Fado - that mournful, sad music of loves lost at sea, unrequited love, unexpressed secret love, infused with a sense of resignation, melancholy and fate, filled with saudades. And of course, the lyrics have to mention coração at least once. This soulful music, which conjures up visions of bohemians, sailors, tavernas. The music is played on one of two traditional Portuguese guitars: Coimbra guitar or the Lisboa guitar. This one is the latter, which has 445 mm of free string, and a broader body. It also has a shorter and narrower neck profile in D, which has a brighter more resonant sound. Usually a good guitarrista should know at least a hundred of the two hundred standard fados, in any key requested by the fadista.
In that case, I need to start practices my scales now!
By the way, this one in the photo is only 19 cm 🤣
