Ronroco is a baritone charango; the bass of the family is the charango bajo. It originated in Bolivia in the 1980s, invented by Gonzalo Hermosa, of Los Kjarkas. Your 8-string, 5-course Mexican instrument is a jarana jarocha, and traditional tuning (from low to high) is G3 C4C4 E3E3 A3A3 G4

13:16 This instrument is a Jarana Jarocha. It is tuned G3 C4-C4 E4-E3 A3-A3 G3

The 'Chinese banjo' is called a qinqin (lit. 'Qin lute') and it's a Southern Chinese instrument. I live in Hong Kong and you can find these in traditional instrument stores everywhere. I occasionally see old folks playing these at the park, but as far as I know it's not popular among young people, probably 'cause of its incompatibility with Western music with its microtonal tuning. I've also heard from store owners that it's the same tuning as what you'll hear in Cantonese opera.

Just a bit of history... For what I’ve read, The Ronroco (first instrument you show) was created in Bolivia (heart of South America), on February the 4th, 1968, by Wilson Hermosa G., at the Athelier of the “Kjarkas” musical school, in Cochabamba.

What a cool collection of instruments you have! Also that nashville tuning BLEW. MY. MIND. It sounds incredible!

those low notes on the last one oh my godddd

The Garbge bass is Hofner copy, not Rickenbacker. If you ever change the stings on the Acoustic bass, and want to head more in the upright jazz sound, consider nylon tapewound strings.

You can always add a Pickup to your Nashville Tuned cut away (or if you already have one) so you can use various FX Pedals for more sounds from the Piezo Pickup that the strings are sitting on the Saddle.

My favorite instrument to play is called a (Puerto Rican) Cuatro. There's ten strings (5 doubled strings) tuned in BEADG, the B and E pairs are an octave apart and the rest are in unison. Absolutely in love with it.

Strange that he doesn't mention he's left handed playing right handed instruments upside down........

10:01 you literally just described the guitar on my stand. Biggest difference: Standard tuning. Also I don't have a single clue how much it costs BC my uncle found it on the side of the road and gave it to me, with some new strings, for my b-day. But seriously, I'm 15 and your story at the beginning made me so happy because it kind of described what I do. Main difference is where I get the dolo. And the year I started, of course.

Hello, Benn! It’s really awesome to listen to your collection and recognize instruments from many tracks. Thanks for such an insight!

This was the first video of yours that I saw. At the time I wondered why you looked familiar, subscribed right away. Cut to several years later, you mention when you were in MMA, and then it hit me. That’s why I recognized you!

it has been a pleasure bingewatching your channel during covid... thx for such quality content keep up the good work maestro

I love unsual instruments , very lmprest on the upsidedown playing , it's hard enough to play right side up . Good stuff indeed .

You and Samantha Grimes are the only guitarists I've ever seen play the instrument truly upside down and lefty. I'm absolutely intrigued by that. I've been playing for 27 years, and I can't wrap my head around it. Well, you got a new subscriber in me!! Good show! >M

I was in kind of a bad mood today, but the way you said "goose" when describing the sitar put a big smile on my face. The rest of the video is also lovely, of course.

Ye ye yeee, I've been waiting for this video for a very long time! Thank you, always been curious about your stringed instruments collection

SO GLAD I FOUND THIS! The ronroco sounds deeply soulful.

Whatever song you played with the classical guitar was absolutely beautiful

This was an endearing video, thanks Benn!

This is great. I also have lots of different unique stringed instruments as a film composer and also agree that ronrocco is my favourite instrument. Thanks for the video.

Great video. I like your attitude about living your life. Thank you.

I don't know if it is just me but that sitar really cracked me up. If you ask me, sitars are by far the funniest of all instruments. Something really ridiculous about how big, complicated and weird they are. btw I highly recommend anyone to check out some easy listening sitar music, if you never have. Something like what Anoushka Shankar does. It is a beautiful instrument, too, and the people who can actually play them are extremely impressive.

I love that you played Dee By Randy Rhoads on the classical guitar being that it was on a Metal album haha

First time seeing your videos and I don’t play any string instruments ... so this was incredible, seeing what changes the sound so much. You’re hilarious, by the way, and it’s so cool seeing someone be so zealous about their passion. ^^

This is one of the most interesting videos I've seen on the internet

luv the way you pronounce Jac"uh" "runda" wood 3:33 the way we do in South Africa, where its a widely planted street tree in from Brazil with original blue/mauve flowers in October as well as more beautiful grafted white ones. Most Americans would say "Jack a Randa". Nice playing dude! I'm a keyboardist specialising in Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer and FM synthesis. Also kinda play the violin now and then but not nearely as proficiant as my keys......Always wanted to learn the guitar.

Benn Jordan A Nashville Tuned Guitar is essentially a 6 String Tenor Guitar tuned like any 6 String Guitar but the bottom 4 (or 5 if using Octave4Plus .006) Strings are up an Octave.

Benn (pun unintended) following you for a while now! legend person. Would you be down for a possible collab? I have a great new couple of concept Ive started pitching around

MITCHEL GUILAR WITH NASHVILLE TUNING, this playing you did is very relaxing. I could listen to that all day long. My mother's guitar is unique called a Regal, but is the Wood Type, instead of the Metal type. It has a huge box and fast action, close to the frets and a very clean & warm sound. I am thinking it is from the 1940's.

Sweet video man, I hope to get a Sitar some day, it's clearly crazier than I first thought.

Hey Benn, nice to see a musician like you Just a fact - Ragas are not tunings, they are basically scales with different motifs and grammatical rules like you can't play directly I note as you have to play II VII I in Yaman Raga which is in Lydian scale or Kalyan scale in Indian scale, there are total ten type of Indian scale and six of them are the modes of Major scales and Four of them are different. But in traditional way Indian classical music also uses microtones a lot to create emotions and expressions, as you are a composer I'll definitely recommend you to listen to any kind of Ragas, a suggestion for me is first listen to "Darbari Kannada Raga" as it is just the minor scale with helical movement -i.e. I vi vii V

You can try sliding the bridge to the right position on that chinese banjo to get proper intonation. I do that on my cheap acoustic instruments, like mandolin, student cello, or cumbus (a turkish instrument similar to you chinese banjo). I would try learning the elementary stuff on these unique instruments using their original tuning and playing style. Probably not the sound but the different new style of music you can create is the better value you get. I tend to play and record on my few guitars but employ the techniques, tunings, playing styles I learn from exploring other stringed instruments.

I very recently got given a violin and a acoustic guitar that was going to be thrown in the trash, I'm glad i got it because it would have been a shame if they were destroyed. Also, the presentation and editing is extremely well done on this video by the way!

Thank you, really enjoyed this.

Great story, really enjoyed this video

Thank you for the learning.

Hello Mr. Benn. I think we have a mutual audio engineer *friend back in Chicago (by *friend I mean the audio engineer, cousin of my college girlfriend). His name escapes me at the moment, so we’ll call him “the Cuz”. Anyway, the Cuz introduced me to your music back in 2004-2005-ish. I had just returned from a study abroad fine arts program in London and I was visiting the Cuz. He had just finished his audio engineering degree at Full Sail, Florida, and I believe he was either recording with you or possibly assisting/interning with another engineer who was working with you - something like that. Anyway, I was telling the Cuz about my adventures abroad, particularly at Fabric Live, ICA, etc. At the time, I was way into Squarepusher, Amon Tobin, The Streets, circuit bending... and I was studying Time Arts at NIU. So, the Cuz and I were swopping music stories and I played some of the music which I just brought back from Europe. (Sorry, this is a bit of a rant here.) After listening to music for a while, the Cuz recommended that I check out The Flashbulb. So, I did and I liked it a lot! However for some reason, I had trouble tracking down your albums. Anyway, I was happy to discover you here on KZfaq, only 15 years later. Ha. I know, it’s a very vague connection but I thought I’d say hi nonetheless. More to the point, I like this video a lot. Your guitar collection reminds me of my own obsession with musical instruments - specifically drums/percussion history; design; craftsmanship and engineering. As you told stories here about your guitars, I was thinking you might appreciate a page on my website which contains a photo gallery for a ongoing project of mine, titled - Instruments In Museums. The project is inspired by musical instruments as they are depicted and documented historically in art museums. Anyway, if you’re curious, check it out sometime. Here’s a link: bhansondesign.weebly.com/education.html

I looked up the snakeskin instrument, and apparently it is a Chinese instrument called a qinqin. I’ve also seen it listed under sanxian, but it seems to be more of a modern rendition of a classic sanxian.

Lovely Tunes - Considering you are in your right mind (grins at the Lefty)

That’s pretty awesome!

I'm not even a big fan of guitars, but this was fascinating!

19:50 ooooohhhhh, that's how squarepusher got those sounds

I love this and youuuuuu!!!

Re: the Mexican 8 stringer @ 14:00, is it a Jarana Jarocha?

@Benn Jordan do you have a pickin stick like the McNally strumstick, or a dulcitar like a seagull merlin? They are different yet similar instruments, and you should get one to complete your weird instrument lineup!

This makes me feel much better about buying odd instruments I can't play yet

9:51 pretty much every instrument I own.

3:04 what?! you own a charango and mentioned Gustavo Santaolalla? Benn, you're one my most favourite musicians and as an Argentine I'm surprised and glad you're speaking about a charango. It's actually shared with other countries and very common in northern Argentina used for folk/andean music. You say it's rare to find and that's a pity given its beauty. In Argentina it's pretty common, my uncles own one and I used to play a lot with it when I was a kid. You can listen to "Guanuqueando" by "Divididos" as good example of how a rock band uses charango.

HOOORAY! Thank you so much!

Hi Benn, Cool Stuff, I subscribed and even hit the bell. I'll be tuned in! Thanks Kindly! DaveyJO in Pa.

You should do microtonal singing exercises to get them in your ears a little bit. They are so useful. I had to transcribe an old recording of mine where I used a few. Really tripped me up.

Awesome.

You have very good free stroke technique.

you are right ! a ton of people who have come across the sound of the ronroco ( base charango) probably heard it in a gustavo santaollala track ! ( and I also thought it was an argentinean instrument originally)

I had an oud for a while, it sounded amazing but it didn't stay in tune for longer than 5 minutes and I was terrible at playing it so I traded it in for an octave mandolin, which can do a somewhat similar sound but with frets.

The fender bass reminded me of your sitar a little bit

Do a giant song compilation for every stringed instrument you have.

Other funky things that are relatively compact you might check out: Erhu and Appalachian Dulcimer (you'd probably want to find a full fretted one, they probably exist?).

I'm pretty sure that instrument at 13:20 is called a Jarana, however yours has a very strange tone as most others I've heard have a very ukelele mixed with mandolin-ish timbre. looked up the tuning: G C E A G. It also seems to be the only instrument with an 8 string 5 course configuration, so that's neat.

Hey, what a cool library you have! Do you have any instrument demos made for children? It would be a great way to show examples!

Enjoyed the video a lot. Effects video next maybe?

1:57 I'm litteraly the exact same got 4 instruments for Christmas last year- Otamatone Ocarina 🅱️ass Stylophone

loved Amazing Grace on the Alvarez

Benn! You seem to have some real experience with MIDI guitar, can you do a video on that?

I love this video, I’m hopefully going to buy a charango soon

The grain on that schecter is beautiful. Check out willy tea Taylor. He's the only one I know that plays a tenor. Incredible singer songwriter

Have you ever snapped a banjo string? Shit hurts so bad you can't even walk until it's done healing.

This is the first time I realised that you played guitar "Dick Dale"-style.

I find it really interesting that you're left-handed but you're playing right-handed instruments upside-down. My son is only 17 months old but we think he's probably left-handed, he really seems to favour his left hand over his right. I'm right-handed, so are all my instruments, and I'm already thinking about whether my son's going to want to play left-handed instruments, or would that be the best thing for him? I'd love to see a video on left-right stuff and how it affected your playing and your development. I try to imagine playing upside-down and it completely breaks my brain. Do you use alternate tunings a lot? Do you also play leftie instruments? How does it all work?

ABSOLUTELY NO EFFIN’ IDEA how this appeared in my feed but much appreciated on a crappy man-made-climate-changed summer’s evening in England; you can pick the bones out of this comment. Thanks Benn.

I see you play tons of riffs from your songs in this video and a question popped up in my head. Have you ever write a song and then its melody, progression etc. just keep stuck in your head to the point where they keep appear in your other song? If so, how do you deal with that?

Try "Sampek" such kind of traditional guitar from Borneo, Indonesia.

Shout out to old-school Helio Gracie and his magnificent mustache.

Hey, new to the channel. Quick question. Are you playing right-handed instruments left handed? I was more than halfway through the video before noticing. Absolutely wild! Nice work adapting! Awesome way of not being restricted to the small percentage of left-handed guitars that exist, also.

That 8 String Spanish thing is actually a Spanish 8 string ukulele- Tenor or Baritone depending on the tuning

14:46 Shamisens are tuned differently for different songs but thankfully they only have 3 strings.

17:00 you are all complaining about how he holds his guitar, but here he is wearing his headphones lefthandedly as well looooooll

Benn Jordan So you strung your Mitchell Cut Away Guitar as a Nashville Tuned 6 String Tenor Guitar. A Nashville tuned Guitar is a true 6 String Tenor Guitar.

this is the first time I've seen a left handed musician utilise right handed instruments, and I must imagine to overcome such a difficulty and still sound good is unique

At 10:30 he's playing that guitar like Pat Metheny! :-)

Amazing video. 5th in a row of yours that Ive watched tonight. Subbed now. You're awesome. FYI, you said ChIapas. It's pronounced ChiApas. Who cares? Probably not most people.

Awesome ronroco, but for that much, you could probably take a trip to South America and get one yourself! I think I may have seen you on a Bobeats video, but might be wrong.

I used to own an as53 ibanez, was a great guitar. Although, because it was so cheap, when the headstock got snapped off I wasn't too sad

Benn Jordan THe instrument you are looking for could be a double string form of the Requinto Jarocho played around Vera Cruz.

Do you have a tiple? And could you recommend a good, cheap one? I too am a bit of a cheapskate

Do they make fretted ouds? The sound of that thing is just gorgeous

Next you should get the guzheng, koto, gayageum and dan bau, please.

Thank you i have been wondering what the voice of a baritone guitar is I've also been wondering if you are reading this can you tell me the tuning of a baritone guitar

Wonderful collection! I have some opinions and helpful information though, I hope. Only thing I would say is you would have better luck with a few of those if you would just use a pick (or their equivalent), most importantly on the Oud, and the Sitar (Mizrab). Also with the sitar you are not going to get that signature sound without tuning the sympathetic strings. Seriously, you may find yourself enjoying the sound of these instruments much more when they are played more traditionally. Also, the "Classical" guitar thing doesn't have as much to do with not being able to be classically trained because you play in reverse, but just because there aren't trainers available to be able to accommodate that. But really, who cares? Flamenco is more fun anyway. The one with the snakeskin is a 4-string banjo, most likely hand made by a hobbyist who used a classical-style headstock and the body made to mimic more closely to the traditional African banjo. Also, that Dean acoustic bass sounds beautiful! I doubt it's on its way out. Also, the maqam-like style that you introduced the fretless 6-string guitar with can be applied to the oud. I don't memorize any maqam scales myself, it's just something you kinda feel out by ear :) Also, Schecter is excellent for action and pickups, I'm a Schecter guy myself :) Cheers! :)

That Mexican 8 string instrument is a mandola or Octave Mandolin (spanish version of course).

7:34 Plays amazing Grace

Gustavo santoalla using that instrument to it's fullest for the last of us part 2.. Can't wait

Thank-you, great video :) Have you played pedal steel guitar before?

Play some Beatles Music on the Fretless Guitar because they've actually used a Fretless Guitar on some of their songs, most notably Helter Skelter.

Wish I could find a ronroco like that

i thought nasville tuning was the low e a d and g was up an octave , when i bought nasville strings , thats how they were,

13:11 i believe that is a jarana jarocha that’s in G C E A G tuning!

So hes left handed, having to reverse the notes to play right handed instruments