.

A typical GCEAE set runs roughly: 5th g .024w (or doubled .024w), 4th c .029w / .020w, 3rd e′ / e .010 / .024w, 2nd a .020w (doubled), 1st e .010 (doubled). Aquila “New Nylgut” charango packs are the default starting point for modern players.

Picks & technique

The charango is fingerpicked — bare fingertips and nails, no plectrum. The tiny strings and tight string spacing mean a flatpick produces more clatter than music. Two right-hand techniques dominate.

Trino (tremolo / rasgueo trinado): the signature charango sound. Rapid alternating index/middle strums across all 5 courses, sustained as long as a chord lasts. The result is a chime curtain — the “sewing-machine” charango sound.
Rasgueo (strum): Andalusian-derived chord strum — index, middle, ring, then back up with the thumb. Used as accents inside trino passages and as the basic accompaniment stroke for cueca and huayno.
Punteo (single-note picking): fingerstyle melody using p-i-m fingers. Used in the slower, contemplative yaraví repertoire and in modern crossover playing.
Strap: a guitar strap or traditional woven Andean strap (chumpi) lets you stand and play in a marching band — the charango’s native context in the Andean highlands.
Capo: a small classical-guitar capo works on a charango. Useful for matching a singer’s key without retuning ten strings.

A short history

The charango emerged in the Andean highlands in the late 18th or early 19th century as a small Indigenous adaptation of the European baroque vihuela and guitarra brought by Spanish colonisers. Andean luthiers shrunk the body, doubled the strings, and (famously) used the curved shell of an armadillo for the bowl — producing an instrument that fit the high-altitude village band as the European guitar did not.

Bolivia is the historic centre of charango lutherie and repertoire. Mauro Núñez (1902–1973) is widely regarded as the father of the modern instrument — he standardised the GCEAE tuning, designed the wooden carved-back body, and trained a generation of players. Ernesto Cavour, Mauro’s student and the founder of the Museo de Instrumentos Musicales in La Paz, became the most influential charanguista of the 20th century.

Argentine virtuoso Jaime Torres brought the charango to international concert audiences in the 1960s and 1970s, recording with Ariel Ramírez (Misa Criolla) and touring globally. Today players like Eddy Navia (Sukay), Félix Cardenas, Alfredo Coca, and the Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla (Brokeback Mountain, Babel, The Last of Us) have brought the charango family — especially the lower-pitched ronroco — into film scoring and worldwide popular music.

FAQ

Is the charango really made from an armadillo?: It used to be. Traditional charangos were carved from the curved back shell of the quirquincho (Andean hairy armadillo). Today almost all new builds use wood — quirquincho species are protected and the wooden bowl has been the lutherie standard since the mid-20th century.
Why is the third course tuned in octaves?: It’s the “chime.” The middle E course pairs a low E with an E an octave higher. When you strum across all five courses, the high octave creates the bell-like sweep that makes a charango sound like a charango and not just a small guitar.
Can I tune a charango like a ukulele?: Not directly — the charango has 5 courses, the ukulele has 4 single strings. But the underlying re-entrant idea is the same family of trick: a small instrument with one course pitched higher than its neighbours to make harmony shimmer.
Should I get a charango, walaycho, or ronroco?: Start with a standard charango — it’s the centre of the family and almost all method books and tab assume it. Add a ronroco later if you want the lower octave for accompaniment or solo voice; add a walaycho only if you’re joining a Bolivian highland ensemble that asks for one.
Do I need a special tuner?: A chromatic clip-on tuner works fine. The String Warrior tuner has a charango preset that calls out the GCEAE notes — including the high E in the third course — in order.
Is the charango hard for guitarists to learn?: Easy in some ways, hard in others. The fingerboard is short and frets are close together, so chord shapes are quick. But the re-entrant tuning means guitar chord shapes don’t transfer — you have to learn charango shapes from scratch, even though the instrument is fully fretted in the standard way.

Once you know the gear, put it to use: