I saw Andy Irvine live recently playing his Bass Bouzouki. It sounded fantastic! I want one! I never see one for sale anywhere. Do you have to have these custom made?
Do you know what the specs are? Tuning? Is it a Mandocello with CGDG?
Ah! http://www.china2galway.com/Bouzouki...20Bouzouki.htm He tunes it DAEA, but it can go down to CGdg. So with the string gauges Andy uses being similar to the lower four course on my Crump Cittern I can tune my CRUMP C-III to CGDGd and drone the high d... I'll have to give that a shot...
Here goes with CGDGD tuning - I'm not sure ogf the chord fingerings I kinda made them up, and a bit of 12-bar finishing with a 'bass' version of Merrily Kissed the Quaker.... If it's too bassy, it can be upped a step to DAEAE - to get closer to Andy's tuning...
Yea, I'm not sure if he was playing his Davy Stuart. He was playing a standard bouzouki the he said he had just bought in Japan a couple weeks earlier. But that bass bouzouki really blew me away. Sitting right in front of him, I could feel the low notes vibrating in my chest. Just beautiful when played by a master such as Andy Irvine. I'm thinking I'd have to have one made. Which basically means I'm not getting one!
The scale length and body measurements on Andy's Davy Stewart Bass Bouzouki are similar to the Crump -except for the additional course on the Crump. On Davey's site he says he uses his Mandocello body for the Bass bouzouki... So get a Mandocello - perhaps a Gypsey (around $1k), and tune it CCGGDDgg instead of CCGGDDaa, or get a Cittern CCGGDDaadd...
I've recently been trying to contact Davy Stuart about building me one of these but can't seem get a reply from him. Anyone know if he's still working or if it's normal for him to take a while to respond to e-mails? I notice it's been a while since he posted anything on his website.
