---
title: "My gaita in C# by Chus Solís"
slug: my-gaita-in-c-sharp-chus-solis
kind: essay
summary: "I start the series on the luthiers I work with with myself. The first piece: why in 2018 I asked Chus Solís for a gaita in C#, a lesser-known key, chasing the same brightness in José Remis Ovalle's sound."
publishedAt: 2026-09-15
---
When you truly start to master the sound of the Asturian gaita, your ear stops treating it as a single instrument and starts telling nuances apart. You discover that keys are not interchangeable: each one has its place. The [tumbal gaita, in B flat](/en/blog/tuning-the-asturian-gaita), lower and darker, was used in religious contexts because that dark sound gives a sense of liturgy, of ceremony. Every key carries a use, a context, an intention.

That ear took me somewhere else.

## The sound my ear was asking for

Listening to José Remis Ovalle's recordings —the Floréu de Remis, among others— I began to notice something my gaita in C major wasn't giving me. It wasn't a vague feeling: those recordings are made in a specific key, C#, known in the trade as «bright C». And that half-tone difference from standard C is exactly what makes the sound brighter.

In 2018 I was competing, and I wanted to bring that same key into my own performances. Not on a whim: I wanted to genuinely get close to the original timbre of those recordings, not just play the same notes in a different colour.

## What "bright C" is

C# is not a personal tweak or an invented curiosity. It is a real tuning from the trade, precisely documented: the punteru that produces it measures between 320 and 325 mm, against the 330-340 mm of a gaita in C or the 345-355 mm of a tumbal in B flat. The shorter the punteru, the higher and brighter the sound —hence the name.

Today it's a minority key. Academic research on the evolution of the Asturian gaita considers it almost lost, "marginally used by some older gaiteros". But minority is not extinct: there are still workshops that build it on commission, and gaiteros who value that specific sound enough to keep asking for it. I'm one of them.

## Why I asked Chus Solís

Turning that auditory search into a real instrument needed a luthier who understood exactly what I was asking for. [Chus Solís](https://gaitasturiana.wordpress.com/) has run **ETIMTA**, his school and workshop for traditional Asturian instruments, since 1999 —he started teaching at the Valle del Nalón Conservatory, in Langreo, and is still active today from Fueyo, in Tiñana. He is also an active member of the Conceyu de la Gaita.

I asked him for a gaita in C#. He built it for me. And since 2018 it's the one I reach for when I want that specific sound: the one my ear was asking for the first time I heard Remis Ovalle.

This is the first piece in a series about the instruments I actually use and the luthiers who built them. Not a catalogue of makers —a working relationship, told instrument by instrument.

## Bibliography

- Fernández García, Juan Alfonso. [*"La gaita asturiana: características y evolución"*](https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/2654277.pdf). Revista universitaria (Dialnet). Source for the punteru measurements by key and the real currency of "bright C".