ARTICLE
RESOURCE GUIDE TO MAKERS AND SUPPLIERS
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
WEB RESOURCES
BOOKS & VIDEOS
THE NAME GAME
INTRODUCTION
Mention the word bouzouki, and people think either of Zorba
the Greek or G.I. Joe’s favorite weapon. The cognoscenti might conjure
images of smoky tavernas, free-flowing retsina, and crockery flung in
abandon. Some Celtic music fans would associate the bouzouki with Irish
jigs and reels, but few would link it with bluegrass and old-time hoe-downs,
and virtually no one would make the leap to Swedish fiddle tunes, rock
’n’ roll, and jazz. But the bouzouki has found its place in all these
musical styles, and it’s popping up more and more in the hands of guitarists.
GREEK BEGINNINGS
The bouzouki’s roots extend back to the long-necked lutes of ancient
Persia and Byzantium. The earliest bouzoukis are very similar to the
contemporary Turkish saz, and the bouzouki appellation was probably
derived from the Turkish name for the mid-sized bozouk saz. The saz
family of instruments is characterized by bowl-shaped backs (often carved
from a single piece of mulberry wood); long, thin necks with tied gut
frets; a free-floating bridge; and three double or triple courses of
wire strings. In 20th-century Greece, the movable gut frets yielded
to fixed wire frets and a standardized tempered scale, and the long
neck was wedded with a Neapolitan mandolin–style ribbed back. The standard
tuning was D A D.
A modern
saz by Lawrence Nyberg.
The history of the bouzouki is forever entwined with rembetika,
the highly improvised Greek music often compared with American blues.
The rembetik culture bloomed in the underworld of prisons and
hashish dens in the port cities of the Aegean Sea and western Asia
Minor in the early 1900s, reaching its zenith in the years between
the world wars. A typical early ensemble might have included a singer,
two or more bouzoukis playing melody and simple chords, and a tiny
version of the bouzouki called the baglama providing a staccato rhythm
accompaniment. The songs, with lyrics about drugs, hookers, money,
love, and death, were based on a variety of ancient modes and traditional
dance rhythms, and they were characterized by expressive improvised
introductions called taxims, impassioned singing, and bouzouki
breaks between verses. Among the most influential of early players--or
rembetes--were Márkos Vamvakáris and Ioannis
Papaioannou.
Eventually rembetika’s roughneck reputation softened and the
bouzouki entered the mainstream--partly due to a fine player and prolific
composer named Vassilis Tsitsánis. Tsitsánis fused the
old dance rhythms with more elaborate chord progressions and a westernized
harmonic sensibility, and his lyrics had a more conventional appeal
than the rough-hewn tales of the earlier artists. Tsitsánis
became the first national star of the bouzouki and made the instrument
socially acceptable. When he died in 1983, 200,000 mourners brandishing
bouzoukis and baglamas filled the streets of Athens. Among the many
virtuosos who followed in his wake was Manis Hiotis, who added a fourth
course of strings to the bouzouki and changed its tuning to C F A
D (like the first four strings of a guitar tuned down a step). The
new arrangement allowed a greater range and flexibility and fostered
the evolution of a showier style.
THE IRISH CONNECTION
Johnny Moynihan introduced the bouzouki into Irish music in 1966 when
a friend sold him an instrument he’d brought home from a Greek holiday.
Moynihan retuned the instrument and began using it at gigs at the Enda
Hotel in Galway with Andy Irvine and others. Irvine recalls the reception
of the bouzouki as less than felicitous; in fact he implored Moynihan
to go back to the mandolin. Despite the initial flack, the sound caught
on, and Moynihan and Irvine were soon playing the instrument in Sweeny’s
Men. Irvine gave Donal Lunny a bouzouki, and their experiments with
multiple double-course instrumentation became the core sound of the
legendary band Planxty and set the standard for rhythm sections in subsequent
trad bands. Lunny later participated in another seminal Irish revival
group, the Bothy Band, that also featured the bouzouki/guitar combo
as a key element in its sound.
Irish bouzouki
pioneer Andy Irvine.
The bouzouki is well-suited to playing simple modal backup, which
is entirely appropriate for the traditionally unaccompanied jigs and
reels of Irish music. According to fiddler Kevin Burke, "It was more
accepted than the guitar by the tune players because of the modal
nature of the tunes. The conventional ‘folk’ guitar chords usually
define quite strongly the difference between major and minor, whereas
many of the melodies don’t. The bouzouki lends itself to ‘vaguer’
chord shapes that seem to suit the Irish music better. This same major/minor
issue is, I suspect, what led to the popularity of D A D G A D tuning
on the guitar, which allows a drone effect to be employed."
Lunny, Irvine, and Moynihan all played four-course instruments based
on octave mandolin tuning--either G D A E or G D A D. All three focused
on accompaniment, although each carved out a unique approach. Lunny’s
style, for example, incorporated rhythmic grooves based on strumming
or arpeggiating chords, with transitional bass lines and melodic fragments
tying together sections of the tunes. Irvine’s approach was more melody-oriented,
weaving contrapuntal lines in and around the tune.
Similar experiments melding the bouzouki with Irish music were happening
elsewhere as well. Alec Finn was fooling around with a three-course
instrument, tuned modally D A D. He developed a rollicking accompaniment
style based on a cross-picked roll interspersed with snatches of melody
line. For 25 years, his incredibly tight duets with Frankie Gavin
have been the backbone of De Danann, the only band from that fertile
period still playing today. Dave Richardson of the Boys of the Lough
was using a flatbacked bouzouki-like instrument to play tunes in a
very traditional way, doubling the melody in unison or octaves rather
than as accompaniment. Meanwhile, the bouzouki was gaining a toehold
across the Atlantic.
THE NEW WORLD
Ironically, many of the first recordings of bouzouki music were made
in America in the early years when the bouzouki’s association with
rembetika made it unpopular among Greek record companies. American
experiments using the bouzouki in unconventional settings predate
the Irish invasion by nearly a decade. David Lindley, Solomon Feldthouse,
and their cohorts in the band Kaleidoscope were incorporating bouzoukis
and sazes into their spooky amalgam of tradition, invention, and psychedelia
back in the ’60s. Lindley grew up hearing Greek music right alongside
flamenco and bluegrass, and for him it was natural to combine the
sound of the bouzouki with everything from banjos to screaming slide
guitar. "We loved the twang," he says.
Still, it was bouzouki in the context of Irish music that fomented
real interest in the instrument. By the mid-’70s the cream of the
Irish revival scene made its way to America via albums, concert tours,
and folk festivals. The Boys of the Lough, De Danann, and the Bothy
Band all made appearances stateside, and each band prominently featured
a bouzouki in its lineup.
It is easy to understand why the instrument caught on over here in
this new context. The relatively straightforward Irish fiddle and
pipe tunes are appealing on first blush--their familiar harmonic structures
and 32-bar forms are a comfortable fit for most American listeners.
Then there’s the sound of the bouzouki. The paired strings, relatively
deep pitch, and fast decay time tend to produce a sound not unlike
the instantly appealing clang of the hammered dulcimer, but without
that instrument’s relentless drone and messy overtones. The typical
tunings are stacks of adjacent fifths and fourths, and you can get
satisfying tones from the instrument with very little effort. Open
chords sound huge and rich with a clarity difficult to achieve on
guitar, and melodic lines are sonorous thanks to the chime of the
double courses. American guitarists were smitten.
"Playing melody on the low two courses is a really exotic sound,"
says Stanley Greenthal, one of the first American Irish music enthusiasts
to incorporate the bouzouki into his arsenal. "It’s an ‘out there’
kind of sound." Chicago cittern player Joseph Sobol calls it "instantly
arresting. It’s like the combination of all the fretted instruments
with a little bit of harpsichord." To Zan McLeod the beauty of the
instrument is its clarity of timbre. "In a band with some low end—like
the bodhran in De Danann—the bouzouki sounds great, whereas a guitar
tends to be too muddy," he explains. "It’s also great with just one
other instrument—like a mandolin. You get that stringy and twangy
texture thing."
Trying to explain the sound of a bouzouki can be tricky. While bluegrass
mandolins "bark," and Martin dreadnoughts "boom" and "chuck," the
bouzouki had no real onomatopoeic terms of its own until Roger Landes
coined some new ones. Now players and builders around the country
analyze the sharpness of a bouzouki’s "ping," the clarity of its "chorng,"
and the depth of its "thrum." Like "twang" and "bark," you recognize
"chorng" when you hear it.
The Irish-style bouzouki took on a life of its own in the Midwest.
Missouri native Gerald Trimble, originally a guitarist, saw the bouzouki’s
potential. "I tried to make it an instrument that could play more
than just backup. I wanted to be able to improvise, play leads, and
take the instrument to a new dimension."
In 1983 Trimble collaborated with Scottish fiddler and producer Johnny
Cunningham to make First Flight, a breakthrough recording featuring
the bouzouki—or cittern, as Trimble called his ax at the time—playing
traditional Irish fiddle and pipe melodies. Trimble’s next project was
Heartland Messenger. "Johnny encouraged me to explore the music
of Missouri fiddlers and the Ozark musical traditions that were part
of my heritage," he recalls. The resulting album was probably the first
to feature the bouzouki as the lead voice in traditional American music.
Roger Landes and
Chipper Thompson.
Roger Landes, also from the heartland, has been devout in his efforts
to adapt Irish music to his hybrid five-course bouzouki. "The great
players all say that it goes back to the pipes, that at its core,
Irish music is wind music," he says. "My quest has been to take that
information from the pipes and move it to the fretboard." His success
can be heard on his solo release Dragon Tunes and on his earlier
work with the band Scartaglen. Landes recognized the burgeoning interest
in the instrument among American pickers, and he thought a formal
gathering was in order. He sent a message over the Internet, and within
24 hours he had 80 bouzouki nuts clamoring to participate. The resulting
gathering—called Zoukfest— took place in Weston, Missouri, in July,
1998. It featured a week of workshops, demonstrations, and concerts
and was successful enough to become an annual event.
Joseph Sobel cradles
his Sobell.
Joseph Sobol is another Midwesterner who is having a big impact on
the scene. His 1999 release Citternalia demonstrates a highly
idiosyncratic method of eliciting the subtleties of Irish phrasing and
ornamentation on the cittern, a term he prefers to bouzouki (see "The
Name Game,"). "I played classical guitar as a kid," he says, "and I
was able to adapt my tremolo technique for the ornamental triplets in
Irish music." Sobol uses a specially constructed thumbpick plus three
fingers with acrylic nails to attack his five- and six-course instruments.
"I mostly play cittern because it has everything," he says. "You can
get a frailing sound, a three-finger sound, and a mandolin sound."
Bluegrass maven and songwriter Tim O’Brien has been incorporating
bouzouki into his American roots and original music for years now.
Like many others, his interest in the instrument was sparked by hearing
the Irish bands of the ’70s and ’80s, but he has adapted the instrument
in a personal way. "I wanted another texture, another sound that didn’t
cover up the guitar" he says. "At the beginning, I didn’t know the
chords, so I got interested in weird, simple things," he adds. His
recent CD The Crossing draws on the old sod for inspiration,
and there is bouzouki on nearly every track. "I probably use my Kemnitzer
bouzouki for about 50 percent of the music in my live shows," he says.
"I’d be lost without it. Plus it’s a conversation piece. People are
always asking what it is."
Transplanted Alabaman Chipper Thompson is breaking new ground with
the bouzouki in his bluesy roots-music ensembles in New Mexico, particularly
with his use of slide. The instrument is also finding a comfortable
niche in mandolin ensembles and can be heard on recent recordings
ranging from the radical experiments of Radim Zenkl to the more traditional
sounds of Butch Baldassari.
ENTER THE LUTHIERS
The bouzouki might have remained a curious footnote in the history
of Irish music if it hadn’t been for the active involvement of some
pioneering luthiers. The Greek bouzouki in its traditional form requires
dexterity and balance: the large bowl back demands that the player
sit cross-legged. The Irish players wanted an instrument that could
stand up to the volume and intensity of fiddles, flutes, accordions,
and pipes, and they turned to luthiers willing to explore new territory.
Johnny Moynihan credits the first flatback bouzouki to Irish guitar
maker John Bailey, who set about trying to re-create a Greek-style
instrument but found it too troublesome to deal with the ribbed back.
His 1963 experiment was a one-off, but Moynihan has played the thing
for years, inspiring subsequent builders and players.
The first modern bouzouki designed expressly for playing Irish music
was built by English luthier Peter Abnett. In 1970 he collaborated
with Donal Lunny and others to develop an instrument with a four-course
Greek bouzouki neck and a shallow-arched, three-piece back. Abnett,
who is still building today, calls his instruments Irish bouzoukis.
Stefan Sobell, probably the best-known of the British Isles luthiers,
was the first to experiment with carved tops and backs on a bouzouki-like
instrument. Ironically, it was a Portuguese guitarra, not a bouzouki,
that got him started. "I didn’t know what to do with it until I strung
it mandolin style: G D A E," he recalls. "When I met Andy Irvine in
the late ’60s, he tuned it G D A D, and that open tuning lent itself
to accompanying songs and playing tunes. It made a lovely sound but
without much projection. About the same time I got hold of an old
Martin C-3 [round-hole archtop], which I got by trading a concertina
and a car engine to some American kids. I thought if I could combine
the big, projecting, clanging tone of the Martin with the shape, feel,
and tuning of the Portuguese guitar, then I’d really have something."
Sobel called his creation a cittern because it resembled the Renaissance
English instruments of that name. He was soon producing variations on
that first prototype for string players all over the British Isles.
He was among the first to add an additional pair of strings to the original
four, a feature that has become a standard option offered by most luthiers.
Sobel’s instruments were among the first to make the leap across the
Atlantic, and they became synonymous with the exciting new soundscapes
of the hot young trad bands.
Among the largest of today’s dozen or so British bouzouki manufacturers
is Roger Bucknall’s Fylde Guitars, which makes a complete line of
long-necked lutes, including bouzoukis, citterns, octave mandolins,
mandolas, and mandolins, and is unique in offering a fixed-pin bridge
on some flattop models.
Rich Westerman was among the first American luthiers to try his hand
at the modern bouzouki, but he had few resources to inform his first
designs. He was a big fan of Donal Lunny’s playing and built his first
bouzouki based solely on the photograph on the first Bothy Band album
jacket, with no specifications and without a clue about how to string
or tune the thing. The resulting ax sounded remarkably good, and he
was able to sell his output through the Lark in the Morning mail-order
house. Lark proprietor Mickie Zekley has been an active purveyor of
bouzoukis and other exotic instruments since the early ’70s and was
responsible for getting instruments into players’ hands when precious
few were available. Lark still sells "a ton" of the flatbacked bouzoukis,
according to Zekley, who reckons that the demand for instruments for
the Celtic scene is still growing, as is the small but growing interest
in traditional Greek and Turkish instruments.
Another early pioneer on the American bouzouki scene was John Stump,
who built some splendid instruments for Stanley Greenthal and other
Pacific Northwest players. Stump based his design on a vintage Gibson
mandocello, although he modified the details somewhat. Nowadays there
are a couple of dozen luthiers handcrafting modern Irish-style bouzoukis
in the United States, including Phil Crump, Rob Adams, Mike Kemnitzer,
and Steven Owsley Smith.
Detail of an instrument
by Steven Owsley Smith.
California builder Phil Crump has been a guitar maker and Martin repairman
for years. "Citterns are 80 percent of my business," Crump says. "There’s
a zillion guitar makers, but what’s driving me is my own interest in
playing. I play cittern and I couldn’t find one, so I decided to get
into it for myself." Rob Adams of Trillium
Octave Mandolins notes that the Internet has helped propagate
the scene and that acquiring a once-rare custom bouzouki can now be
arranged easily via e-mail and credit card. Mike Kemnitzer says that
20 percent of his advance orders for the next five years are for octave
mandolins, bouzoukis, and mandolas. "I think it is mostly from people
seeing Tim O’Brien playing the bouzouki," he says, "and from mandolin
players who want to round out their family of instruments."
Detail of a Trillium.
Steven Owsley Smith is a proselytizer for the potential of the instrument
beyond its current roles. From his converted school bus workshop in
Taos, New Mexico, the incessant tinkerer bases his archtop hybrids
on American prototypes such as Lyon and Healy, and his newest instruments
show the kind of fanciful invention reminiscent of Orville Gibson’s
art nouveau mandolins. Smith says, "I am building instruments to meet
the new demand of the current crop of players: soloists who want more
ping per pound. The difference is really subtle. You get 90 percent
of the tone in any cheapo instrument. It’s the last 10 percent that
drives us over the edge and makes us want to scream when we get it."
Smith particularly likes the freedom of expression that the bouzouki
offers him. "There are no set rules for the instrument yet, and there
is an openness to new ideas, experimental visions," he says. "It doesn’t
matter if it looks like anyone else’s instrument." Roger Landes credits
Smith with making his efforts toward idiomatic expression possible.
"The instrument that Steven made has an incredibly fast response time--much
quicker than the flattop guitar, for example--and the carved top and
back and small body size contribute to that clarity."
Among the few luthiers building the old Greek-style bouzoukis in
North America are Michael Hubbard, Kalis and Company, and Lawrence
Nyberg, who is making traditional bouzoukis and sazes as well as modern
flatback forms. One interesting interpretation of the bouzouki is
the "gittern" offered by Dusty Strings Co. in Seattle. It is essentially
a 12-string guitar with the tonal characteristics of a carved-top
bouzouki, and it makes a great instrument for the guitarist looking
for that bouzouki sound.
FACTORY INSTRUMENTS
When Flatiron introduced its relatively inexpensive flattop mandolin-family
instruments in the ’70s, an octave mandolin and a longer-necked Irish
bouzouki were included in the product line. Flatiron bouzoukis and
octave mandolins were widely distributed in music stores and were
probably the first long-necked lutes most American musicians encountered.
Flatiron was acquired by Gibson--once synonymous with all things mandolin,
including mandocellos and octave mandolins--but the company has no
plans to reinvigorate that end of the product line at the moment.
Several other big manufacturers are offering a bouzouki option on
a limited basis. Ovation, for example, is offering an eight-string
hybrid instrument as a custom order, and David Lindley is working
with Tacoma to develop prototypes for a potential line of relatively
inexpensive bouzouki-family instruments.
Among the most popular factory instruments are those sold under the
Trinity College label, imported by Saga. These are inexpensive entry-level
instruments for the beginner or casual explorer. For the more serious
player looking for a fine factory instrument, Sound to Earth/Weber
offers a full line of bouzouki and mandolin-family instruments in
both modest flattop versions and more elaborate carved designs with
a huge variety of styles and materials.
FUTURE OF THE INSTRUMENT
Ethnomusicologist and musician Chris Smith talks about the evolution
of instruments across cultures and time and likens the diaspora of
the bouzouki to that of the guitar, an instrument once identified
with a specific European tradition but now universal in its applications.
From its origins in the Greek underworld, the bouzouki is now firmly
entrenched in the Celtic music scene, and through the influence of
players like Tim O’Brien the instrument is making inroads in the bluegrass
and old-time music scenes. Bouzoukis have also been adopted by pop
and rock guitarists looking for a different sound, and the twang of
double courses has graced albums by Jackson Browne, R.E.M., Tom Petty,
and scores of other mainstream acts. Nor is the phenomenon limited
to this country. The bouzouki is the fretted instrument of choice
for leading trad bands in Scandinavia, France, and elsewhere.
The future of the instrument may well lie in its ancient roots. Many
players initially attracted to the instrument for its flexible role
in Irish music are now exploring music from the region that fostered
the instrument in the first place. Andy Irvine’s East Wind recording
explores the intersection of Balkan music and jazz, Stanley Greenthal
has included Greek tunes on his recent recordings, and bouzouki pioneer
Gerald Trimble has delved deeply into the ancient musics of Turkey
and Persia. Joseph Sobol sums it up nicely: "We are fascinated
by that combination of ancientness and modernity--tapping into that
distant, ancient place."
Demand for the instrument keeps growing, and at the moment, demand
for the best instruments slightly exceeds supply. Still, luthiers
are making the instrument evermore available and pushing the envelope
of design, construction, and materials, just as musicians are expanding
the notion of what the instrument can do. There is every reason to
suspect that the new millennium will be chock-full of spling, chorng,
and thrum.
MAKERS
AND SUPPLIERS OF BOUZOUKIS
Peter Abnett
63 Whitehouse Crescent
Burham NR. Rochester
Kent, ME1 3SU
United Kingdom
(44) 01634-865254
Robert L. Abrams
Trillium Octave Mandolins
60 Mill Pond Way
Portsmouth, NH 03801
(603) 431-6056
www.octavemandolin.com
Adin and Ekvall Luthiers
Rorvik Pl: 6070
457 95 Grebbestad
Sweden
Phone/fax: (46) 525-143-80
www.gm-trading.se/hem/instrumentbyggare/
Fletcher Brock
PO Box 5781
Ketchum, ID 83340
(208) 726-5650.
tofletcher@yahoo.com
Roger Bucknall
Fylde Guitars
Hartness Rd., Gilwilly Industrial Estate
Penrith, Cumbria CA11 9BN
United Kingdom
(44) 01768-891515
Fax (44) 01768-891515
www.fyldeguitars.com
Phil Crump
187 Fickle Hill Rd.
Arcata, CA 95521
(707) 826 1164
www.pwcrumpco.com
Dio Bersis
22-08 Crescent St.
Astoria, NY 11105
(800) 570-3446
www.diodinos.com
Dusty Strings
3406 Fremont Ave. N.
Seattle WA 98103
(206) 634-1662
www.dusty-strings.com
Ithaca Stringed Instruments
6115 Mount Rd.
Trumansburg, NY 14886
(607) 387 3544
www.ithacastring.com
Kalis and Co. International
PO Box 205
Don Mills Station
Toronto, ON
Canada. M3C 2E0
(416) 948-1700
www.bouzouki.com
Mike Kemnitzer
Nugget Mandolins
PO Box 26
Central Lake, MI 49622.
(616) 544-8140
www.mandolincafe.com/nugget.html
Lark in the Morning
PO Box 1176
Mendocino, CA 95460-1176
(707) 964-5569
www.larkinam.com
Lawrence Nyberg
6320 Bond Rd.
Hornby Island, BC
Canada V0R 1Z0
(250) 335-1727
www.island.net/~nyberg/
W.A. Petersen
6119 Lafayette Ave.
Omaha, NE 68132
(402) 558-9215
zouk254@aol.com
Steven Owsley Smith
PO Box 2922
Taos, NM 87571
(505) 776-1560
www.celticmusic.com/steve
Stefan Sobell
The Old School
Whitley Chapel, Hexham
Northumberland NE47 0HB
England
(44) 01434-673567
www.cix.co.uk/~sobell
Sound to Earth/Weber
2380 Finnegan Lane
Belgrade, MT 59714
(406) 388-6855
Fax (406) 388-6380
ste@avicom.net
RECORDINGS
Greece
VASSILIS TSITSANIS
Vassilis Tsitsánis 1936-1946,
Rounder 1124 (1997)
MARKOS VAMVAKARIS
Bouzouki Pioneer 1932-1940,
Rounder 1139 (1998)
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Rembetika: Historic Urban Folk Songs
from Greece, Rounder 1079 (1992)
Ireland
ALEC FINN
Blue Shamrock, Celtic Heartbeat
(1995)
ALEC FINN WITH DE DANAAN
The Best of De Danaan, Shanachie
79047 (1991)
ANDY IRVINE
Andy Irvine and Paul Brady, Green
Linnet 3006 (1976)
ANDY IRVINE AND DAVY SPILLANE
East Wind, Tara 3027 (1992)
DONAL LUNNY
The Best of the Bothy Band, Green
Linnet 3001 (1988)
Donal Lunny, Gael Linn 133
(1987)
MATT MALLOY WITH DONAL LUNNY
The Heathery Breeze,
Shanachie 79064 (1988)
PLANXTY
Planxty,
Shanachie 79009 (1973)
The
Planxty Collection, Shanachie 79012 (1976)
The United States
STANLEY GREENTHAL
All Roads, Madrona
Ring 002 (1990)
ROGER LANDES
Dragon Reels, Ranger
Music 4321 (1997)
ZAN MCCLOUD
Highland Soul, Joy
of Music 001 (1992)
TIM O’BRIEN
The Crossing, Alulu
1014 (1999)
JOSEPH SOBEL
Citternalia,
Kiltartan Road 1005 (1999)
CHIPPER THOMPSON
Am I Born to Die, Banjosnake
002 (1999)
GERALD TRIMBLE
First Flight, Green
Linnet 1043 (1983)
Heartland Messenger, Green
Linnet 1054 (1984)
WEB RESOURCES
Han’s Irish Irish Bouzouki Homepage, http://home.hccnet.nl/h.speek/bouzouki/
Sam's Bouzouki Website, http://www.users.bigpond.com/samgard/
Lark in the Morning, www.larkinam.com
BOOKS
The Road to
Rembetika
by Gail Holst, Anglo-Hellenic Publishers
Exploring the Bouzouki by Jim Cowdery, Front Hall Records
(FHR BP-1001)
(Includes cassette tape)
The Irish Bouzouki by Niall O’Callanain and Tommy Walsh,
Waltons Music Inc., PO Box 1505, Westfield, MA 01086
(Cassestte available)
VIDEOS
The Practical
Bouzouki Method,
by various artists, Kalis and Co., www.bouzouki.com/video.html.
THE NAME
GAME
Making sense of the bewildering array of long-necked lute-family instruments
available to the modern picker is made more difficult by the lack of
agreement among luthiers and players about what to call these new hybrids.
There is general consensus about what constitutes a Greek bouzouki in
its traditional and modern incarnations, and the mandola and mandocello
have specific definitions within the confines of classical mandolin
ensembles, but outside of that, nomenclatural pandemonium reigns. The
identical instrument in different hands might well be called a mandola,
a bouzouki, an Irish bouzouki, a mandocello, a cittern, a Celtic cittern,
an octave mandolin, a blarge, or even a bizzar.
The truth is that almost anyone playing the instrument today is aware
of the multiplicity of available and contested terms, so it doesn't
matter all that much. Guidelines will serve up to a point. Mandolins
and mandolas are defined by their relative sizes and their fixed tuning
schemes: G D A E and C G D A, respectively. The mandocello is nearly
twice the size of a mandola and is tuned precisely one octave lower.
After this it gets tricky, and the tag is likely to change from person
to person. If it has three or four sets of strings and a really long
neck, it's probably safe to call it a bouzouki. If it has a more modest
length and is tuned G D A E, it can be called an octave mandolin, a
bouzouki, or a cittern. There is a general tendency to call any five-course
instrument of this type a cittern, but here again there is little agreement
from luthier to luthier. When you move to six courses, the choice becomes
a gittern or a bizzar, depending on the builder, with the latter term
also applied to some four-course axes with guitar-shaped bodies.
For more about names, click here.
