Any Bazooki players out there

dublinario

Just wondering if there are any Bazooki players out there to exchange a couple of views/questions with. I'm predominantly a Guitar player, but I dabble on a few other instruments, most notably the Piano, Boudhran and Mandolin.

I recently bought a Bazooki, and instantly became bogged down in the decision about which tuning to adopt. I initially favoured the E- A- D- G tuning, because it is the tuning I use when playing the Mandolin. However, I quickly became aware that some of the chord fingerings are difficult, if not impossible, to transfer from the Mandolin to the much larger Bazooki.

I have heard it opined that E - A - D - G is a better tuning for playing melody, rather than chordal accompaniment, and I can see why. I also realise that the likes of Donal Lunny and Andy Irvine use solely D - A - D - G. Does anybody have any opinion one way or the other?

dublinario

Echo, Echo,Echo,Echo,Echo,Echo

niallsmart

Bazooki? Get yourself a proper instrument.

ll=llannah

don't go trashing the bouzouki, now. i once knew a fairly well known bouzouki player, and he was the coolest person ever. yay bouzouki.

John

niallsmart wrote:

Bazooki? Get yourself a proper instrument, loser.

like a kazoo?

grow up.

dublinario

Nah, he's right guys. Who was I kidding? Ah well, it's off to the dump with my Bouzouki.

fuse

dublinario wrote:

Nah, he's right guys. Who was I kidding? Ah well, it's off to the dump with my Bouzouki.

Give it to me!
I'm hoping to eventually get my hands on a bouzouki or a mandola.
I love the sound of them, only held one once.

I play guitar & bass so should be able to knock a tune out of it after a few tries.

I did wonder about the tuning though, so there's no official tuning for it is there?

dublinario

Fuse, I got my Bouzouki on eBay. There are a couple of companies doing them cheap, much much cheaper than you would get them, say, in any of the Dublin music shops. It probably aint great quality, but then I aint a great Bouzouki player. I have toyed with the idea of shelling out a few hundred for the model (they all seem to get the same model in) that they sell in Perfect Pitch and other shops, but I may as well try and get good on my sh*tty one first.

As for the tunings, there are plenty of them. I have settled on G - D - A - E, rather than the (arguably more popular) G - D - A - D. The great thing about GDAE is that it is visualisable as a Guitar upside down, which is deady handy!

SteveFE

DADG gives you more options for playing open chords with a drone top D. That's it. Top D drone works with any tune in D or G so it's a natural string to let ring, whereas with a top E you tend to have to hold a note down on it in most keys, Em and Am excepted.

I personally find EADG better for tunes (banjo and mandolin) but I'm not the greatest player in the world so don't take it as gospel.

dublinario

SteveFE, in relation to the tunings that sounds about right, and is pretty much exactly what I was told by an experienced Bouzouki player in advance of even buying my own instrument.

For me, I certainly didn't rush into my decision on the tunings, and the 'D' drone definately appealed to me. I experimented with both DADG and GDAE for a good week or so and then made my decision. I picked GDAE, and rightly or Wrongly, in the end it came down to GDAE being the tuning of a Guitar upside down rather than 'Drone versus Tunes', which probably should have been my criteria. But I've played Guitar for donkeys years, and as I said in my earlier posting, I just found (and continue to find) it very do-able to picture a chord shape, or even what note a string fretted at a particular fret is, by thinking of an inverted Guitar neck.

fuse

Good news, a mate of mine has a bouzouki up in his attic for years so he's gonna take it down and let me have it for a while!
Yahooo, looking forward to getting it. Need to pick up new strings for it.

So what about books/tutorials for learning it?

Also any albums/artists that would be best to listen to for it?
There's plenty of it in the Planxty albums I have anyway.

dublinario

I got the CD-ROM based Bouzouki tutorial for sale on the site www.madfortrad.com. It's pretty good, a Multimedia tutorial with lots of movie clips, and suited me because it is for GDAE tuning.

fuse

Deadly, I got the bouzouki over the christmas and have been working away on it.
I've settled on GDAD tuning.
Got a new set of strings for it but unlike the old ones that were on it, each double was an octave string, where the two strings that were together were exactly the same pitch. I think I prefer them as the same pitch rather than octaves.

This site was a great help to me (as was all your advice):
Han's Irish Bouzouki Page

Any tunes in particular you'd recommend to learn?

I need to find a few sessions to join now.

lee_baby_simms

i play with G - D - A - E, and to hell with the stable doors.

lee_baby_simms

fuse wrote:

Any tunes in particular you'd recommend to learn?

maidrin rua is a nice one to try.