Tonante, initially called Ao Rei dos Violões Limitada (To the King of Acoustic Guitars in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

), was started on April 5 of 1954 by the Portuguese brothers Abel and Samuel Tonante who artisanelly built musical instruments, thirteen years after their arrival in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

. Tonante is well known for making highly affordable stringed instruments in Brazil, together with companies such as Giannini

Giannini

Giannini is a traditional fine musical instruments maker in Brazil.Founded in 1900 by Tranquillo Giannini, an Italian immigrant with enormous luthier talents. Their first industrial plant was locatet at Av...

, Del Vecchio and Di Giorgio.

Relevance to the Brazilian Musical History

Tonante is particularly important to the Brazilian musical history because during the militar dictatorship (1970's) there was a policy of Import substitution

Import substitution

Import substitution industrialization or "Import-substituting Industrialization" is a trade and economic policy that advocates replacing imports with domestic production. It is based on the premise that a country should attempt to reduce its foreign dependency through the local production of...

 which forbade or severely restricted imports. People bought Tonante guitars because they were cheap like nothing else. At the time Giannini, Del Vecchio and Di Giorgio were the brands of choice if you were at least a bit serious about owning a good acoustic guitar. Giannini, Snake and Finch were the main choices for electrics. Tonante was one of the companies who helped popularize stringed instruments in Brazil, and many people began playing on Tonante guitars.

Cult Status

Although early Tonante instruments were often plagued by low quality electronics, relatively rough and uncomfortable shapes, bad finish, they have attained a somewhat cult

Cult

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

 status because they are historically significant. A vintage

Vintage

Vintage, in wine-making, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product . A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certain wines, it can denote quality, as in Port wine, where Port houses make and...

 Tonante guitar can be worth as much as R$ 170,00 (roughly USD 85,00).

Early Models

• Tonante Fender, also known as Tonante FInder - a cheap mix between a Stratocaster and a Jazzmaster.
• Various cavaquinhos, mandolins and acoustic guitars.

Current Models

• Tonante Erton - a somewhat better than the Tonante Finder stratocaster copy.
• Tonante Starlight - a heavy metal guitars with an interesting vibrola system derived from the Floyd Rose
  Floyd Rose
  The Floyd Rose Locking Tremolo, or simply Floyd Rose, is a type of locking vibrato arm for a guitar. The first of its kind, Floyd D. Rose invented the locking vibrato in 1977, and it is now manufactured by a company of the same name...
  
   and three single coil pickups.
• Tonante Les Paul - a flat top Les Paul
  Les Paul
  Lester William Polsfuss —known as Les Paul—was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which made the sound of rock and roll possible. He is credited with many recording innovations...
  
   copy.
• Various banjo
  Banjo
  In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
  
  s, acoustic guitars and cavaquinho
  Cavaquinho
  The cavaquinho is a small string instrument of the European guitar family with four wire or gut strings. It is also called machimbo, machim, machete , manchete or marchete, braguinha or braguinho, or cavaco.The most common tuning is D-G-B-D ; other tunings include D-A-B-E...
  
  s.

External links

• Tonante - official website, in Portuguese
  Portuguese language
  Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
  
  .