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Thread: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

  1. #126
    Registered User Colin Lindsay's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Quote Originally Posted by Dacraw54 View Post
    Considering that the term Octave Mandolin and Cittern as used by Americans didn't exist in the 70's in Ireland, and in European Classical circles they referred to different instruments.
    Leave the Irish alone, magnificent innovators that they are, and let the replicators cease from inventing 'names'.
    Of course they did, at least cittern did, due to the availability of folk LPs from the mainland in the 1960s and 1970s. We're not as backward as all that!
    If we WERE to lose a name it's this dreadful "IRISH' bouzouki label that pervades everywhere; to many of us living here it's a flatback or European model. Many times I've joked that I play 'Irish' guitar, 'Irish' hurdy-gurdy, 'Irish' clarinet etc as it seems to make as much sense.
    "Danger! Do Not Touch!" must be one of the scariest things to read in Braille....

  2. #127

    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Quote Originally Posted by Colin Lindsay View Post
    Of course they did, at least cittern did, due to the availability of folk LPs from the mainland in the 1960s and 1970s. We're not as backward as all that!
    If we WERE to lose a name it's this dreadful "IRISH' bouzouki label that pervades everywhere; to many of us living here it's a flatback or European model. Many times I've joked that I play 'Irish' guitar, 'Irish' hurdy-gurdy, 'Irish' clarinet etc as it seems to make as much sense.
    As a bouzouki (Greek modified) player in Ireland (Southern) in the early 70's I beg to differ. I never heard or saw a 5 course 'bouzouki' - call it what you will. I also never heard the term Octave Mandolin.
    In the USA in the late 80's I rekindled my interest with a Johnston Bouzouki. I bought Tim O'Brien's DVD "Mandolin and Bouzouki of Tim O'Brien' - funny thing was that with a Giacomel 20" Scale 'bouzouki' tuned to GDAE Tim had what is now called an Octave Mandolin. I then got Zan McCleods DVD and he explained Cittern and a few other names that clearly he was not comfortable with.

    What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

  3. #128
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Quote Originally Posted by Dacraw54 View Post
    What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...
    So as I see it we have these instruments, all with chromatic metal frets and machine tuning gears, to deal with:

    Bowl backed:

    6 and 8 string instruments, varying in size from the little baglama to the tzouras to the full size bouzouki.

    Liuto Cantabile, 5 courses, tuned CDGAE

    Flat back instruments:

    made like the 8 string bowl back as above, but flat.

    Carved or archtop style instruments:

    Short scale, 4 courses, usually tuned like an octave mandolin

    Long scale 4 and 5 course instruments, tuned a number of ways.

    and so on.

    Maybe it's not the instrument itself that defines these things.

    Perhaps it's the music we play on them that defines them.

    Give one of you guys a "bouzouki", tuned however you want, and you can play a nice jig or reel for me...then hand me the same instrument, and I'll tune it DAD, CFAD, or GDAD, and play a hasapiko or zeibekiko for you. Or tune it (C) GDAE and play some Italian music.

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  5. #129
    Registered User Colin Lindsay's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Quote Originally Posted by Dacraw54 View Post
    As a bouzouki (Greek modified) player in Ireland (Southern) in the early 70's I beg to differ. I never heard or saw a 5 course 'bouzouki' - call it what you will. I also never heard the term Octave Mandolin.

    What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...
    YOU didn't. That doesn't mean that no-one did, and again I'll reinforce that, by reading the sleeve notes of the LPs I used to listen to, I was familiar with the sound of, and the name of, a cittern. It was NOT referred to as a 10-string bouzouki, nor indeed was ANY bouzouki over here referred to as an 'IRISH' bouzouki until many years later. I have a number of novels, too, that I read in the 1960s that mentioned the cittern and had drawings, so I was familiar with the concept long before the sound.

    What's in a name? It's the appropriation of the name 'bouzouki' as being somehow invented over here, and then applied to every other instrument as though they're a variation of the same instrument, that gets my goat. No matter the name of the goat. The instrument itself, I love.
    "Danger! Do Not Touch!" must be one of the scariest things to read in Braille....

  6. #130
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Quote Originally Posted by Colin Lindsay View Post
    YOU didn't. That doesn't mean that no-one did, and again I'll reinforce that, by reading the sleeve notes of the LPs I used to listen to, I was familiar with the sound of, and the name of, a cittern. It was NOT referred to as a 10-string bouzouki, nor indeed was ANY bouzouki over here referred to as an 'IRISH' bouzouki until many years later. I have a number of novels, too, that I read in the 1960s that mentioned the cittern and had drawings, so I was familiar with the concept long before the sound.

    What's in a name? It's the appropriation of the name 'bouzouki' as being somehow invented over here, and then applied to every other instrument as though they're a variation of the same instrument, that gets my goat. No matter the name of the goat. The instrument itself, I love.
    Let's be honest and historically accurate.

    Some creative Irish musicians realized you could use a DAD Greek bouzouki and use it in ITM.

    Then the whole concept grew...more strings, more body size, carved top, etc.

    And then the other issues happened...like the whole Sobell thing, and so on. And now we have a mish-mash of terms, tunings, and styles.

    Back to my point...what MUSIC do you play on your bouzouki/octave mandolin/whatever?

  7. #131

    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Quote Originally Posted by Colin Lindsay View Post
    YOU didn't. That doesn't mean that no-one did, and again I'll reinforce that, by reading the sleeve notes of the LPs I used to listen to, I was familiar with the sound of, and the name of, a cittern. It was NOT referred to as a 10-string bouzouki, nor indeed was ANY bouzouki over here referred to as an 'IRISH' bouzouki until many years later. I have a number of novels, too, that I read in the 1960s that mentioned the cittern and had drawings, so I was familiar with the concept long before the sound.

    What's in a name? It's the appropriation of the name 'bouzouki' as being somehow invented over here, and then applied to every other instrument as though they're a variation of the same instrument, that gets my goat. No matter the name of the goat. The instrument itself, I love.
    I'll tell you what. Why don't you remember your memories as things that you did and happened to you and I'll do the same, as I have done. You are totally wrong about my experience, and I couldn't give a toss about yours.

    I'd never heard of a Bouzouki before Johnny Moynihan played one. Then I got one - a Greek Bouzouki. I learned The Blacksmith, Merrily Kissed the Quaker, Zorba the Greek, and Never on a Sunday, in short order on a Greek tetrachordo zouk in Greek tuning. Then, like Donal Lunny (actually copying him) I changed the strings and tuning to GgDdAADD. I use whatever name to describe an instrument that the person I'm talking to understands - Bouzouki, Octave Mandolin, Cittern, Blarge, Blarz, Dordan, Octave Mandola, Guizouki, Zouktar, Boutar, Thingymajig, The Beast,

  8. #132
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Quote Originally Posted by Dacraw54 View Post
    I use whatever name to describe an instrument that the person I'm talking to understands - Bouzouki, Octave Mandolin, Cittern, Blarge, Blarz, Dordan, Octave Mandola, Guizouki, Zouktar, Boutar, Thingymajig, The Beast,
    I always hoped Blarge would catch on as the name...it has a great humorous sound as a word.

  9. #133
    Unfamous String Buster Beanzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Maybe blarge is too close to the sound of someone needing a clear run to the bogs after a feed of pints.
    You could ask someone what that thing is and watch everyone scatter to clear a path as they answered.

    The thing with the Irish Bouzouki is there’s great satisfaction in saying the word, especially in a decent Irish accent.
    It’s actually a kick to say the word. It comes out like bazzouukey, sometimes prefixed with the affectionate ‘bleedin’ to get some extra twist into it. It’s a great word & I’m glad we nicked it
    Really we’re talking about hiberno-english, a language where words get mashed up & meanings reversed just for the heck of it, or have bits added to make the word more interesting to use, efficiency and accuracy are secondary considerations there.
    We’re great manglers of other peoples words, possibly because we’ve been at it for so long.

    Interesting bit of trivia, those funky tuners for citterns and english guitars (also used in Portuguese gitarras) used to be made in Dublin up until the end of the 1800s
    Eoin



    "Forget that anyone is listening to you and always listen to yourself" - Fryderyk Chopin

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  11. #134

    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Please, take it easy, boys. I feel badly now that I started a bit of a toss up between Colin and Dacraw, with whom I agree completely in his referral to the Irish genius for innovation. Actually, I intended to post in defense of the Irish instrument, not to disparage it. Irish and Scottish trad are the musical styles that I prefer, and I love the sound that the "Irish bouzouki" brings to the repertoire, so light and playful. My concern, though, is that, whatever Johnny Moynihan and Alec Finn might have called what they played, all of the subsequent innovations have resulted in an instrument which is more like a large bodied mandolin (or a mandola) with an increased scale length than it is like a Greek tetrachordo bouzouki. Must we call any four-course hollow bodied chordophone with a smaller body than a guitar and a longer scale than a mando a "bouzouki"? I think not. The term "Irish bouzouki" is fine in and of itself, and I agree with Beanzy that the word "bouzouki" is catchy and fun to say. But, again, the problem that I have with it is that as long as we call our thing a "bouzouki", players of the Greek instrument, which is a beautiful instrument in its own right (please don't misinterpret me), will have opportunity to insinuate that the "Irishy" bouzouki is somehow a degeneration of the Greek "original", which, as I noted earlier, might be characterized as a knock-off of the Turkish "original", et cetera (very little is truly original in this world...as the author of Ecclesiastes noted: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”). Can we not dip into the Gaelic etymology to devise a name for our particular and unique instrument, and so avoid such unfavorable suggestions? The Gaelic League has been working for 125 years now to prevent the complete demise of, and to promote the use and integration of Gaelic in everyday life. One way this can be accomplished is by using Gaelic morphemes in devising names for new things, right? Should we not use our language to name the things developed by ourselves (I am of Irish ancestry, a Moore, on my mom's side)? Zoukboy and Dagger might be right...the name "bouzouki" now seems to be entrenched, but you never know...

  12. #135

    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Jimmy Crowley had a Dordán, but that didn't catch on either. I had a 5-course Foley with a 17" spread and BLARZ on the label. I asked Joe about it and he said "Sure they were coming to me with all sorts of names they wanted..."

  13. #136

    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    Quote Originally Posted by Dacraw54 View Post
    Jimmy Crowley had a Dordán, but that didn't catch on either. I had a 5-course Foley with a 17" spread and BLARZ on the label. I asked Joe about it and he said "Sure they were coming to me with all sorts of names they wanted..."
    I looked up dordan in Irish, and it seems to mean "fuzz". Funny enough name. Not sure what to make of BLARZ, though.

  14. #137

    Default Re: Irish Bouzouki vs. Greek Bouzouki

    BLARZ = Bleedin' Large Zouk
    DORDAN = Drone
    Last edited by Dacraw54; Jun-20-2018 at 10:10am.

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