Nine students, most with no prior woodworking experience, created their own Puerto Rican tiples with instruction from William Cumpiano, a master luthier from Northamption, Massachusetts.

Myriam, a student, called this an “exercise in patience.”

The course offered by Trinity College began one week ago and wrapped up on Sunday, with students averaging over six hours of work on their instruments per day.

Participants included those enrolled at Trinity College, members of the Hartford community, and people from greater distances. A contingent from Massachusetts came down each day to create what is an adaptation of traditional tiple building.

Jose Capeles, a Frog Hollow resident, models his work-in-progress on Wednesday
On Saturday, Jose assembles the tuning pegs. He says he does not know how yet, but that he plans to learn how to play the tiple.
Students gather around to hear and see instructions for the next steps in this process

Although nothing has been officially scheduled yet, student feedback for this workshop was positive and there are hopes of offering more tiple-making classes in the future at Trinity.

William Cumpiano demonstrates how to put fretwires onto the instrument.
Cumpiano shows the right amount of pressure to use when striking the fretwires.


One more day to go
Rev. Damaris Whittaker of Center Church says she feels ready to work on a fence now that she has had this experience