Results 1 to 16 of 16

Thread: It's a blarge!

  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    England
    Posts
    837

    Default It's a blarge!

    I had a surprise yesterday, when I found out from Andy Manson that my recently-acquired vintage Manson cittern isn't in fact a cittern at all, it's a blarge!!!! I'd never even heard the term before, and now I discover that I own one

    So, it's a large bouzouki with an extra B course, which presumably means it's intended to be tuned something like BGDAD. I don't know if it makes any difference in real terms; it's still a large mandolin-family instrument with ten strings in 5 courses. It still seems happy enough in CGCGC tuning, and I have had it checked by a local luthier to make sure it's okay.

    Does anyone else here have a blarge, and do you have any hints and tips for how to get the best out of it?

    Fliss

  2. The following members say thank you to Fliss for this post:


  3. #2
    Registered User Martin Jonas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    North Wales
    Posts
    6,431

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    I'm not so sure there's a clear definition of the term "blarge". Supposedly it's a contraction of "bouzouki, large" (there's a ruder derivation, too), and I've seen it used alternatively for 4-course bouzouki with an unusually large body, or for 5-course citterns, or even for 6-course citterns (which are really just zouk-bodied 12-string guitars). I've also seen the name attributed to Joe Foley, or to Stefan Sobell, or to some anonymous session wit.

    Once my life is less occupied by small children, we'll have to get together to try that blarge out, Fliss...

    Martin

  4. #3
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Okinawa, Japan
    Posts
    626

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    I think the original blarge belonged to Donal Lunny, who tuned it CGDAD, according to Han Speek's bouzouki site. The same site suggests that Seamus Heaney came up with the name.

    The picture is the best I could grab from YouTube. In the photo, the arm to the side of Donal Lunny is Andy Irvine, playing a bouzouki made by Andy Manson.

    Patrick
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Blarge.jpg 
Views:	480 
Size:	116.5 KB 
ID:	41744  

  5. The following members say thank you to PseudoCelt for this post:


  6. #4
    Notary Sojac Paul Kotapish's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Alameda, California
    Posts
    2,484

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    I also heard the origin of the term "blarge" attributed to Donal Lunny, who go tired of explaining that his instrument was a sort-of-hybrid-between-a-mandocello-and-an-old-style-Greek-bouzouki. That was the story I got from Kevin Burke, anyway, who played fiddle with Donal in longest-running lineup of the Bothy Band.
    Just one guy's opinion
    www.guitarfish.net

  7. The following members say thank you to Paul Kotapish for this post:


  8. #5
    Registered User steve V. johnson's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Bloomington, Indiana
    Posts
    3,863

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    Tangent: Pat Broaders had a Joe Foley instrument that was huge. I almost always fail to remember the name properly, but right now it's "dordan". Is that close?

    It was very much like the one in the Lunny pic, but I think I recall it had a scale length around 24".
    Lunny's looks longer than that to me... It was tuned in Pat's usual tuning (which I don't recall either... A's and D's?) with no real stringing tricks. I saw it at the St. Louis Tionól a few years ago and Broaders played that instrument in duets with Liz Carroll at the Saturday concert. He taught a singing course during the day and, I'm told, didn't take it out of the case during the class.

    End of Tangent.

    stv
    steve V. johnson

    Culchies
    http://cdbaby.com/Culchies
    The Lopers
    Ghosts Like Me
    http://cdbaby.com/Lopers1
    There Was A Time
    http://cdbaby.com/Lopers2

  9. #6

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    Wow! I do believe we are seeing history recorded right before our very eyes? Blarge, Dordan, 2 new terms to use in trying to describe these crazy instruments we have so much playing!...

    ...well, new to me, anyways.

  10. #7

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    Quote Originally Posted by sliabhstv View Post
    Tangent: Pat Broaders had a Joe Foley instrument that was huge. I almost always fail to remember the name properly, but right now it's "dordan". Is that close?

    It was very much like the one in the Lunny pic, but I think I recall it had a scale length around 24".
    Lunny's looks longer than that to me... It was tuned in Pat's usual tuning (which I don't recall either... A's and D's?) with no real stringing tricks. I saw it at the St. Louis Tionól a few years ago and Broaders played that instrument in duets with Liz Carroll at the Saturday concert. He taught a singing course during the day and, I'm told, didn't take it out of the case during the class.

    End of Tangent.

    stv
    Pat credited Jimmy Crowley with the name Dordan, and also the design. I think he got Joe Foley to make it (Jimmy's one).

    Ah, in Pat's own words...

    I play Joe Foley instruments. I play a standard bouzouki which Joe made for me in 1984 and I still have it today and it is a great box. I wanted a bassier sound so we came up with a DORDAN which is basically a 8 string blarge, big body and longer neck. I tune it CGCG (hi to low). Still wanting more body to the sound I got Joe to make me a guitar shaped bouzouki or bousar amd it worked out great. I use headway electronics and my string gauges are 59, 34, 22, 18 .

  11. #8
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    England
    Posts
    837

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    All very interesting, thanks guys!

    Andy Manson seemed to suggest that the term came from an instrument he originally built for Donal Lunny.... I think this one will be as much fun to spin yarns about as to play

    Martin, I'll be happy to get together for some blarge-tasting, just give me a shout when you're free. I heard from Joyce a few months ago, and I will try to pay a visit to the Mandoliers at some stage, so I might see you there one of these weeks.

    Fliss

  12. #9
    Registered User Mike Buesseler's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Whitefish,MT
    Posts
    1,721

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    I'd like a stab at naming one of those monsters. How about gizooki...or maybe gizooka...at least for guitar-shaped models!

  13. #10
    Registered User steve V. johnson's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Bloomington, Indiana
    Posts
    3,863

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    Now... I gotta say...

    I've heard Pat Broaders play all these instruments and I didn't really hear that much difference. I heard the Blarge in a Tionól concert and then in a pub session, the original Joe Foley on a festival stage and then backstage, and most recently I heard the guitar-bodied one at Dublin, Ohio, both onstage (amplified thru the PA) and offstage, acoustically, in a small room.

    I don't hear much difference. I was so struck by this that I came home and A/B/C'd some fo the recordings of Pat with the Bohola duet, then the older trio recordings, and within the range I'd expect of varying studios, days, weather, microphones, etc., I don't hear that "more body to the sound".

    But, hey, if Pat's happy, -I'm- happy. His playing makes me happy, whatever tools he uses. It's just a bit of a mystery to me. Maybe I've just lost all acuity of hearing. It could be...

    stv
    steve V. johnson

    Culchies
    http://cdbaby.com/Culchies
    The Lopers
    Ghosts Like Me
    http://cdbaby.com/Lopers1
    There Was A Time
    http://cdbaby.com/Lopers2

  14. #11
    Registered User Uncle Choppy's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Merseyside UK
    Posts
    259

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    Quote Originally Posted by Uncle Choppy (in another thread) View Post
    I know it's difficult to generalise from a single recording but it sounds very "Irish" and bouzouki-like to me. What I mean it has more of a sparkly, ringing tone than most citterns I've heard which seem to have been at the boomier end of the spectrum.
    Maybe I was onto something then

    The first time I saw the term "Blarge" was on Donal Lunny's credits for Planxty's 1979 "After The Break" LP.

    I also heard the story that Seamus Heaney came up with the term but I'd often thought it just a bit of fun. However this thread on "The Session" says that Lunny and Heaney were involved in the same recording ('The Singer's House' by David Hammond, 1978) at about the time the term came into being. (There's a great YouTube link in the thread although Donal appears to be playing his Abnett.)

    Anyway, surely this means that the CBOM message board needs another "B" with Fliss' important historical aquisition. What about CBOMB? (At least it's pronounced the same )

  15. #12

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    Quote Originally Posted by Uncle Choppy View Post
    Maybe I was onto something then

    The first time I saw the term "Blarge" was on Donal Lunny's credits for Planxty's 1979 "After The Break" LP.

    I also heard the story that Seamus Heaney came up with the term but I'd often thought it just a bit of fun. However this thread on "The Session" says that Lunny and Heaney were involved in the same recording ('The Singer's House' by David Hammond, 1978) at about the time the term came into being. (There's a great YouTube link in the thread although Donal appears to be playing his Abnett.)

    Anyway, surely this means that the CBOM message board needs another "B" with Fliss' important historical aquisition. What about CBOMB? (At least it's pronounced the same )
    As is 'CBBOM'...

  16. #13
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    England
    Posts
    837

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    Quote Originally Posted by Uncle Choppy View Post
    Maybe I was onto something then
    That's true, you did say it sounds like a bouzouki - well spotted

    Quote Originally Posted by Uncle Choppy View Post
    The first time I saw the term "Blarge" was on Donal Lunny's credits for Planxty's 1979 "After The Break" LP.
    ....
    Spookily enough, the date on my blarge's label is... 1979!!!

    Fliss

  17. #14

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    The “blarge” was made by Andy Manson, who was living in Crowborough, E.Sussex at that time. (He also made my bouzouki.) Andy had an Irish apprentice working with him then, sponsored by the Irish government, who may well have been Joe Foley, but I don’t know that for certain. There are many theories about the origin of the word “blarge”, but I’m fairly confident that when Donal Lunny ordered it as a sort of bass bouzouki with an extra course of strings part of the specification was that it should be “bloody large”, so Andy wrote down “b large”. It’s less poetic than the Seamus Heaney suggestion, but I think it’s probably the truth of the matter, pedestrian though it may be…

  18. #15
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
    Location
    Edinburgh, Scotland
    Posts
    61

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    I'm not fond of the word, but I suppose my instrument qualifies. The maker and I call it a cittern, but it's 650mm scale, 5 courses tuned CGDAD and fits in a dreadnought guitar case.

  19. #16

    Default Re: It's a blarge!

    Quote Originally Posted by nickpassmore View Post
    The “blarge” was made by Andy Manson, who was living in Crowborough, E.Sussex at that time. (He also made my bouzouki.) Andy had an Irish apprentice working with him then, sponsored by the Irish government, who may well have been Joe Foley, but I don’t know that for certain. There are many theories about the origin of the word “blarge”, but I’m fairly confident that when Donal Lunny ordered it as a sort of bass bouzouki with an extra course of strings part of the specification was that it should be “bloody large”, so Andy wrote down “b large”. It’s less poetic than the Seamus Heaney suggestion, but I think it’s probably the truth of the matter, pedestrian though it may be…
    Just updating this, as my friend Andy Tobin, also a maker of fine bouzoukis, has recently been in touch with Andy Manson, who is based in Portugal these days. The apprentice was actually Andrew Robinson - not a well-known name in the world of bouzouki-making, but perhaps he returned to Dublin and passed on the skills that he acquired from Andy Manson to Joe Foley..? Who knows? But that piece of info certainly blows my theory out of the water! The origins of the word “blarge” remain unchanged, however…

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •