Hello, I'm new to this site.
I've had a bouzouki for about a year, and I play only melody. It's well past time I learned some chords. The trouble is that most of them seem to require incredible contortions without a capo, and I have the impression that using a capo is cheating...is it? Do you just need longer fingers?
Kelly
A capo is certainly not cheating! It is the best way to get the full modal sound out of a bouzouki in multiple keys, allowing the use of open strings as drones, and limiting some chord shapes to just two or three fingers (avoiding those painful contortions). But before going on, an important question is how do you tune your zouk? GDAE, GDAD, or other? in my opinion, GDAE leads to more painful stretches when playing chords, depending on the scale length of your instrument.
Until a workshop at the Saline Celtic Festival, I tuned it GDAE because I played the mandolin first. Now I'm not sure how I ought to tune it. At the moment it's ADAD.
Well, there is definitely no tuning that you "ought to" be palying other than whatever satisfies you. Jamie McMenemy (of the Battlefield Band and Kornog) plays ADAD. I like GDAD because it elilminates some of the big stretches of GDAE, without being entirly unfamiliar ( I also started on mandolin). So if you are looking to experiment, I would reccomend trying it.
I've seen a few really good ADAD players, but their one big weakness is not being able to change from D to G and back unless they can do lightning quick capo changes. However, if that's your style then fine... I also find that because the strings are only tuned to 2 different notes, it's almost impossible to get anything like the range of textures and cool basslines available with GDAD.
There are no disadvantages to backing in GDAD because you can play all the most common keys quite easily without a capo, and you can treat the capo not as something necessary for you to be able to play (take an ADAD player's capo away and they're lost), but as something that you can use to create different textures if you want to. As far as chords are concerned, I'd actually advise that you don't look at Han Speek's chordsheets until later. There are an awful lot of chords there, and if you're just starting then it could get confusing, and you'll want to know which ones to use in which context. Also a lot of them you'd simply never use in a session situation.
There's no way you should be stretching to get chords on the zouk. Most of the commonly used chords use 1, 2 or sometimes 3 fingers, and often they're on the same fret. The thing to remember is: don't stress if for example your Am chord doesn't contain A-C-E and only those notes. A lot of the time on the zouk you can get away with letting that top D string ring as a drone, which means that most of the chords aren't actually what they say they are - they're mostly sus chords or other chords that might sound a bit weird on their own like add11's (Amadd11 is just 2-2-3-0 in GDAD or 0-2-3-0 in ADAD for example), but they make sense when you're shifting between them whilst backing.
Good luck with your experimentation, and if I were you, since you're just starting out, I'd seriously consider switching to GDAD because of the practical problems of ADAD, but of course it's up to you, and there are plenty people who'd disagree with me
I'll add my vote for GDAD. I have even tuned my mandolin to GDAD because I am too lazy to learn all the GDAE chords. It makes jumping from Bouzouki to mandolin rather easy. Also, once I have learned a tune on the mandolin I can incorporate fragments of the tune into the Bouzy backing without thinking about the fingering.
I try and avoid using the capo even though my fellow backer always encourages it. Dunno why, but I prefer the freedom of moving up and down the fretboard and chords in the 1st position give me goose bumps.
ps. Played in a pub open mic. session with two pals last night and my bouzouki has never sounded so bad. Tinny, compressed, harsh - yuk! what a waste. Through a good quality PA it is simply awesome, dont know what was going on last night. Fortunately, the guitars sounded just as bad so It wasn't just me.
Yes, a capo is cheating. So is using a different tuning. So is practising for years so that you can sound better; it makes the rest of us sound bad by comparison.
There are no rules other than playing well and sounding good and fitting in, and I bet most of us breach even that one rule; I know I do. By all means use a capo OR alternate tuning if it helps you to sound better. If you need to change the capo position, consider sitting out the A section or the first turn--coming in at the top of a section is cool for dynamics.
No bouzouki chords
No bouzouki chords
Hello, I'm new to this site.
I've had a bouzouki for about a year, and I play only melody. It's well past time I learned some chords. The trouble is that most of them seem to require incredible contortions without a capo, and I have the impression that using a capo is cheating...is it? Do you just need longer fingers?
Kelly
# Posted on July 21st 2003 by mandozouk
Re: No bouzouki chords
A capo is certainly not cheating! It is the best way to get the full modal sound out of a bouzouki in multiple keys, allowing the use of open strings as drones, and limiting some chord shapes to just two or three fingers (avoiding those painful contortions). But before going on, an important question is how do you tune your zouk? GDAE, GDAD, or other? in my opinion, GDAE leads to more painful stretches when playing chords, depending on the scale length of your instrument.
# Posted on July 21st 2003 by pdx138
Re: No bouzouki chords
Until a workshop at the Saline Celtic Festival, I tuned it GDAE because I played the mandolin first. Now I'm not sure how I ought to tune it. At the moment it's ADAD.
# Posted on July 21st 2003 by mandozouk
Re: No bouzouki chords
Well, there is definitely no tuning that you "ought to" be palying other than whatever satisfies you. Jamie McMenemy (of the Battlefield Band and Kornog) plays ADAD. I like GDAD because it elilminates some of the big stretches of GDAE, without being entirly unfamiliar ( I also started on mandolin). So if you are looking to experiment, I would reccomend trying it.
# Posted on July 21st 2003 by pdx138
Re: No bouzouki chords
Hi Mandozouk,
Welcome to the site. There is lots of great zouk info and chords here:
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.speek/bouzouki/
More topics than you ever knew existed about all things citternal are regularly discussed here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cittern/
This should get you started. btw, Eoin O'Neill uses ADAD too and he sounds amazing on his own new album, as well as on John Williams' debut album.
Cheers,
Greg
# Posted on July 21st 2003 by octogreg
Re: No bouzouki chords
I've seen a few really good ADAD players, but their one big weakness is not being able to change from D to G and back unless they can do lightning quick capo changes. However, if that's your style then fine... I also find that because the strings are only tuned to 2 different notes, it's almost impossible to get anything like the range of textures and cool basslines available with GDAD.
There are no disadvantages to backing in GDAD because you can play all the most common keys quite easily without a capo, and you can treat the capo not as something necessary for you to be able to play (take an ADAD player's capo away and they're lost), but as something that you can use to create different textures if you want to. As far as chords are concerned, I'd actually advise that you don't look at Han Speek's chordsheets until later. There are an awful lot of chords there, and if you're just starting then it could get confusing, and you'll want to know which ones to use in which context. Also a lot of them you'd simply never use in a session situation.
There's no way you should be stretching to get chords on the zouk. Most of the commonly used chords use 1, 2 or sometimes 3 fingers, and often they're on the same fret. The thing to remember is: don't stress if for example your Am chord doesn't contain A-C-E and only those notes. A lot of the time on the zouk you can get away with letting that top D string ring as a drone, which means that most of the chords aren't actually what they say they are - they're mostly sus chords or other chords that might sound a bit weird on their own like add11's (Amadd11 is just 2-2-3-0 in GDAD or 0-2-3-0 in ADAD for example), but they make sense when you're shifting between them whilst backing.
Good luck with your experimentation, and if I were you, since you're just starting out, I'd seriously consider switching to GDAD because of the practical problems of ADAD, but of course it's up to you, and there are plenty people who'd disagree with me
# Posted on July 21st 2003 by Dow
Re: No bouzouki chords
Hi,
I'll add my vote for GDAD. I have even tuned my mandolin to GDAD because I am too lazy to learn all the GDAE chords. It makes jumping from Bouzouki to mandolin rather easy. Also, once I have learned a tune on the mandolin I can incorporate fragments of the tune into the Bouzy backing without thinking about the fingering.
I try and avoid using the capo even though my fellow backer always encourages it. Dunno why, but I prefer the freedom of moving up and down the fretboard and chords in the 1st position give me goose bumps.
ps. Played in a pub open mic. session with two pals last night and my bouzouki has never sounded so bad. Tinny, compressed, harsh - yuk! what a waste. Through a good quality PA it is simply awesome, dont know what was going on last night. Fortunately, the guitars sounded just as bad so It wasn't just me.
# Posted on July 22nd 2003 by bouzyboy
Re: No bouzouki chords
Yes, a capo is cheating. So is using a different tuning. So is practising for years so that you can sound better; it makes the rest of us sound bad by comparison.
There are no rules other than playing well and sounding good and fitting in, and I bet most of us breach even that one rule; I know I do. By all means use a capo OR alternate tuning if it helps you to sound better. If you need to change the capo position, consider sitting out the A section or the first turn--coming in at the top of a section is cool for dynamics.
---Michael B.
# Posted on July 24th 2003 by MichaelBolton