Just back from Venezuela (yes, worse still) and kicking back with some Tony Rice Unit albums tonight. It occurred to me how similar the rhythmic use of bluegrass mandolin can be to the Venezuelan cuatro in their folk music. The Venezuelan groups play with a different clave, of course, but the groupings I've seen used cuatro, mandolin or nylon-string guitar (more as lead instruments), acoustic bass, and either flute or fiddle as lead instruments. Sometimes, they add maracas. But in the absence of bigger-sounding drums, the muted "chick" of the fingers on the cuatro is what keeps time.

The cuatro is like a ukulele, and they string it like the top four strings of a guitar (D, G, B, E) but the E on top gets tuned down an octave. As a result, the chord shapes are the same, but different notes get hear as the bass. I assume they tune the E down an octave since the almost violent strumming would make it go out of tune if it were an octave higher. They reinforce the pick guards on both sides of the hole so the players can tap the instrument body rhythmically on either side of the strum, using the thumb or pinky depending which side. For such a limited instrument, they've really developed it in interesting ways.

Back to Tony Rice . . . what a magical player. Jazz, bluegrass, folk and all shades in between. And it always sounds effortless. Will have to go find some of his work with David Grisman next.