Waltons Bouzouki tutor

[Klaus Wutscher]

I recently bought the Waltons Bouzouki tutor. Having owned the Waltons mandolin book which is a solid effort I didn´t think twice. Been through the book today, what a bummer!
My main problem is that the book but obscures the very essence of backup playing. It presents a couple of tunes by different players (all top notch) with the melody written out in standard notation with chords written above.
It also has one page showing one(!) strumming pattern each for reels, jigs... The CD that comes with the book (used to be a cassete) does have the tunes all over the place (no reference to which tune is played, which page, some stuff is not up to 440 HZ- it would have been a no -brainer at leats to fix the pitch with pro tools when transferring it to CD. Takes 2 minutes to do.

As it is, the book is totally useless for me because I am interested to figuring out the actual strumming patterns and all that "weaving" stuff that is so different from Bluegrass.
Does anybody have a better suggestion for a book or DVD to sink my teeth into this style?

Thanks Klaus

[Uncle Choppy]

Klaus, I'm new here but registered when I read your post.

I too was very disappointed with the Waltons tutor. I found the book useless and I couldn't hear the bouzouki parts on the CD very well (there's some great stuff on there but it isn't that well recorded.)

I have just started working through Learn To Play The Irish Bouzouki by Zan McLeod and it is much better! (See the sample on the link.) I read some negative comments about this on another board but so far (I'm only 10 minutes in) it seems great. Certainly way better than the Waltons book.

I've also just ordered John McGann's #Guide to Octave Mandolin & Bouzouki which I'm very excited about. The samples sound fantastic as they feature some great playing and seem well recorded. I love the fact that the melody and backing are panned hard left & right so you can easily isolate either part.

As for any other stuff, there's a Mad For Trad Bouzouki CD-ROM but it seems to concentrate on GDAE, which isn't everybody's cup of tea on the bouzouki.

Hope this helps.
Good luck.
Brendan

[Klaus Wutscher]

Thanks Brendan,

I was aware of the John McGann book but it was my impression that it is focused on lead playing. Reading the description again, it seems that it also addresses backup.
All three tutors seem much more helpful than the one I bought.

[jmcgann]

Hi Klaus- ALL the accompaniment on every track in every style is fully transcribed in tab and standard notation- I think it's the only book of it's kind to address this on OM/Zouki.

[Rick Lindstrom]

If you are interested in using a bouzouki for Irish backup, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better place to start than with the Gerry McKee CD (Mad for Trad).

It has it's shortcomings, but it's an excellent and easy to understand starting point. I especially like the way Gerry takes a tune, starts with a basic chord pattern and then builds up to complex patterns on the same tune.

Rick

[Garrett]

I really find the Waltons book extremely useful. It's got a great selection of chord shapes and interesting suggestions for accompaniment. I really liked the cd as well. Maybe it's not for someone unfamiliar with Irish music, but I have learned a lot from it.

[Steve Baker]

Walton's tutorial? Would anyone care to share the details. I can't seem to find it anywhere I've looked. Thanks.

Steve Baker
Trying to be the player my McDonald buzouki wants me to be.

[Klaus Wutscher]

The book is "The Irish Bouzouki" by Niall O Callanain and Tommy Walsh released by Waltons. To be fair we have to take into account that this book was probably written in the 1980 and teaching concepts have since come a long way. Just think of Jack Tottles Bluegrass book - I had the first two tunes down in a day and the next tune on the folio took me a year to play up to speed...