Kabosy
Encyclopedia
The kabosy is a box-shaped wooden guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
commonly played in music of Madagascar
Music of Madagascar
The highly diverse and distinctive music of Madagascar has been shaped by the musical traditions of Southeast Asia, Africa, Arabia, England, France and the United States as successive waves of settlers have made the island their home...
. It has four to six strings and is commonly thought to be a direct descendant of the Arabic oud
Oud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...
. The kabosy has staggered frets, many of which do not even cross the entire fretboard, and is generally tuned to an open chord
Open chord
In music, especially guitar, an open chord is a chord that is not fingered and fretted, the opposite of a barre chord, the strings of which ring, or sound, freely and fully....
.
A kabosy-like instrument with standard frets is known as a mandalina or mandoliny.
Kabosys are frequently hand-made from scavenged materials, and their form varies greatly depending on the builder and materials available. Kabosys may be strung with nylon (often used fishing line) or steel (often from scrap wire or cable).
Notable players of the kabosy include Babata and Jean Emilien.