Conchera
Closeup view of a vihuela conchera, a Native-American lute from Mexico. Many modern instruments put the armadillo shell on the outside of a wooden bowl, instead of using the shell for a bowl. | |
| String instrument | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Conchas |
| Classification | Plucked string instrument |
| Hornbostel–Sachs classification | 321.321-6 (Chordophone whose body is shaped like a bowl with permanently attached resonator and neck, sounded by a plectrum) |
| Developed | from lute or possibly vihuela between 16th and 19th centuries |
| Playing range | |
| |
| Related instruments | |
| charango, mandolin, Mexican vihuela, guitar, lute | |
A conchera or concha is Mexican stringed-instrument, plucked by concheros dancers. The instruments were important to help preserve elements of native culture from Eurocentric-Catholic suppression. The instruments are used by concheros dancers for singing at velaciones (nighttime rituals) and for dancing at obligaciones (dance obligations).