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mmukav
Jun-20-2004, 9:03am
My new Morgan Monroe zouk arrived 2 days ago! Out of the box it looks great, love the inlay, workmanship seems decent. Inside is clean, no glue drips, loose parts. What surprised me the most was the tone. I really like the sound. Not as nasal as I thought it would be. Scale length is 26-3/8, strung with what I think are GHS med. strings. I really like the sound of the octave strings on the lower 2 courses. It's tuned right now to C-F-A-D. What other tunings would be good to try? The C-F-A-D is a little hard for me to try and play along with guitar and bass. We do a lot of songs in G, D, or A. If I tune to G-D-A-E like an octave, will the long scale length make the strings too loose and buzzy? Any suggeations?

Jacob
Jun-20-2004, 4:41pm
String sets composed of different gauges are used for Greek (cfad') (http://www.juststrings.com/lab-bz508.html) and Irish (Gdae') (http://www.juststrings.com/lab-ibz508.html) bouzouki tunings. #
Sets for one tuning won't work very well for the other. #
Many players of Irish bouzoukis prefer Gdad' tuning.

Dolamon
Jun-20-2004, 5:45pm
Congratulations! That long scale is really great with open string drones in D - A (tuned to GDAd) or capoed to whatever key your partners are playing in. Hans Speak's Boukouki Pages (http://home.hccnet.nl/h.speek/bouzouki/index.html) May be a good starting place for you to understand how you get around on that long skinny neck. The CF#AD works really well if you come from a guitar background - and want to play Greek tunes.

Enjoy

mmukav
Jun-21-2004, 10:51pm
Thanks for the help! I'm still getting the zouk set up, and will probably go with the G-D-A-D tuning. I'll let you know how things are going. I got a copy of Roger Landes' 'Dragon Reels', and am enjoying listening to that for ideas. It's an awesome CD!
Again, if I go with the G-D-A-D tuning, what guage strings would be recommended?

steve V. johnson
Jun-24-2004, 11:30pm
Your MM is a good deal longer than most, my Crump is 25.4", but the extra
length may not make a difference on gauges...

I use .042, .032, .020wound, .013. Sometimes this varies, depending on
my needs, and where I have to shop for them, but I have used .021 - .022
wounds on the A strings and up to .015 on the high string (which is a D
for me, and E for others).

I hope this helps.

stv

mmukav
Jun-25-2004, 2:05pm
Thanks for the info. I'll let you know how it goes. Mike http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Alekos
Jul-15-2004, 7:56am
Hello Mike, I play bouzouki too. Because I'm playing greek bouzouki, I'm prefering the CFAD tunning. For you, there is one more alternative - have you ever heard about ADAD tunning? It is great for playing chords.. maybe you will find it usefull.. good luck. Alex

mmukav
Jul-16-2004, 9:32am
Thanks Alekos, I'll give it a try. Currently I'm using G-D-A-D, but I'll try the A-D-A-D and let you know. C-F-A-D hasn't seemed to work as well for me. I do mostly old timey and bluegrass and the other tunings seem to work much better.

grsnovi
Jul-16-2004, 4:39pm
I have a Peterson which (I hate to admit) still has the original strings on it (its about three years old). I have it G-D-A-E but perhaps I should put some fresh ones on and maybe try an alt-tuning...

Alekos - where are you located? I leave in the morning for Prague and will spend the rest of the week in Decin. I'm not suggesting that I'll have any time to spend, but I am curious. I had to schedule this trip at the last minute otherwise I would have schedule myself a few days of free time in Prague.

Alekos
Jul-18-2004, 1:20am
Gary, I'm located in the 2nd largest city in the south Moravian teritory, in the Brno. Prague is very nice city with many opportunities for musicians, for you could be interesting to visit Mr.Jan Klima, who is a luthier and also playing bouzouki.. look at http://www.klima-instruments.cz/, regrettably the sites are only in Czech yet.. Alex