Bouzouki on EBay: Opinions, please
A Nengineer
I've been thinking about picking one up and trying to learn it (I have NO!
experience whatsoever with the bouzouki).
Is this practical? And what do you think about this "deal"?
Thanks.
David Kilpatrick
It's what would be called an Ozark or Vintage in Britain, and would sell
for 299 (about $450) without even have a hard case, so the price is very
fair. It is probably now Chinese made but the sticker looks like a Korea
one. They are rather heavily built, but have a solid compressed sound
suiting picked melody work quite well, or chop chords. They are not
ideal for drone or fingerstyle playing, or arpeggio chords, lacking a
bit of volume and presence. Finish is usually good and very robust - the
lacquer is too heavy and the bindings etc are equally substantial - and
playability is easy. The neck tends towards being a bit heavy
physically, and the case is also not my first choice - given the light
weight of most zouks, a gig bag is better, hard banjo type cases really
add to the inconvenience factor with a 2nd or 3rd instrument (which is
what the zouk is for me! Guitars come first).
But you can't fault the price. Just why they stain the maple body dark I
have no idea. It just looks cheap when that is done.
David
Matt Hayden
They're fun instruments but not for the timid. A good bouzouki is
capital-L loud.
Also, they're often tuned in fifths, meaning you have a whole new set
of chord shapes to memorize.
Danny Carnahan (of Wake the Dead and Caswell-Carnahan, among other
traditional musical groups) plays a great one that sounds great.
Check his playing out -- if that doesn't hook you, nothing will.
mh
Peter MacDonald
Nengineer <st...@polhemus.cc> wrote:
The price is reasonable for this instrument. It's structurally
identical to the more commonly found Trinity College brand, and looks
exactly the same except for the name on the headstock. Some
Irish-style bouzouki players (like me) find the nut width to be a tad
narrow. If you're planning on playing Greek style bouzouki, I can't
help.
Peter
John Misrahi
What is 'standard' bouzouki tuning in irish music?
Is it like a mandolin GDAE?
john
Carlos Alden
>
> What is 'standard' bouzouki tuning in irish music?
> Is it like a mandolin GDAE?
>
> john
The most standard tuning is GDAD. However, there are many variations. If
you tune it GDAE then you can play it like a mandolin but lose some of the
drone characteristics that zouk players yearn for.
I play a five-course cittern, like a zouk with a shorter neck and extra low
course. DGdae tuning, so the top four courses are like an octave mandolin.
I get plenty of drones with my playing style and am able to do lots of
melody, too.
Carlos
Spambow
Peter--I too would like to get a Bouzouki someday. Some advice I got
from some others was to make sure the set-up is done by a
professional. I also understand that even the imports can benefit from
a tailpiece upgrade.
Good luck. I'd check it out if I were you.
--Fred
TarBabyTunes
Is it like a mandolin GDAE? >>
I have found the bouzouki world to be wonderfully non-standardized on this
matter...
Eoin O'Neill in Ennis, Co. Clare, tunes ADAD, Zan McLeod keeps one (his S.O.
Smith) in GDAD and his other one in GDAE. He says that the GDAD is more fun
for tunes in G and the other for tunes in D...
Alec Finn plays a three-course Greek bouzouki in DAD. Eamonn Dooley with Danu
plays in GDAD but is very fluent in both ADAD and GDAE.
A lot of American players I run across use GDAE.
I keep mine in GDAD.
steveV
TarBabyTunes
Just checking today, there are two Fylde Octavius bouzoukis offered for sale on
eBay now. These catch my eye for this is what I'm playing now.
The Fylde Octavius is a more 'teardrop' shape than the standard 'Celtic' shape
that I call an Onion On A Stick. It has solid mahogany back, sides and neck
and mine has a nice, dark red cedar top. A distinguishing feature of the
Octavius is a guitar-style pin bridge in rosewood, different from the more
common mandolin-type floating bridge with tailpiece.
This pin bridge gives the Octavius a sound that is a little more guitar-ish
than mandolin-ish, with lower string tensions, a bit more sustain and a little
'warmer' sound. David Webber, the fine luthier in British Columbia, is now
making an Onion-body bouzouki with a pin bridge, also.
Of the two Fylde Octavius zouks on ebay now, the one at $1k BIN appears to have
a top that looks much lighter than mine, so it may be spruce instead of cedar,
or just lighter... The other one has no pictures but is for sale very near me
(Indianapolis), which is a surprise to me!
I paid just a tad more than $1k for mine several years ago and I have come to
love mine. Finding these on the used market is pretty rare, and these prices
are good, a bit less than I paid for mine three years ago.
These are MUCH nicer than the ones at half these BIN amounts (Johnson,
MorganMonroe, Trinity), with solid woods, handmade and with much better
materials and workmanship.
IMO...
I have no interest in the sale of either of these.
I just thought to pass on the news, since there seems to be some interest in
zouks among the group.
steveV
A Nengineer
news:cmQpb.594$WD....@newscontent-01.sprint.ca...
> What is 'standard' bouzouki tuning in irish music?
> Is it like a mandolin GDAE?
I BELIEVE it is GDAD.
A Nengineer
news:20031104124610...@mb-m18.aol.com...
> Alec Finn plays a three-course Greek bouzouki in DAD.
Surprisingly (or maybe not) I seemed to find more Google hits for Greek
bouzouki than for Irish ('course, up until the time I joined this 'group I
didn't even know that Irish musicians employed the bouzouki!)
The three-course bouzouki is called, I believe, the "Tricordo" and the
four-course, the "Tetracordo".
The Tricordo is more common in traditional Greek music, and is, indeed,
tuned DAD.
Don't know how that compares with the Balalaika, but I would guess it is
similar.
TarBabyTunes
bouzouki than for Irish ('course, up until the time I joined this 'group I
didn't even know that Irish musicians employed the bouzouki!) >>
Bouzouki is to Greece, and much of Turkey and the rest of the region, as
dreadnaughts are to the USA, and I believe the population of Greece to be
several times that of Ireland.
One of the origin legends of Irish bouzouki is that an Irishman brought a Greek
zouk back from a vacation in the islands (most often told to me as either 1968
or 1972) and played it in Irish sessions in London, where the sound caught on.
The folks I've heard most often credited with this innovation are Donal Lunny,
Alec Finn and Andy Irvine. I have no idea who it really was, nor when.
The next stage was that an enterprising Irishman took the roundbacked Greek
zouk to a luthier near London and developed the Onion On A Stick shape, with a
flatter back than the Eastern one.
<< The three-course bouzouki is called, I believe, the "Tricordo" and the
four-course, the "Tetracordo".
The Tricordo is more common in traditional Greek music, and is, indeed,
tuned DAD. >>
See also the Saz. The further east I go in looking at these things, the more
I'm reminded of the sound of our mountain dulcimer...
(Anecdote... We were in Doolin at a pub session and there was an English girl
there. Unaccustomed to Irish sessions, she was more familiar with what we'd
call a 'song circle' and felt she couldn't get a song in edgewise. We told the
other sessioneers that she'd like to do a song, and she pulled out a mountain
dulcimer and played and sang beautifully. When she was done the place exploded
in applause, and because none of the Irish there had ever seen nor heard of a
mtn dulcimer, she couldn't buy a drink for herself, and was pressed into more
and more songs with her dulcimer, until early in the a.m. hours.)
<< Don't know how that compares with the Balalaika, but I would guess it is
similar. >>
The balalaika being single strung instead of in courses, comes with vodka
instead of ouzo or retsina, and, of course, is very pointy. <G>
steveV
David Kilpatrick
John Misrahi wrote:
> What is 'standard' bouzouki tuning in irish music?
> Is it like a mandolin GDAE?
>
There's a big divide between, say, Ulster Scots-related music and that
of the south west of Ireland. In fact there are distinctions at village
level let alone county. For robust melody-based playing working from
fiddle tunes (O'Neills etc) the GDAE tuning is by far the most popular,
but quite often the instrument is then called an octave mandolin,
whatever the scale.
For chording and counterpoint accompaniments (a counter melody or modal
harmony, often with a pedal bass - not strictly a drone, but same idea)
an open tuning is preferred. The easiest to achieve is ADAD, with most
the work being done on the top three strings - really a DAD tri-cord
instrument with an added bass used when needed. GDAD is used the same
way, but the G bass offers an alternative open string which is
friendlier conventional I/IV/V chord structures. ADAD is ideal for
I/V/VIII structures where the IV chord often doesn't appear, and
so-called 'drop tonic' is more likely (dropping one entire tone, not all
that easy if you are busy playing in D on an ADAD tuned instrument - but
quite easy if playing in A on the same box).
Greek bouzouki players rarely use capos, but often play high up the
neck, and the modern tetrachord tuning is just like guitar top 4.
Turkish, Balkan, Russian and old Greek tuning is DAD. The balalaika is
not very similar at all and tunes E E A, with the two wound E strings
being identical in pitch - the single string balalaika should have
either gut, nylon or silk and steel for the basses. The modern 'mandolin
balalaika' with its double steel courses is identical in tuning but very
different in sound and technique.
The idea that Irish bouzouki was an invention of the 1960s is not
stricty correct. There's an unbroken history of Irish music on similar
instruments, notably the cittern and guittar (aka the English guitar)
which was extremely popular 250 years ago. The Irish instruments were
longer in scale than English ones, and tuned to GBDgbd instead of
CEGceg. Before that - long before that - the wire strung harp and the
tymbre (medieaval British isles counterpart of the tambur, aka bouzouki
or saz) both offered the same kind of bright, sustained sound which the
Irish seem to have loved all along. Mandolins with flat backs, of many
scale sizes, were in used in Britain just as in America from the 1890s
onwards and I've found flatback models clearly dating from the first
decades of the 1800s - probably from Portugal, which has a history of
making flatback cittern type instruments (bandolim, bandola, guitarra,
mandolin, mandola).
John Pearse claims to have been playing Irish jigs and reels on German
waldzither (parallel development to English guitar but did not become
extinct) before the longer necks of Greek bouzoukis reminded travelling
folkies that citterns once had longer scales. One surviving Gibson of
Dublin guittar - circa 1770s - recently being sold by Hobgoblin had,
according to their description, been grafted with a long bouzouki or
cittern type neck leaving only its body original - at some unknown date,
probably 1970s. Stefan Sobell reckons he reinvented the 5-course cittern
around 1972, but I've got one handmade instrument with four single
strings dated 1965 from Germany which indicates people were
experimenting with cittern bodies quite freely. Places like Edinburgh's
Reid Collection have had instruments to inspect for decades which any
luthier could have drawn inspiration from.
However... as a mainstream instrument, the 'Irish bouzouki' definitely
is a phenomenon of the last 30 years, and probably supplanted the banjo
in both tenor and five-string form. It has much the same job. And the
players said to have popularised it, certainly did. It's an instrument
which has been 'evangelised'.
I will ask the Romanians when they first made the flatback bouzouki.
That would give an idea of when it first became a low-cost music store
regular seller.
David
Peter MacDonald
<tarbab...@aol.com> wrote:
> One of the origin legends of Irish bouzouki is that an Irishman brought a
> Greek
> zouk back from a vacation in the islands (most often told to me as either 1968
> or 1972) and played it in Irish sessions in London, where the sound caught
> on.
>
> The folks I've heard most often credited with this innovation are Donal Lunny,
> Alec Finn and Andy Irvine. I have no idea who it really was, nor when.
The most-often-quoted origin is that it occurred in 1962, and the
player was Johnny Moynihan. Donal, Alec and Andy picked it up later.
Alec still prefers the Greek-style roundback bouzouki.
> The next stage was that an enterprising Irishman took the roundbacked Greek
> zouk to a luthier near London and developed the Onion On A Stick shape, with a
> flatter back than the Eastern one.
The luthier was apparently Peter Abnett, who is still making these
instruments. Not too long thereafter, Stefan Sobell in England began
building his "citterns", essentially a 5-course, 10-string instrument
with the same basic body shape but with induced top and back arches.
Current well-known makers of bouzoukis/octave mandolins/citterns
include:
Ireland: Joe Foley, Paul Hathaway, Paul Doyle
Scotland: David Freshwater, Jimmie Moon
U.S.A.: Steven Owsley Smith, Tony Sutherland, Phil Crump
Australia: Graham McDonald, Jack Spira
Peter
JOHNPEARSE
bouzouki into Irish music.
In the late fifties/early sixties I was teaching guitar at Cecil Sharpe House,
the London HQ of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. During the Summer
breaks I would hitch to Greece and hang out in the islands, where I fell under
the spell of lauto and bouzouki music. Returning home on one occasion my
bouzouki got trashed whilst I was hitching through France. When I got back to
London I took it to luthier John Bailey - another EFDSS regular - to see if he
could fix it. He declared it to be a lost cause, so I commissioned him to build
me one to replace it. We decided that he would use my Portuguese guitarra as a
'body model', as he felt uncomfortable trying to build a traditionally coopered
back.
When it was finished I took it on the road, but was never completely satisfied
with either the sound or the intonation. It was a beautiful instrument, but it
just didn't have the sound I wanted to hear for Greek music...and, no matter
how I strung it, to my ears it was always slightly out of tune.
I stuck with it for almost a year, until I met up with Cypriot luthier Andreas
Hadji Yianacou and got him to build me a pukka Greek bouzouki. The Bailey ended
up on my wall, where it looked marvelous - John is a super builder - and was
only taken down during the parties that were a constant feature of my life at
that time.
At one such party the Irish group, Sweeney's Men, dropped by and Johnny
Moynihan took it down and started tinkering with it. It was love at first sight
and it went home with him when he left the party.
The next thing I heard was that Bailey was getting dozens of phone calls from
Ireland...and was making more bouzoukis than guitars!
Things happen in the strangest ways!
John Pearse.
Carlos Alden
> Current well-known makers of bouzoukis/octave mandolins/citterns
> include:
>
> Ireland: Joe Foley, Paul Hathaway, Paul Doyle
> Scotland: David Freshwater, Jimmie Moon
> U.S.A.: Steven Owsley Smith, Tony Sutherland, Phil Crump
> Australia: Graham McDonald, Jack Spira
>
> Peter
I know this wasn't meant as a definitive list, but let me add Fletcher Brock
out of Idaho. His citterns are astounding in craftsmanship and sound and
playability, and he's right up there with the best.
Carlos
David Kilpatrick
JOHNPEARSE wrote:
> I must admit to being, albeit unknowingly, responsible for introducing the
> bouzouki into Irish music.
>
I thought so!
Interesting - Gibson type Dublin guittar goes to Portugal and become
Coimbra Portuguese guitarra (circa 1770-1800). Simpson type London
guittar takes same route and becomes Lisboa (short scale) guitarra. JP
goes to Greece 170 years later, brings back a bouzouki (which in turn
was probably influenced by Neapolitan building techniques, Turkish
music, and travelling cowboy film cinema shows...guitars!) then gets a
Portuguese guitarra body (very closely derived from above 18th century
Irish and English citterns) copied to make a derivation... thus
returning a British isles 'body' to its home, albeit with a new neck.
David
Peter MacDonald
<johnp...@aol.com> wrote:
> I must admit to being, albeit unknowingly, responsible for introducing the
> bouzouki into Irish music.
----------------- snip ---------------
> At one such party the Irish group, Sweeney's Men, dropped by and Johnny
> Moynihan took [the altered bouzouki] down and started tinkering with it. It was love at first
> sight
> and it went home with him when he left the party.
> The next thing I heard was that Bailey was getting dozens of phone calls from
> Ireland...and was making more bouzoukis than guitars!
John, thanks for the clarification. I knew that Johnny Moynihan was
involved, but I didn't know about you.
Peter
Peter MacDonald
<cal...@msn.com> wrote:
Quite right ... how could I have left Fletcher (and Bill Petersen) off
the U.S. list? Also, Lawrence Nyberg in Canada.
Peter
JOHNPEARSE
Just one thing I would disagree with in your excellent summation. The Coimbra
guitarra was the brainchild of Carlos Paredes' father and the luthier Gilberto
Gracio's father, who, together, developed and built the first Coimbra guitarra
in the late twenties. Before that time ALL Portuguese guitarras had the shorter
Lisboa scale - even the so-called 'women's guitarras'.
John Pearse.
David Kilpatrick
JOHNPEARSE wrote:
That's interesting - and explains why the Portuguese themselves don't
really seem to know what it is. If they had gone a bit further they
would have invented the first Irish six-course bouzouki!
David