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Finger Practice Exercises

Graham McDonald - How to build an Irish Bouzouki - Online Course and Plans

Many years ago Graham McDonald released a book how to build bouzoukis. He is a luthier and builds bouzoukis for about 40 years now. So he knows what he does. You can buy his book on Amazon or as Ebook from McDonald Strings.

The first chapter can be downloaded as a .pdf here and  Andy Irvine's Forward can be downloaded here .

The full size plans can be downloaded separately here. 

Now he released an online course on this topic. On YouTube you can watch the introductional video which I enclose here. So if you ever wanted to build your own bouzouki this one's for you.

BB's hopefully helpful Harmony hints for Irish Traditional Musicians

Bill Black is hosting an interesting website with some information for Irish Musicians.


http://capeirish.com

You'll find some original tunes, trad. songs, writings and other useful things. Especially the section called "Reference Library" contains interesting documents.

Here you'll find his text: "BB's hopefully helpful Harmony hints for Irish Traditional Musicians" which he has updated and extended in 2019. There you find information about building chords, harmonization, Scales and Modal tunes.


Also a basic Session Tune list, a tune library of about 10 000 tunes and a text concerning the concept of the Session and some Banjo hints and tips.

If you find this useful you can buy me a pint.

TradChords - Website to find chords to accompany tunes

Just found this website. It might be of interest if you are looking for chords to accompany a tune. Sometimes you can find chords on thesession, but not too often. So this is a website where you can find chords to lots of tunes. Also you can contribute the chords you use to help others.

On this website you'll find the dots for the tunes, also a player which is able to play the tune with and without chords.

So have a look at the website at: https://tradchords.org

 

Roadie Tuner 3 - Is it worth it?

The Roadie Tuner is an automatic tuner for stringed instruments. I was curious if it would work with the bouzouki. As it was a lot cheaper on Black Friday I bought it via Amazon to give it a try. 

If you want to know more about it look here.

There's an app that goes with it where you can specify your preferred tunings. For GDAD you have to build a new instrument which only takes a few minutes. You even can take a photo of your instrument if you like.

I first tested it on my guitar tuned DADGAD and it worked fine. Tuning went fast with no problems. So I really was impressed at first time.

But then I tried my Foley ... and my Fylde and another Foley and another bouzouki. What should I say, tuning with a standard digital tuner is much faster and more accurate. I tried it several times and never got a correct tuning. So I can't recommend it for Bouzouki, although I think the idea is good. But 139€ is a lot of money for a device that screws your pegs just like your fingers can.

The video I did is not very professional and I did not edit the process of tuning to show how long it takes and how strange the device sometimes works. 

As a result I'll definitely send it back. Maybe I'll give Roadie 6 a second chance ;-)

Michael Eskin - 50 Trad Irish Session Tunes for Bouzouki

 Michael Eskin programmed the abc transcription tools which help musicians to convert abc to tab. He found a way to publish pdf files of tunebooks, in which you not only see the tab, but by clicking on the title it opens a player where you can listen to the files. What a great helping tool this is. 

Here is an example from his website where you can try these features.

https://michaeleskin.com/transcriptions/50_Irish_Session_Tunes_GDAD_3Mar2024.pdf

Bouzouki Tabs in GDAD - ebook

 By chance I found this ebook which  contains a lot of tabs for bouzouki in GDAD. It cost €9.90. If you are looking for some tabs you might have a look at it. 

https://www.tenor-banjo-tabs.com/bouzouki-tabs-in-gdad.html

Here's a list of songs and tunes included. Seems to be a lot of them ...

Here's an example page:

Top 20 Reels at slow speed (with Tab, but for Banjo GDAE)

Another video by Ben Hockenberry. This time he plays the top 20 Reels from Irishtune.info. Very helpful for learning accompaniment. Remember, you can speed up the video in the settings.

 

 

These are the tunes:

0:17 #20: The Gravel Walks (Am) 2:26 #19: Father Kelly's (G) 4:10 #18: Ships are Sailing (Em) 5:55 #17: Miss McLeod (G) 7:37 #16: Congress (Am) 9:24 #15: Rolling in the Ryegrass (D) 10:48 #14: The Star of Munster (Am) 12:32 #13: The Wise Maid (D) 14:15 #12: The Cup of Tea (Em/D) 16:45 #11: The Merry Blacksmith (D) 18:28 #10: The Earl's Chair (D) 20:13 #9: The Sally Gardens (G) 21:55 #8: The Wind that Shakes the Barley (D) 23:13 #7: The Musical Priest (Bm) 25:08 #6: The Maid Behind the Bar (D) 26:50 #5: The Banshee (G) 28:34 #4: The Mountain Road (D) 29:52 #3: Drowsy Maggie (Em/D) 31:13 #2: The Silver Spear (D) 32:55 #1: Cooley's (Em)

Top 20 Slipjigs played on the banjo at slow speed (80 BPM)

Ben Hockenberry and his series of Top 20 Tunes of each genre. Here he plays 20 famous SlipJigs at slow speed. Good for practicing accompaniment. Remember you can make youtube to play it faster if you want to practice at higher speed.

Here is the tune list, copied from youtube: 0:00 Intro 0:16 #20: Dever the Dancer (Em) 2:13 #19: Comb Your Hair and Curl It (Em) 4:10 #18: Moll Roe (G) 6:08 #17: The Swaggering Jig (G) 8:02 #16: Farewell to Whalley Range (F#m) 9:59 #15: The Boys of Ballisodare (G) 13:44 #14: The Snowy Path (D) 15:39 #13: Elizabeth Kelly's Delight (Am) 17:36 #12: The Rocky Road to Dublin (Am) 19:33 #11: The Whinny Hills of Leitrim (D) 21:33 #10: The Humours of Whiskey (D) 23:28 #9: An Phis Fhliuch (Dmix) 28:06 #8: The Cock and the Hen (F#m) 30:05 #7: Drops of Brandy (G) 32:01 #6: Na Ceannabhain Bhana (G) 33:58 #5: Hardiman the Fiddler (Dmix) 35:53 #4: Foxhunter's (D) 39:36 #3: A Fig for a Kiss (Em) 41:32 #2: The Kid on the Mountain (Em) 46:09 #1: The Butterfly (Em)

 

This list, and others like it for each type of Irish tune, are generated by members of irishtune.info, a free site for tracking practice of your repertoire: https://www.irishtune.info/session/sl... 

Backing Tracks for Traditional Music

 By chance I found these backing tracks today. Curious about what they could be used for, I started improvising. Later I played a few tunes over them. It's a lot of fun. So if you want to practice some tunes, try this out! https://www.youtube.com/@traditionalmusicaccompaniment/playlists

Unfortunately the link above does not work anymore from this site. Please copy the link and paste it into your browser, this works. Seems to be due to changes on youtube.

Here's an example, a backing Track for a Jig in G, 120 BPM:

Mandolin Scale Essentials Free App for iOS

Learning scales is one essential task for musicians. Now I found a free app which might help. It is called Mandolin Scale Essentials by Tobias Nasterlack. Ok, it is made for mandolin, but you can chose the tuning and put it to GDAD. Then you can chose a scale, maybe D Mixolydian and it shows the scale. It also shows the chords that go with this scale. How to fret these chords is not implemented.

You also can practice the scales with some Beats as background or with a metronome.

You'll find some more information here

SMI Plec Pads

 I always have problems losing my plectrum. I tried several things like cutting a hole in them, gluing cork or sandpaper on them, all worked, but a month ago I came across the SMI PlecPads. I bought a sampler pack of them and was overwhelmed. They really feel good and the plectrum does not slip anymore. There are different shapes available. The ones on the picture are the ones that work best for me, but you have to find out which ones are best for you. 

They've got different thickness, and it seems different stickyness. I like the red and the black ones. The yellow ones feel a bit strange and I think they stick too much imo.

If you are interested here's their website. (I don't get anything from them!)

 https://shop.plecpads.com/

 

Alan Reid - Bouzouki tutorials on Patreon

Some months ago Alan started his Patreon page on which he regularly posts tutorials for bouzouki and banjo. If you pay 5€ per month you have access the the growing library of videos, Tabs etc. Up to now he posted tutorial videos which describe the style of Donal Lunny and Alec Finn (50 min!) and also 2 videos in which he gives lots of hints of how to accompany tunes in Mixolydian modes.

I first hesitated to join, but a few days ago I couln't resist and I have to say, it is really worth it. Can't wait for another video!

https://www.patreon.com/alanreid/posts

Steve Knightley - The Mandocello (GDAD Chords)

 Steve Knightley from Show of Hands shows some nice Chords and shows how to use them.

New Bodhran Metronome on Youtube

 Santiago Molina uploaded some Bodhran Metronome tracks on youtube. Each track lasts for around 10 minutes. Up to now he uploaded metronome tracks for polka and jigs in various speeds.

This is the link to his channel, where you can find lots of interesting videos:
https://www.youtube.com/c/gaitero/videos

Here is one example for polka (140 BPM) and one example for jig (110 BPM).

Bodhran Metronome

 Are you in need of a cool metronome? Well, ask youtube. You'll find Bodhran beats you can use as metronome. Here is a list of a few of them, maybe you'll find some more. 

Unfortunately until now only Jig and Reel available.

These are from this website: 

https://www.tunesandtools.com

Jig 110 BPM

Jig 90 BPM

 

 

Reel 100 BPM

 

 

 

 

Reel 90 BPM

 

 

Chordfinder app for iOS - Chord Library

This is a really cheap little which provides lots of chords for newbies, so maybe worth to have a look at. It's only 0,99€ so it's cheaper than the chordbook which is available, and it's more handy, because you can have access everywhere on your mobile phone.

https://apps.apple.com/de/app/chordfinder-for-bouzouki/id507236609

Finger warmups for Mandolin and Bouzouki - Tim O'Brien

Tim O'Brien speaks about Mandolin Warmup Exercises. What works on mandolin must work on bouzouki also. So have a look at it and decide for yourselves.

By the way, some years ago Tim produced a DVD where he explains some of his techniques on Mandolin and Bouzouki. If you don't know it already have a look at it. You can order it from his website:

https://timobrien.net/video-dvd/mandolin-and-bouzouki-dvd




I tried to translate this concept to bouzouki in G-Major. It would look like this:

In D it could look like this, first D chords from D-string on, second line D chords inversed from G-string on:

Here are some short videos as introduction to his DVD: