I do get a lot of questions about the Chordinero, here are some of the most frequently asked:
Q: Can I buy from Chile/Peru/Indonesia/Colombia/Canada/etc
A: Yes, I will ship to anywhere, just place an order in the web shop and it will arrive to your door. There may be additional charges for import from your government, that is not included at check out, when that happens it’s usually about 5-10 USD extra. But may be more in some countries. Brazil seems to be adding 100% of the value.. India also seems to be adding a lot..
Q: Do you have one for bass/cittern/oud/12-string/ukulele/etc?
A: No, but there is no reason not to do it, so I’ll look into that further down the line.
Q: Do you have one for 7/8/9-string?
A: There is now an 8-string Extended Range Beta version available in to versions, regular and reversed. The reversed version can be used for a 9-string leaving the bass string uncapoed.
Q: What is it for?
A: It’s for playing an open tuning without retuning, which means you can use all your normal scales and chord shapes etc and use any tuning, rather than being limited to a certain number of different tunings that you have learned.
Q: Isn’t it easier to just retune the guitar?
A: It’s not the same thing, because then you lose the standard tuning, with a Chordinero you keep the standard tuning but can set the open strings to any note you like. It’s a little bit hard to get your head around it without sitting down and trying it for a while.
Q: Why would I need that, I know how to hold a chord, it’s for beginners, right?
A: No, not at all. If you are at an advanced level you can explore the possibilities of using the open notes for hammer ons and pull offs or adding open strings to your chord/picking pattern that gives you new sounds that you wouldn’t be able to find without it. Google “José Macario Chordinero”
Q: But you have to be an awesome guitarist to use it?
A: No, not at all. Even beginners can benefit from an open tuning, you can play a melody with just one finger and still hit the other strings without being out of key, it’s a very nice way to learn the guitar, you can get started sounding good without learning to hold down a clean chord. Also, you can play your normal chords and get a whole new sound by setting the Chordinero to a different tuning.