| Name | Image | Description | Video |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bajo sexto |  | A bajo sexto is a type of 12 string guitar, fused with a bass, used in Mexican music. It is used primarily in norteño music of northeastern Mexico and across the border in the music of south Texas known as "Tex-Mex," "conjunto," or "música mexicana-tejana". The bajo sexto sound provides a strong rhythm in the lower pitched end of a Tejano band and also provides a strong projection of chord changes across songs. | |
| Guitarrón |  | The guitarrón (literally "large guitar" in Spanish) is a very large, deep-bodied Mexican 6-string acoustic bass played in mariachi bands. Although obviously similar to the guitar, it is not a derivative of that instrument, but was independently developed from the sixteenth-century Spanish bajo de uña. It achieves audibility by its great size, and does not require electric amplification for performances in small venues. The guitarrón is fretless, the strings are heavy gauge, and the action is high, so that quite a bit of left hand strength is required. | |
| Jarana |  | A jarana is a guitar-shaped fretted stringed instrument from the southern region of the state of Veracruz, Mexico. The strings are usually nylon, although they were gut in the past. The body is somewhat narrower in proportion to a guitar; this is due to its direct lineage from the Spanish baroque guitar of the sixteenth century. Sometimes mistaken for a ukulele, the jarana jarocha comes in at least four sizes, the smallest being the 'mosquito', about the size of a soprano ukulele; the 'primera', about the size of a concert ukulele; the 'segunda', in length between a tenor and a baritone ukulele; and the 'tercera', which is somewhat longer than the baritone ukulele. | |
| Mexican Vihuela |  | Vihuela is the name of two different guitar-like string instruments: the historical vihuela (proper) of 16th century Spain, usually with 12 paired strings, and the modern Mexican vihuela from 20th century Mexico with five strings and typically played in Mariachi groups. While the Mexican vihuela shares the same name as an ancient Spanish plucked string instrument, the two have little to do with each other, and they are not related. The Mexican vihuela has more in common with the Timple Canario due to both having five strings and both having vaulted (convex) backs. The Mexican vihuela is a small, deep-bodied rhythm guitar built along the same lines as the guitarrón. Its five nylon strings are tuned like the first five of a guitar, but with the fourth and fifth tuned up an octave, ukulele-style. | |
| Requinto Guitar |  | The term requinto is used in both Spanish and Portuguese to mean a smaller, higher-pitched version of another instrument. The requinto guitar is a six-string nylon guitar with a scale length of 530 to 540 mm, which is about 18% smaller than a standard guitar scale. Requintos made in Mexico have a deeper body than a standard classical guitar (110 mm as opposed to 105 mm). Requintos made in Spain tend to be of the same depth as the standard classical. Requinto guitars are also used throughout Latin America. | |
| Teponaztli |  | A teponaztli is a type of slit drum used in central Mexico by the Aztecs and related cultures. Teponaztli are made of hollow hardwood logs, often fire-hardened. Like most slit drums, teponaztli have three slits on their topside, cut into the shape of an "H". The resultant tongues are then struck with rubber balls on mallets, which were often made of deer antlers. Since the tongues are of different lengths, or carved into different thicknesses, the teponaztli produces 2 different pitches. Teponaztli were usually decorated with relief carvings of various deities or with abstract designs, and were even carved into the shapes of creatures or humans. The image is an illustration of the "One Flower" ceremony, from the 16th century. The two drums are the teponaztli (foreground) and the huehuetl (background). |
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