Reverse Chord Finder Pro - iPhone/iPad App

This is an interesting app for bouzouki players. In the settings you can define Irish Bouzouki GDAD tuning.  For GDAE just select Mandolin or Plectrum Banjo 3. If you use ADAD I think you have to write a message to the writers of the app. I did when I bought the app more than a year ago and the added the GDAD bouzouki really soon afterwards.

We often play two finger chords somewhere on the fingerboard, but what are they called? RevChordPro helps. Just open the app, tip the chord you are playing and it gives the name. This can be helpful sometimes. Often one fingering can give different chords which is really interesting. Unfotunately the app isn't cheap at all. 8,99€ is a lot. But if you wait, maybe one day it'll getting cheaper. Consult AppTicker or AppZapPro.

Information: http://www.reversechord.com

Chordpro buddy

Some time ago I bought this program for MAC on the app store. I was looking for a program to edit my songs with chords and a way to transmit them to the iPad.

This is what the developer's say:

ChordPro Buddy is an easy to use and elegant song editor for the Apple Mac OS-X operating system. With it you will easy edit, format, transpose, play and print lyrics, chords and tabs. It is an ideal and elegant tool for guitar players or other musicians. The storage format is the widely used, very simple and easy understandible "ChordPro" text format.

And I think, it is worth the money. If you find songs with chords above on the internet just copy them and import them to ChordPro Buddy. It will automatically transform the chords to brackets whithin the song text. This will give you the benefit to transpose the songs later, if you open them on the iPad. 

But how do you transmit them? That's really easy. Just send them to dropbox. You should create a new folder in your dropbox, in which you store all of your songs. You can even create subfolders. 

On your iPad you should use the app "Songbook". This app can connect to your dropbox account. Everytime you open it it updates from your Dropbox account, so you're up to date with your songs. 

Here's a video tutorial

And here's the product page:
http://www.gfapps.com/chordprobuddy/

And this is a tutorial for SongBook ChordPro



I will write a post for this iPhone/iPad app later.

Quick Chords - iPhone/iPad app

Just recently found this app on the app store. Developer Beau Young designed this app to give musicians simple and fast access to some useful songwriting, transcribing and composition tools.

What does it give to you? Well, first there's a capo guide which helps you to transcribe songs or tunes, which is often useful. Then there's the circle of fifth which helps to find the major/minor relatives and key signatures.
But most interesting to me is chords. This feature shows you which chord go together in different keys. It also gives you random chord progressions which always fit and most of the time sound interesting. Good for practicing or songwriting.


You can try some functions with the free version and then decide whether to buy the full version or not. I think that's a good deal.

Here's a site with more informations and screenshot of the app. The screenshot above is from this website. (http://apps4idevices.com
)

Róisín Elsafty & Dónal Lunny - Mo Cheallachin Fionn - RTE 2010

As part of the 2010 St Patrick's Festival, Donal Lunny curated and performed a night in the National Concert Hall entitled 'A Celebration of Irish Voices'.

Here's a video on which he plays together with singer Róisín Elsafty. She has a beautiful voice ahnd Donal's backing fits very well.

More information about the song is to be found on her website:
http://www.roisinelsafty.com/roisinelsafty.com/Mo_Cheallachin_Fionn.html

New Lessons by Duncan Cameron

Duncan Cameron, I mentioned him before, has made two more lessons for players of the bouzouki.
His website: www.duncancameron.com

Picking for reels

Picking for Jigs

2 short lessons on rhythm

Jeff Ksiazek provides us with two short videos on how to backup Reels and Jigs. Nice work. I hope to see more videos in the near future.

Basic bouzouki picking pattern for Reels:


Jig strumming pattern:

Chord Scale Generator

Chord Scale Generator is a program for MAC, Windows and Linux which helps you to find Chord Shapes and Scales on many fretted instruments. You can create alternative fingerings for more than 80 chords. You can translate between musical notation, tablatures and chord charts. It even provides a reverse chord finder. A demo version is available on the website. Also you can find screenshot and video-tutorials. Please comment, if you try it. Price is 21,95 €. Well, I would love to have it on my iPad so I can take it with me wherever I go.

http://www.pluck-n-play.com/en/index.html

Information for player in GDAE

Terry Bell created a website with lots of information for beginners who want to use GDAE tuning. Have a look, you'll find some useful things there.
http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/drumhilla/bouzouki_chords.html

This year the "1st Paddy Keenan Uilleann Pipe Gathering" will take place during the Summer School. There will be lots of interesting Workshops (Uilleann Pipes, Flute, Fiddle, Tin Whistle, Gitarre, Bodhrán, Banjo, Mandoline, Concertina), Concerts and Sessions from August 5th until August 11th 2012 at the Naturfreundehaus in Elmstein.

More information at: http://www.irishmusicschool-elmstein.de/index.php/en/

Here is the promotional video:

The Irish Bouzouki Tutorial

It took a long time, but now it's available, the English translation of the Irish Bouzouki Tutorial, which was until now only available in German. Ralf P. Wackers did a great Job on that book. If you are new to the bouzouki or want to learn some more tricks have a look at it. It's made for all common tunings, GDAE, GDAD and ADAD.

As with the German version you can order it directly from Ralf on his website at:
http://www.currach.de/ralf/Bucher/Irish_Bouzouki_English/irish_bouzouki_english.html

There you can also view some preview pages.

The Ruby Sessions

I don't know exactly what the Ruby Sessions are, but they can be found at facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/therubysessions


Here are some videos in which Donal Lunny plays his lovely bouzouki:


The Factory Girl - Philip King and Donal Lunny:

Donal Lunny - Tribute To Peadar O'Donnell

Maria Doyle Kennedy with Donal Lunny and Kieran Kennedy

This is the youtube-channel of the Ruby Sessions:

http://www.youtube.com/user/RubySessions?feature=watch

Donal Lunny - Solo on Guitar Shaped Bouzouki

This is a video of Donal playing a solo on a guitar shaped bouzouki. Recorded in Smock Alley Theatre, Temple Bar, Dublin.

Fiddlefreak Folk Music Blog

Fiddlefreak is a blog on which you can find information about new recordings in the folk genre. Oftentimes with links to youtube videos or soundclips. A good way to inform about new music. You can find it here: http://fiddlefreak.com/

Gochords

GoChords is an easy way to create chordsheets for songs. But first you have to register. It's free, so don't mind. After that you can start with a new song. Just copy the lyrics from wherever you want and paste it into the screen. After that you can select the chords and put them into the correct place. Select font and size, and size of chord boxes and there you go. It's as easy as that.

Supported instruments are so far: guitar, different Ukuleles and Mandolin. No bouzouki so far. But don't mind. You can create your own chords. What I did is, I selected mandolin and defined my own chords for this instrument. So I select mandolin and custom chords and I can use my own chords. That's ok for me. I hope they will support bouzouki in the future as well.

Try it, I think you will like it.

http://www.gochords.com/

Now they offer a tablet version, too, but it's 5€ per month. In my opinion that's definitely too much. But everyone may decide for themselves. I think the free online version is ok.

Litha (2Duos)

Litha is the new name of the quartett formerly known as 2Duos. Aaron Jones, Claire Mann, Gudrun Walters and Jürgen Treyz just released their second CD, which they sold on their last tour in Germany.

My friend Peter known as barnacles posted a video from this tour on youtube. Have a look, it's fantastic!




More information:

http://www.myspace.com/2duos

http://www.2duos.de/


Herr Olof, Live in Ettlingen near Karlsruhe, 2011

Waltzes, Live Ettlingen 2011