User:Cumpiano

William Cumpiano ...is a no-longer-middle-aged hybrid Puerto Rican (Puerto Rican father; Bostonian mother--note how I've chosen to identify myself?) who is fascinated with two things: Culture and its impact on behavior; and stringed instruments. I've fanatically devoted myself to the study and practice of each...and both together, to the virtual exclusion, I'm sad to say, of much else. I live my passion on a daily basis: each and every day I'm devoted to my profession, that of a maker of fretted (as opposed to bowed) stringed instruments; and to my avocation of the last fifteen years, research into the origins and traditions of Puerto Rican mountain music.

If you'd like to see what, over the last thirty years or so I've contributed to each of my passions, visit the two websites that I've created and currently webmaster:

http://www.cumpiano.com The page of William R. Cumpiano, guitarmaker

http://www.cuatro-pr.org The page of the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project

My guitarmaking studio has been supplying handmade, custom guitars to the trade for over thirty years. Recently me and my long-time work partner have shifted our attention to supplying Cuban treses and Puerto Rican cuatros to professional musicians in their respective fields. The page also serves as a focus to my many years of documenting and teaching this craft, including a page dedicated to my textbook, published 1985, "Guitarmaking: Tradition & Technology" which is still in print and is considered the standard reference in the craft.

The Puerto Rican Cuatro Project was begun in 1992 by myself and a now-retired New York times photographer. Together over the years we have been researching the origins, history and traditions of the family of Puerto Rican native stringed instruments--a rich treasury of cultural ingenuity that has largely been ignored by academia. This neglect was the original driving force behind the establishment of our Project. The Project has been recognized and supported by the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Puerto Rican Cultural (an agency of the Government of Puerto Rico), who realize the value of the contributions we have made to the knowledge base and to compiling, documenting and disseminating these findings over the years. The work of the Project springs from the compilation of voluminous collection of oral history interviews, collections of recordings of Puerto Rican mountain music, of native instruments and new and recovered photographs. Recently our work has culminated in the production of two feature length video-documentaries and several short features summarizing our findings, and a textbook on the subject of Puerto Rico's stringed instrument traditions.

Our mission is cultural research and education, and that is what attracted me to Wikipedia. I hope to share the findings and insights we've gained on the subject of Puerto Rican mountain music and instruments and the cultural milieu that surrounds them. cumpianoWilliam Cumpiano