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How To Play 'A Los Barrios De Santiago' on Tres Cubano as played by Compay Segundo | GCE Tuning

1,881 views · Published 17 February 2018 · 5:55 · Indexed 24 October 2026

Channel: TresCubano · 2018 · Music

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Here’s a tutorial of the classic tune ‘A Los Barrios de Santiago’ as played by Compay Segundo.  I’ve had at least ten requests for this song over the past four years so I thought it was about time.  I’ve avoided it until now because of it’s simplicity, but now I realize thats exactly what makes this song so great.  There’s just two major chords here F and C  played in an unusually percussive manor.

If you try to play along with the recording you'll notice that Compay’s tuning is a bit south of standard.  It's quite common for a traditional Cuban groups to simply tune off of each other in the studio and start playing.  If you set your tuner to 429hz it should be bang on.  For the tutorial itself I'm tuned to C (GCE) at standard 440hz and I'm playing my Canadian made Tres by Art & Lutherie.

I think generally people think of Compay as a Tres player, and though early in his career he played both guitar and Tres, he actually got famous playing the Armonico, an instrument that he himself invented which is tuned like a guitar but up an octave.  It has a much smaller scale length and a doubled G string so it has seven strings.

I have adapted what Compay plays to suit the Tres.

The string gauges I'm using are:
G10/24 C16/16 E11/11

I transcribe all of the songs for my tutorials myself so I don't have the tablature for any of them.

#TresCubano #CubanTres #Tresero

My channel is not monetized, so I do not make money from my videos.  If there are ads running on this video it's  because the content is copyrighted and the owner of that copyright is receiving the revenue from the video views.

The song at the end of the video is the classic tune ‘El Reloj De Pastora’ played by the incredible ‘Septeto Trio Los Dos’ who have graciously given me permission to use.

I make and sell Tres Cubano Conversion Kits for Baby Taylor Guitars.  The kit can be installed in under 30 minutes with no luthier experience required.  They cost $200 (USD) with free shipping worldwide.
You supply the Baby Taylor and I send you everything you need to turn it into a great sounding Cuban Tres.
To order one check out my website:
http://www.treskits.com

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