Audio samples in Catalogue section (solo guitar) of this website

Temple del Diablo, Serie 1
    1. Preludio
    2. Danza de las abejas
    3. Casi nada

Foreword of the edition
Popular musicians from South America have often used the resource of modifying the normal or standard tuning of the guitar, generating new "temples" (as the resultant tunings are called), with the purpose of making the performance easier in certain keys. The pieces published in this album have been written using one of those temples (alternate tunings): fifth in G and sixth in D, keeping the remaining strings in accordance with the standard tuning. Over the years I have heard in a vague but  recurrent way that this tuning is called “Temple del Diablo” [The Devil’s Tuning].
In my attempts to find out the source of this designation, I found many different tunings covered by the same expression, including the one that is used for these compositions. So, far from finding a categorical answer, I found myself in front of a vast and confused world that still requires a thorough and enlightening study. (While recently in Cuzco, Peru, where the guitar is tuned in very different ways, I learned that any tuning that is not the universal one is called Devil).
From the above it appears that to link directly the tuning used here with the name "Temple of the Devil" is not very rigorous. Despite this, I decided to use it as a name for the series, thus joining the folk custom of associating both, and resigning, at least for now, the claim to find out why.
And finally, since the manifestations of folklore cover their sources with an unfathomable cloak of vagueness and forgetfulness, it is quite likely that the true story will never be known.
Marcelo Coronel / January 2008