Since quite many of you play any of these chubbier, long necked instruments, maybe you would have some advice to offer. I'd loooooooove to learn to play melodies on the bouzouki. There is nothing as sweet and beautiful as an Irish or Swedish tune on the bouzouki. But, the distances are so long and I can't move so fast... my bouzouki is made for 10 strings (but has 8) so the neck is quite chubby. Is it simply a pain, and a matter of practicing moving the hand up and down? Am I missing something? Can I play without moving so much, using open strings, but simply haven't thought about it? Other thoughts and advice? I've used GDAE tuning for the tune I recorded, but I prefer GDAD tuning because of a nice chord pattern I learned from a DVD. In the past I've used ADAD but I don't even remember how that was Thanks in advance for any help.
Playing style follows neck length. The longer the neck, the more melody notes you have to leave out or replace by other melody notes. The longer scale takes away dexterity, but gives sustain in return; you need to utilize that. Let open string notes in the melody sing longer while you move your hand over to the next manageable fretted note. Employ doublestops to surreptitiously replace one interesting phrase you can't do by another you can do. There is just one rule: no boredom allowed. In the end you will have a completely re-composed piece of music that acoustically still resembles the original tune (hopefully), but written down would look very different - it's called "a version" Listen closely to our CBOM videos, follow the sheet music, compare and you'll see what I mean.
You will need to utilize your pinky a lot more and it takes some repetition to build strength in the pinky. You also have to find creative ways to finger things that comes naturally on the mandolin. Each tune can pose it's own challenges. The bouzouki typically has the longest scale length of mando family instruments, to mitigate that you might want to tune the instrument down a couple of steps and then capo up the same to reduce the effective scale length. That should make the stretches more manageable. Another trick is to use alternate tunings like GDAD, ADAE or AEAE, then the hard part is remembering what you tuned it to.
I'll second David's post that your pinky will get a workout. In fact your whole left hand will get a workout. My octave's got a 21.5 inch scale so I can get away with mandolin fingerings sometimes. But a tune that hits the 5th frets all the time requires the pinky. You will also learn to shift quickly. Follow Bertram's advice about simplifying the tunes so your shifts happen when an open string is ringing. Crosstuning would get rid of long stretches on the middle two strings. I bet it would sound great on the zouk too.
Don, What do you mean by cross-tunings? You referred to that in a recent video for Kitchen Girl, where you were tuned AEAE?
Hey lads, thanks for good advice! I'll start by tuning the zouk down a few notes! And then employ all your other advice... what is a good tune to start with?
CD, I call AEAE or GDGD crosstuning. Also called sawmill tuning. Tuned in 5ths in 2 pairs of octaves. Anything you work out on the top two strings you can play an octave lower on the bottom 2 strings.
I totally forgot about the workout part... after a while it comes natural. Important: warm up your hand before playing with little exercises (open/close fist, wriggle fingers etc.) to avoid cold stress. Be prepared to grow a thicker forearm (refer to older Popeye comics for a preview)
No problem, I also go to the gym for that!!
You're bouzouki sounds like a cittern to me... 5 courses? Any way, I've heard of people tuning the instrument down two steps, then capo the 2nd fret to fret to bring it back to standard GDAE or GDAD. This will shorten the scale length to help with the reach. As a GDAD player, I find there are many tunes that I've avoided learning due to parts that go way up the high D string which would be quite difficult on the bouzouki. I've gradually overcome this fear of playing some tunes by, like Bertram, coming up with versions of the parts that I can generally play in a chord melody style, and sometimes transferring the B part to a lower octave helps. As the Irish bouzouki is still a fairly young instrument, the world could use a few more bouzouki players
To go two frets up with your tuning is a good option. I did this for a long time and still do this when I like to use the bouzouki as a octave mando in GDAE. I then have a 57cm scale lenth. I also found it a big advantage to have two half steps that I could go down when I play with singers and have to adapt to their favorite keys. I also did this with the cittern I once had which I tuned GDAEA. The high a-string was to thin for my taste on the 58cm scale, so I brought it two frets up to 52cm. But the low G never sounded that great and I like 4 courses better. So I went back to the bouzouki. My impression is that you can play many tunes very well in GDAD, but you have to organise them differently. The quart forces you to shift up the neck sooner but facilitates these shifts at the same time. The distances for reaching the required notes in the high positions are not so big with a quart than with a quint on a long scale. I think a good example are players from Greece and the middle east who use instruments tuned DAD or similar. They play the melody mainly on the two high courses shifting up and down the neck extensively. You can also see this when Andy Irvin plays bulgarian tunes. Shifts and using open strings that give you the time for shifting are impotant tools on the long scaled instruments IMHO (Bertram already said this). This also results in a special sound.
Then there's the Roger Landes school of thought which promotes the use of GDAD tuning and using double-stop patterns based on the GDA combo or the DAD combo - in other words just use 3 courses at a time... A capo is a zouk players best friend... I personally mix and match double-stops and melody much like Bertram, but not as proficiently. I seldom, if at all, use a pinky...
Nice, I think I'm too used to mandolin playing and when I try to play tunes on the zouk as on the mando, it doesn't go well So some chordal mix will be the way to go. I'll see what I can do. Kyle B, I think my instrument is a different type depending on who you ask Gerry who sold it to me called it a bouzouki but with 5 courses, or, it was built for 5 courses but now has 4. He thought it was too narrow between the courses with 5, and I can imagine it would be. In a discussion on the CBOM forum here, I was told that some people call 5 course instruments cittern and some call them bouzouki with 5 courses.... I must say that I am very confused about what a cittern is defined as I'll probably need to live with the fact that some will call my bouzouki a cittern!
In the CBOM name zoo, 5-course zouks also go as "Blarge" if their scale is longer than the normal range for citterns. Since this is a rather contemporary instrument family resembling historic instruments, luthiers felt free to invent historic-sounding fancy names. There is no real useful classification system. If someone asks, just say "this is my C.B.O.M.-G.D.A.D.-25.3". Don't say it on the phone, or else some agency will suspect you own a rocket launcher. Once you get to playing these machines, you'll find that the name doesn't really matter. When practising, remember: stretching is not the way in pursuit of beauty. There is always a workaround.
