Cuatro Warrior character art

Both Cuatros, Kept Apart

Two instruments answer to the name cuatro and share almost nothing else. This is the deep home for both of them, written so neither has to pretend to be the other.

Ten-String Chords Four-String Chords The Golpes Which One Is Mine?

Free, playable references for the ten-string Puerto Rican cuatro and the four-string Venezuelan one — every grip computed against that instrument's own strings, and every derived number recomputed in CI.

Three Necks, Two Instruments

The ten-string in both of its tunings, and the four-string that only shares its name — each with its own charted library, computed against its own open strings.

Puerto Rican Cuatro

  • Ten steel strings in five doubled courses
  • B–E–A–D–G, spanning a minor tenth open
  • The picked lead voice of jíbaro music

The Antiguo Tuning

  • A–D–G–C–F, the older criollo pitch
  • A whole step under the standard, string for string
  • Every grip transfers; every note name moves

Venezuelan Cuatro

  • Four single nylon strings, no doubling
  • A–D–F#–B, folded into a major sixth
  • The strummed rhythm engine of joropo

The Golpes

  • Six slots to the bar, two meters at once
  • Every brake declared, never implied
  • Three cells, all of it recomputed in CI

What Lives Here

Chords

Every key and quality on all three necks, fret and finger named, each library computed against its own open strings.

Scales

Note maps with every root lit — melody material on the ten-string, the notes between strums on the four.

Fretboard Explorer

Tap a note and watch it light up across a whole neck — the fastest way to see where a tuning folds.

Progressions

Each key's whole chord family as hand positions, so a change becomes a move rather than a name.

Exercises

Drills generated from each neck's own geometry, with tab and playback built in.

The Golpes

Joropo, vals, gaita — six-slot bars with every stroke, brake and beat reading derived from the data.

Two Instruments, One Name

The comparison page: tunings, spans and folds measured from the registry rather than described.

Chord of the Day

The network's shared daily pick, read twice — once on each instrument, with the two spans measured.

Free Tools

Reference tones for all three tunings, a practice click, and a colour mixer. No sign-up.

How It Works

1

Pick the Right Instrument

Ten strings or four? Every page names which one it means, and every grip on it is computed against that instrument's own open strings rather than transposed in from somewhere else.

2

Read the Grip, Then the Bar

Charts name the fret and finger on every string and scale maps light every root; the golpe tables say what the other hand is doing, slot by slot, brakes included.

3

Put It in Time

Playback on every grip, drills built from each neck's own geometry, and three computed bars to run a chord through — because on one of these instruments the bar is the whole job.

Why Two Instruments Live Here

Cuatro Warrior is the Warrior Network's deep home for both instruments called a cuatro. That is one site with two subjects, and keeping them apart is the point: the ten-string Puerto Rican instrument is a picked lead voice with a wide open span, the four-string Venezuelan one is a strummed rhythm instrument whose tuning folds its whole voice into a major sixth. Every page names which one it means, every grip comes out of that instrument's own charted library, and every number the site states about a tuning is recomputed from the registry in CI rather than copied from a book.

Cuatro Questions, Answered

More on the full FAQ page.

Which cuatro does this site cover?
Both. The Puerto Rican cuatro is a ten-string instrument in five doubled courses, tuned B–E–A–D–G and picked as a lead voice; the Venezuelan cuatro has four single nylon strings tuned A–D–F#–B and is strummed as a rhythm instrument. They share a name and a colonial ancestor, nothing else, and every page here says which one it means.
Why is the Venezuelan tuning written A–D–F#–B and not A–D–F#–Bb?
Because the last string is deliberately tuned down: that B sounds a fifth BELOW the F# beside it, which is why every open string fits inside a major sixth and why a strummed chord comes out as one closed block. Venezuelans remember the four pitches by singing “Cam-bur pin-tón.”
What is the antiguo tuning?
The older Puerto Rican tuning, A–D–G–C–F. Compared string for string it sits exactly a whole step under the modern standard, so every grip transfers unchanged while every note name on the diagram moves. It gets its own pages here rather than a dropdown, because the pitches genuinely differ.
What is a frenado?
The braked stroke — the strumming hand stops the strings at the instant it hits them, so the chord comes out as a dry percussive snap with no pitch in it. On the four-string instrument a strum pattern is defined as much by where its brakes fall as by its chords, which is why every cell here declares them explicitly.
Does any of this cost money?
No — every chart, table, drill and tool on Cuatro Warrior is free, with no ads, no account, and no upsell waiting at the end.