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Agreed, if you can ever study with Yurdal, take the chance. Anyone at Labyrinth is going to be a fantastic teacher.



I listened to him so much when I was younger, enchanted is the right word!...

Thanks I hope to share a lot of it on the Mando Cafe. I know that we have many members here interested in related instruments and history!

Speaking of rembetiko on the mandolin. There was a very...

Eight string players only stick to CFAd. Six string players play DAd almost all of the time, even the hardcore rembetiko players. It's not nearly as common as a guitarist playing a song or two in an...

I devoured the Jordi Savall concert series some time ago. Efrén Lopez from Valencia is also responsible for bridging the East and West together in his music and just a very nice person, overall....

Thank you, Gan. That is very kind of you. It shocks me to see the information I am passing on being called academic and, generally, so well received. I never had a formal education and know just a...

Continued...

A poverty version of Misirlou, pieced together from at least five versions that I remembered. Sorry. This is an Anatolian folk song that was also played in rembetiko and later became...

This is a medley inspired by four songs: O Katadikos by Yiovan Tsaous (Yiannis Eintziridis) from 1936. Skyla M’ekanes kai liono by Markos Vamvakaris from 1935. Paraponiariko Mou by Apostolos...

Good discussion going on. I don't think the microtones are really the deciding factor, if you don't know how to play the scales at all. After all, if you play Turkish or Greek music equally tempered...

Here is what I listened to in my younger years, a more modern period oud playing.

Haig Yazdjian, who went from Syria to live in Greece and is a very esteemed artist there who brings Armenian folk...

Yes, that's the story. And Agapios played with Roza Eskenazy, one of the earliest and most famous rembetiko singers. They wrote many songs with the violinist Dimitris Semsis. And Agapios was also...

No David, a Perlgold eastern German from the 1970s. Converted to lefthanded. Sakis (Matsikas) mandolins have a longer scale length, I believe. That is very nice for Greek style playing, actually.
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Thank you, Chris!

Thank you, Simon!

For oud tunings, there are many. From bass to treble: EABead might be considered standard by many on Turkish and Greek oud. I also know C#F#BEAd, BF#BEAd. DABEAd is also popular...

I am sorry for the confusion, I embedded a video in my post yestreday when I was on the go. But it did not post! Here is my piece:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7guKRpz96I

I am a seriously lousy oud player, but so inspired by others. Some very important oud players came from Constantinople and Smyrna. Marko Melkon (Alemsherian) and Agapios Tomboulis (Hagop Stambulyan)...

For what it’s worth, here is the original Greek hitzaz kiar mode (big discussion happening fairly often, that they are modes and not just scales) that Misirlou is in.

(Based on Ottoman Hijaz kar)...

It feels very solid. Might be because it's so thick, that it doesn't slip off the strings? Like I said, I never tried a thinner wooden plectrum before. The pick is quite smooth, too. Not a coarse...

I know wooden picks tend to get a bad rep around here, but I said I'd reserve judgement until I got to play one. A friend of mine had some lumber to spare and made plectrums out of ringed gidgee...

And for what it's worth, here is this "other" modal music, as it is natively played in northern Greece and ex-Yugoslavia. Macedonian and Thracian folk from the regions, without fighting about who...

The modes are actually different and the tonality is too, but there really are similarities to klezmer. I know a guy who plays klezmer clarinet, we used to compare songs often. Misirlou is in a scale...

Traditionally, this music is played on gajda bagpipes and kaval flutes. The ensembles of the ex-Yugoslavian nations are accompanied by a stringed instrument with double courses called the tambura, or...

I do know that Perlgold and Hanseat, both from Eastern Germany at the time, manufactured a boatload of mandolins and citterns. Among many others, but those are the two makers that I keep finding.
...

Ha, isn't that the truth. All those old mandolins and bouzoukis have flower inlays, it seems. Do you mean the pickguard? That is just so that the top does not get scratched excessively (should be...

That's a sweet looking one, Nick. I like how it combines the older qualities with some new elements of the American carved tradition! Personally, I never liked electric-acoustic instruments. I like...

I was gifted this mando by someone who himself was once gifted it. He never learned how to play and stored it in his closet for the last 30 years. He said it was made in the 60s. It needed a refret...