Bandola.

A flat-backed lute of South and Central America, descended from the Bandurria (see also Mandore). The modern bandola of Colombia has a tear-drop shape, with a flat or concave back. It has six courses of strings, three steel strings in each of the four upper courses, and two copper-wound strings in each of the two lower courses, tuned f–b–e'–a'–d''–g''. It is played with a plectrum and, as in mandolin playing, a note may be sustained by a tremolo. In the Colombian Andes it plays in the murga ensemble to accompany dancing and the singing of coplas; the murga is sometimes augmented by a second bandola, the two playing in characteristic parallel 3rds and 6ths. The bandola is used in Chilean Andean music, where it accompanies solo shepherd songs, and in the Guatemalan zarabanda ensemble (see Guatemala, §II, 2). There are two types of Venezuelan bandola: the first, found in the western plains, has four single strings, tuned b–e'–b'–f''; the second, from north-eastern Venezuela, has four double courses, the lower pairs tuned in octaves and the higher strings in unison, as follows: A/a–e/e'–b'/b'–f''/f''.