page_title: List of Puerto Rican scientists and inventors
section_title: Musical instruments
hierarchical_section_title: List of Puerto Rican scientists and inventors / Inventors / Musical instruments
caption_attribution_description: English: From e-mail I have one request, please e-mail me a photo of yourself that I can use in the article. Look over the article and if there is something which I should change let me know. Tony the Marine I don't know what your AOL mailbox capacity is. I'm sending you one picture, but I have others to chose from if you don't like the one I've attached. William Cumpiano
context_page_description: Before Christopher Columbus and the Spanish Conquistadors landed on the island of "Borikén", the Tainos who inhabited the island depended on their astronomical observations for the cultivation of their crops.
  In 1581, Juan Ponce de León II, the grandson of the Conquistador Juan Ponce de León, studied an eclipse and its effects on the island and was able to establish the exact geographical coordinates of San Juan with his observations.
  During the 19th century the economies of many countries in the world suffered from the spread of crop failures. Puerto Rico, whose economy depended heavily on its agriculture, felt the effects of some of the crop diseases. Scientists such as Agustín Stahl, Fermín Tangüis and Fernando López Tuero conducted investigations and experiments in the fields of agriculture, botany, ethnology and zoology. The findings of their investigations helped Puerto Rico's agricultural industry.
  With the advances in medical technologies and the coming of the Space Age of the 20th century, Puerto Ricans have expanded their horizons and have made many contributions in various scientific fields, among them the fields of aerospace and medicine.
context_section_description: The cuatro is the national instrument of Puerto Rico. It belongs to the lute family of string instruments. Very little is known about the exact origin of the Cuatro.
  William Richard Cumpiano is a works on the making of stringed musical instruments who also writes and teaches the art of luthiery. He has built numerous cuatros for musicians in the United States and also has crafted cuatro variants of his own design: he developed a "seis", or six-course (12-string) cuatro that can be tuned in the same string intervals as a guitar. He also developed the "thinline" cuatro with a body depth of only two inches instead of the traditional three.
caption: William R. Cumpiano
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