non irish or greek bouzouki

Subject: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: GUEST,Kristi
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 03:43 PM

We are looking to buy in the next couple of days a bouzouki for our fiddle/guitar player for a reasonable price. We have looked at the Johnson bouzouki in Elderly and like it. We are looking for input about the instrument or suggestions about other bouzouki's out there in the same price range, about $600. If you are familiar with the instrument please give us some input. I am supposed to be ordering it today for my honey, but wanted to get some input since I haven't been able to find too many out there that are not an A model.

Thanks, Kristi

Subject: RE: Help: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: Bert
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 03:52 PM

Lark in The Morning have a selection in their bargain basement.

Subject: RE: Help: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: gwonya
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 04:49 PM

I've had my eye on a used Trinity College bouzouki at a store in the neighborhood and am curious as to why you may have ruled this model out. I have very limited experience/knowledge with regard to bouzoukis and would appreciate you sharing any impressions you or your lucky honey may have - A model versus ? etc. Thanks Krista - and good luck finding the one you want.

Subject: RE: Help: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: GUEST,Kristi
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 05:21 PM

My honey has played with a F-model mandolinist for over 25 years and just doesn't like the a model style. K

Subject: RE: Help: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: gwonya
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 06:35 PM

...sorry about the typo Kristi.

Subject: How do i tune a greek bouzouki? I need help
From: GUEST,Zorba
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 09:53 PM

HOw do i tune my greek bouzouki?

Subject: RE: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: Barry Finn
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 11:36 PM

Try the Bouzouki Page for more info. I'm near this guy & most bouzouki players in these parts swear by this guys instruments. He 's on the list.

Robert L. Abrams
Trillium Octave Mandolins
60 Mill Pond Way
Portsmouth, NH 03801
[phone]
www.octavemandolin.com


Good Luck

Barry

Subject: RE: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 04:12 AM

Guest Zorba, you tune it with those little knob things at the thin end.

eric

Subject: RE: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 06:28 PM

"non irish" bouzouki!? Now I've heard it all!!

I'll have ome of those "non scottish" samurai swords, please. Oh, and a "non italian" bowler hat ...

Subject: RE: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: curmudgeon
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 06:34 PM

Barry - Bob Abrams has been in Nottingham for quite some years now. But he is a first rate luthier and can be found    here
- Tom

Subject: RE: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 06:48 PM

Tom, I knew that, that's why I directed my post towards him.

Barry

Subject: RE: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 07:37 PM

Kristi also said she was looking for something around $600, and that definitely doesn't include Bob's lovely Trillium zouks. Mind you, that question was asked in 2002.

The current question is:
"HOw do i tune my greek bouzouki?[sic]

GDAD is common, but Wikipedia says the oringinal Greek bazouki is/was tuned to CFAD and in more recent years, tuned up to DGBE

Subject: RE: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: GUEST,Rob McGregor
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 09:56 AM

Try SAKIS for reasonable priced bowlback zouks - you can probably get one for £400 or $600 if you hunt around.

"non-Irish"...love it.

Original tuning CFAD.

So-called Irish, or flatback, zouks (or the even longer mandola as I like to call it)can be tuned any damn way you like basically as there is no firm tradition. Beware the people who will try to tell there is only one way to play, and that just happens to be the way they've been playing with their Planxty tribute band for the last 20 years.. Clearly if you want to play "proper" Greek bouzoui music you're in a different ball game. I've played ADAD, GDAE and GDAD, but whatever your strings and neck and fingers can handle. Double stopping ADAD is fun and sort of easyish way to play a melody with a bit more oomph - good for pub gigs, whereas with GDAE is easy to play a lot of standard strumming accompaniement. Buy two to avoid those embarrassing retune moments.... You can even fingerpick...I have to do this occasionally as the rest of the band I sometimes play with claim that I play too loud sometimes! The cheek!!

Subject: RE: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: TonyA
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 11:17 AM

Zorba, the site PlayBouzouki.com has a lot of information about real bouzoukia - scales, chords, mp3 samples, even a discussion forum, all for free. It looks like there are video tutorials that you have to pay for.

Subject: RE: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 03:39 AM

You could try tuning it AEAE. I've just converted an Ozark six string guitar to a guitar bouzouki by adding extra machine heads. It works very well and can be seen on my YOUTUBE site.
I even contacted the chaps at Ozark to let them know what I'd done and found they have just started to make a Guitar Bouzouki themselves priced at £450. Dave Carroll at Ozark sent me some pics of it and it looks very nice.
There is also a lot of info on Greek Bouzoukis, lessons, tunings etc on YOUTUBE.
Hope this helps

Subject: RE: non irish or greek bouzouki
From: TonyA
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 10:34 AM

Very nice, Bruce. It sounds great. Here's a link to the video. It looks like you filled the 6 old tuning machine holes with dowel rods and then drilled 8 new ones closer together. Is that right? Lucky that the peghead had extra room. And clearly the same approach with the bridge pins.