A nice way of accompaniment for A Dorian tunes (Am) is to put the capo in 2nd position and play in Gm. This way you can use the G-string and or the D-string as drone (with capo then A and E).
I made a chord chart with lots of chords for this occasion:
As an example here are some possible chords for the tune Castle Jig. Your ears have to decide what sounds good for you:
I found this nice version of the Castle Jig, so this one might be used to try to accompany.
This is Kevin Burke teaching the Castle Jig. I cut out his performance and looped it, so I could play along with him. I used some of the chords shown above in the chord sheet. I had lots of inspiration from the Guitar Course at OAIM which is well worth a look at, even for players of the bouzouki. https://www.oaim.ie
Here's a second video with some slightly different chords:
Today Nye Farley published a video in which he explains a bit the style of Dennis Cahill. It's a video for Guitar, but maybe some of the parts could be interesting for bouzouki players as well. Example tune is approx. 107 BPM.
I tried to find chords for bouzouki which might be suitable for this style. Here is my chord sheet, G-Drone on the Bass String:
Nye Farley (Folk Friend) offers a series called Folky Fridays where he talks about several techniques for Irish Guitar. In No 3 he talks about different strumming patterns. So this might also be interesting for bouzouki.
The sound quality is really bad, but the content make it worth having a look at it.
Nye also has written a book which I can really recommend called Backing techniques for Celtic Traditional Music which is available on his website:
An old video of Planxty. It's a song only available as Single, and on a compilation, as far as I know. Yarmouth Town.
Here are the chords the way I use to play it. If you use the app "songbook" from Linkesoft, I wrote about it some time ago, you just have to copy and paste.
a [G]pretty little [D]thing with the [A]golden hair.
{soc}
Oh, [D]won’t you come down,
[G]won’t you come down,
[A]won’t you come down
to [G]Yar[A]mouth [D]town.
{eoc}
2. At [D]night there came a [Bm]sailor man
and he’s [G]asked the daughter [A]for her hand.
„Oh, [D]why should I marry [Bm]you, she said,
I [G]have all I [D]want with[A]out being wed.
{soc}
Oh, [D]won’t you come down,
[G]won’t you come down,
[A]won’t you come down
to [G]Yarmouth [D]town.
{eoc}
3. „But [D]{soh}if{eoh} with me you do [Bm]{soh}want{eoh} to linger,
I [G]tie a piece of string all ar[A]ound my finger
and [D]as you pass by, just [Bm]pull on the string
and [G]I’ll come [D]down and I’ll [A]let you in.“
{soc}
Oh, [D]won’t you come down,
[G]won’t you come down,
[A]won’t you come down
to [G]Yarmouth [D]town.
{eoc}
4. At [F#m]closing time the [Bm]sailor man
he’s [Em]gone to the tavern down [A]by the strand
and [F#m]as he passed by, he [Bm]pulled on the string,
and [G]she’s come [D]down, and she’s [A]let him in.
{soc}
Oh, [D]won’t you come down,
[G]won’t you come down,
[A]won’t you come down
to [G]Yarmouth [D]town.
{eoc}
5. Now [Bm]he’s never seen such a [Em]sight before,
‚cause the [G]string around the [D]finger was [A]all she wore.
{soc}
Oh, [D]won’t you come down,
[G]won’t you come down,
[A]won’t you come down
to [G]Yarmouth [D]town.
{eoc}
6. The [F#m]sailor stayed the [Bm]whole night through
and [Em]early in the morning went [A]back to his crew,
and then he [F#m]told them about the [Bm]maiden fair,
the [G]pretty little [D]thing with the [A]golden hair.
{soc}
Oh, [D]won’t you come down,
[G]won’t you come down,
[A]won’t you come down
to [G]Yarmouth [D]town.
{eoc}
7. Well, the [D]news it soon [Bm]got around
and the [G]very next night in [A]Yarmouth Town
there was [D]fifteen sailors [Bm]pulling on the string
and [G]she’s come [D]down and [A]she’s let them all in.
{soc}
Oh, [D]won’t you come down,
[G]won’t you come down,
[A]won’t you come down
to [G]Yarmouth [D]town.
{eoc}
8. So all young men that to Yarmouth go,
if you see a pretty girl with her hair hanging low,
well, all you’ve got to do is pull on the string,
and she’ll come down and she’ll let you in.
{soc}
Oh, [D]won’t you come down,
[G]won’t you come down,
[A]won’t you come down
to [G]Yarmouth [D]town.
{eoc}
Yarmouth ist ein Hafen und Civil parish an der Nordwestküste der südenglischen Isle of Wight. Der Ort liegt an der Mündung des Flusses Western Yar in die Meerenge Solent. Yarmouth ist die kleinste Town im Vereinigten Königreich.
Macdara is one, if not the best bouzouki player of the younger generation. He also builds bouzoukis and other instruments. Here he is with Liam O'Brien and Ciara Ní Bhriain. The tunes they play are The Stone of Destiny (written by Maurice Lennon), The Liffey Banks & Music in the Glen.
I tried to transcribe the first tune. Here it is for your pleasure (hopefully)
Just found this really old post of mine. The video link did not work anymore. The link to my tab either. So here is the re-post, 12 years after the first one. Now I added the tab on the page.
I'm playing my old Stevens Bouzouki here, trying to play the intro of West coast of Clare, one of the best songs by Andy Irvine. I tried to copy the arragement he once played live on his bass bouzouki. I restringed my zouk for this to achieve that bass bouzouki sound.
Here's the tab for this intro, I made it with Tabledit
This fantastic RTE-Programme about the bouzouki is not available on youtube anymore as far I know. But I just found it on Dailymotion. Here's a lot of information on this lovely instrument. I mentioned this programme before, but it's always worth to look at it again.
Si Bheag Si Mhor is one of Turlough O'Carolan's (1670-1738) waltzes. Translated into English it is called "Little hill, big hill". It is said to take inspiration from folklore surrounding two hills in which lie to mortal remains of ancient warriors.
Here's fine arrangement on the zouk by Carol Murgue.
And another one by Eamon Coughlan
Here's a very differnent approach by someone who calls himself CW, a multi instrumentalist. He has lots of videos on youtube, there are some more with bouzouki.
He writes on youtube:
"It is usually played at a slow and leisurely pace by most musicians; I had the melody in my head one day, and it started morphing into a Planxty-esque jam in 4-count rhythm (as opposed to 3 count as it's usually played), and sitting down with my zouk last night, this is how it came out. I like it a lot, and I'm still practicing it/smoothing it out, but I think this video turned out well!
Tuning: FCGC - capo 5th fret"
Over the last few days I updated or deleted several sites on the blog which were outdated. Since I started the blog more than 10 years ago there are lots of videos which are not available anymore on youtube. It takes a lot of time to look at all the old posts. I found out that youtube changed links to videos, so all the older movies are not available anymore. I looked up some of the old videos, but this is hard work. So I decided to delete a lot of old videos.
If you come across dead links on the blog please report them to me or leave a comment. It's a lot of work to review all the pages on this blog so I would appreciate your help.
Also if you come across any good information regarding the Irish Bouzouki feel free to inform me and I will put them on the blog.
What a pleasure: Julie and Eamon together, just the two of them. A livestream made for Lindblad Expeditions on April 23rd, 2020 as part of the Virtual Music Lounge concert series.
While looking for videos featuring Mac Dara Ó Faoláin I found this beautiful video of Páraic Mac Donnchadha with Mac Dara Ó Faoláin. Beautiful music with banjo and bouzouki. Páraic Mac Donnchadha released an album some time ago which you can get on bandcamp or at Custy's in Ennis.
