Tiples originated in the island's most isolated communities. They were usually used to accompany the singing of "sacred" music, that is, songs that were sung during religious observances and festivals.

The Puerto Rican Tiple is probably is derived from the diminutive Spanish guitarrillos and Canary Island timples brought to the island during the earliest times of the colony. Over the centuries, tiples have been strung with three, four or five strings, tuned in innumerable ways and shaped in many forms according to the custom of the region.

In the late 19th century the tiple, along with the other jíbaro instruments -- the cuatro and the bordonúa--were brought together in "orchestras" to play creolized versions of European dances such as the waltz, the minuet and the mazurca, that the jíbaros heard from outside of the dance salons of the cities.

The tiple would have completely disappeared during the second half of the twentieth century, if it had not been for the vigorous rescue efforts of such dedicated researchers as Alexis Morales Cales, Jose Reyes Zamora and "Kacho" Montalvo.

We see here a 19th century Puerto Rican tiple from the collection of Teodoro Vidal,   presently located at the National Museum of American History in Washington DC. This tiple specimen, and a jíbaro guitar in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art are the only 19th Puerto Rican stringed instruments that we know of that have been preserved in near-original condition.

A very old tiple with three existent pegs, but four notches and two thin notches (as for a double string course) in the nut. It may have undergone various stringings. Found in Aguas Buenas.

The tiple took different shapes in different regions. A 19th century writer observed that the "bordonúa is a large guitar" and that "except for its size, the tiple is similar." From this account, this tiple specimen and from other evidence we propose that the early tiples and bordonúas were guitar-shaped, even though the difference in their size was extreme. We have also seen early bordonúa relics with the pointed, or vee-shaped lower bout. As you can see, this tiny tiple shares the same configuration. Indeed, the Puerto Rican composer Hector Campos Parsi once showed me a "baby bordonúa" that an old builder had made for him with precisely the shape seen in the relic above.

What is most interesting about this is that the tuning intervals of the early bordonúas and many tiples were in fourths with a single dropped third--precisely the intervals of the guitar (the cuatro is different in that it is tuned in strict fourths). The dropped third favors the formation of chords and thus facilitates chordal accompaniment. Indeed, both the tiple and bodonúa were used primarily for accompaniment, rather than as melody instruments. They thus both shared many characteristics, and thus may have been derived from an early time from the Spanish family of finger-picked and hand strummed instruments, of which the guitar is one member. The cuatro, however, was traditionally a melody instrument--its strict-fourths tuning intervals favoring single-note melodic use--and both its use and intervals, we believe, were a result of its derivation from the other family of Spanish stringed-instruments, the plectrum family (played with a pick). During the nineteenth century that family of Spanish instruments were played with a pick, was tuned in strict fourths, and were usually used to play the melody--like the cuatro.