I have heard many people talk about chords on the bouzouki being kind of tough because of the reach, but is it much harder than reaching on guitar?
I have heard many people talk about chords on the bouzouki being kind of tough because of the reach, but is it much harder than reaching on guitar?
halfling...they are hard to reach if you try to play them the same as on a mandolin. When playing 'zouk, though, most folks seem to use chords that utilize the open strings, or that take one or two fingers... different forms of the chords-- in which case, no, it's not harder than guitar.
Karen Escovitz
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Otter OM #1
Brian Dean OM #32
Old Wave Mandola #372
Phoenix Neoclassical #256
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If you're gonna walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!
The reach question is most often brought up comparing a zouk to an OM in playing melodies. But the chord shapes on a zouk tuned in fifths tend to be more spread out than on a guitar with its fourths with a third thrown in. For instance the simplest A chord on a guitar has three strings fretted all on the same fret. On an 4 string instrument tuned GDAE it takes fretting at three different frets. #It isn't that chording a zouk is difficult, but that you don't have all the chording choices as on a mandolin, because some of the reaches for the variants are impossible, the classic 7-5-2-3 mandolin G chord, for instance. #You can't reach 6 frets from 1st postion on a zouk any more than you could on a guitar.
Since I have a background in Music Theory, making a chord is not hard for me, I alwyas find it and not just read it out of a book. So I always find the simplest chord and use that for example a D is, 2-0-0-2, of course on an A you are kind of stuck with the usual setup, which I find alot easier to do on the bigger instruments, but that is what happens when one has a size 12.5 ring.
The chord charts for common Irish bouzouki tunings at Han's Irish Bouzouki Homepage may be useful.
I came to bouzouki playing from guitar, and I had a zouk made that is the same scale length as my favorite guitar, so the chord reaches are no much of a concern for me. I do, however play one-and two-finger chords often, and my fiddler says that I haven't played a complete triad in years... <GGG>
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steve V. johnson
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