Still considered an Irish Bouzouki?

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Didn't want to sound crochety; "Irish bouzouki" has become a term in general use, just as "Dobro" refers now to any resonator guitar, including those not made by the Dobro division of Gibson, and "Autoharp," though still a registered trademark of Oscar Schmidt, is used for chord zither instruments made by a variety of makers.

(begin pedant) Dobro refers to any spider bridge resonator guitar. No self-respecting owner of a biscuit bridge resonator guitar, National or other brand, would call it a Dobro. (/end pedant)


BTW, I share your feelings about short-scale "bouzoukis," but that whole middle zone of instruments that are neither clearly a bouzouki or clearly a Gibson-style octave mandolin is filled with hybrids anyway.

[Graham McDonald]

Hello Bertie,

I totally agree that if Irvine, Lunny and Moynihan all call it a bouzouki its good enough for me.

Greek music can work fine on an Irish bouzouki. A few years back a very tasty Greek rembetika band came to our National Folk Festival here in Canberra, and their lead bouzouki player's three course Dad tuned bouzouki got trashed by the airline. I lent them one of mine for the festival (a four course GDad tuned flatback) which they played for all their gigs, making lots of delightfully rude remarks about Irish bouzoukis in the process.

cheers

[michaelpthompson]

And what's Jewish about the Jew's harp? I sure don't know.

Strangely enough, I play Jew's Harp too. It's got nothing to do with Jewish people. Comes from the French Trompe Jeu, or child's trump. Jeu means young person, it doesn't refer to a Jewish person.

[allenhopkins]

...(begin pedant) Dobro refers to any spider bridge resonator guitar. No self-respecting owner of a biscuit bridge resonator guitar, National or other brand, would call it a Dobro. (/end pedant...BTW, I share your feelings about short-scale "bouzoukis," but that whole middle zone of instruments that are neither clearly a bouzouki or clearly a Gibson-style octave mandolin is filled with hybrids anyway.

Well, you are definitely right about the difference between the spider-bridge-concave-cone design of the Dobro, and the biscuit-bridge-convex-cone design of the National. Yet, search for "Dobro" on eBay, and what's the first guitar that pops up? How about a "Recording King..Tricone Metal Body Dobro Guitar"? I mean, a Tricone "Dobro"? What has happened, is that in common (or uninformed) parlance, any guitar with a resonator is a "Dobro," even a National.

And I have no problem calling octave mandolins, "octave mandolins," whatever scale length they have. To me, a bouzouki is quite a different instrument, in terms of construction and tuning. But that's a definite minority position; long-scale OM's are called "Irish bouzoukis," and that big flat tortilla with refritos, ground beef, tomatoes and onions is a "Mexican pizza," and I keep my snarky reservations pretty much unexpressed. Except here.

[Kyle Baker]

What about the fact that GDAD is a tuning widely used by flat backed BOUZOUKI players, and not usually by octave mandolin players. I know some people will play GDAD on their octave mandolins, but most don't. I would say if you are playing a "long scaled octave mandolin" as you call it, but have it tuned GDAD, this is what makes it an "Irish bouzouki". The scale, tuning, AND playing style.
And I have to agree with the others that stated that if the term bouzouki is good enough for Lunny, Irvine, and Moynihan, then it's good enough for me.
Also, I haven't seen these Mexican pizzas before, but they're probably pretty tasty

[Eddie Sheehy]

No, I'm sorry. You are going to have come up with a new name and register it with the CBOM Police. You may not play it in public until you receive your permit from them.

[bertiebeetle]

What about the fact that GDAD is a tuning widely used by flat backed BOUZOUKI players, and not usually by octave mandolin players. I know some people will play GDAD on their octave mandolins, but most don't. I would say if you are playing a "long scaled octave mandolin" as you call it, but have it tuned GDAD, this is what makes it an "Irish bouzouki". The scale, tuning, AND playing style.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Kyle. Seems if you call it an OM, you probably are playing, and tuning, your instrument like, well, a big mandolin. More of a melody player, more tunes.

We bouzouki players might not only tune differently, but play differently. As much an accompanying instrument with all it's jangly, chordal, contrapuntal, droning possibilities as a melody instrument.

OK - gross generalization ends now. Shoot me down in flames.

Bertie

[John McGann]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Kyle. Seems if you call it an OM, you probably are playing, and tuning, your instrument like, well, a big mandolin. More of a melody player, more tunes.

We bouzouki players might not only tune differently, but play differently. As much an accompanying instrument with all it's jangly, chordal, contrapuntal, droning possibilities as a melody instrument.

OK - gross generalization ends now. Shoot me down in flames.

Bertie

That sounds about right- in my experience, it seems most bouzouki (long scale) players either tune 'modally' and/or don't play a lot of melody or improvise much other than backing, unless using a capo and effectively shortening the scale length; OM (shorter scale) lends itself a bit more to both melodic playing and accompaniment, because on the whole, the instrument is more playable, from a left hand perspective that allows you to not to hurt yourself in GDAE tuning.

I couldn't dream of doing what I do (whatever the heck that is) on a 25" scale GDAE instrument. I'd love to have that extra clarity and resonance that scale brings, but I can live with what I have pretty well (I love the Sobell OM sound).

[steve V. johnson]

1) You can call it a bouzouki if you produce a valid birth certificate for it.

2) When you have that instrument in an airport, NEVER say it's a bouzouki.

stv

[BlueMt.]

Things get even murkier when you play a long scale, 5 course instrument, tuned DGDAD. Is it a 5 course Irish bouzouki or a cittern or something else? Maybe a cittzouki or bouttern?

[zoukboy]

I agree pretty much with Kyle, Bertie, and John, but I'll just add that most of us would probably agree that objecting to the name "guitar" used for steel string acoustic, electric, and resophonic guitars would be ludicrous, but that is essentially what the "Irish bouzouki is not really a bouzouki" argument is.

Similarly, the "Spanish" guitar was transformed in the US in the late 19th C. with steel strings (not the first metal strung guitars in history, but the most viable and successful take on the idea, for sure). This led to the invention of resophonic guitars and then the electrification of the steel-strung acoustic instrument, and eventually the solid body electric guitar.

Now I am sure that there were some Spaniards who objected to this process (Segovia famously condemned the electric guitar as an "abomination") but with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight that now seems very quaint to us moderns, don't it?

And it's interesting that about the only thing uniting all the different iterations of the guitar is its tuning, so I think the argument that GDAD makes it an "Irish" bouzouki is a sound one. Tunings are a way of thinking, too, and I think Johnny Moynihan's innovation of the Irish bouzouki tuning is what made the expression of a new instrumental concept within Irish trad/folk music possible.

[Bertram Henze]

I think the argument that GDAD makes it an "Irish" bouzouki is a sound one. Tunings are a way of thinking, too, and I think Johnny Moynihan's innovation of the Irish bouzouki tuning is what made the expression of a new instrumental concept within Irish trad/folk music possible.

Still, this leaves unexplained examples and exceptions, such as Andy Irvine who tunes everything in GDAD (or CGDG or whatever), even mandolins - if you can still call them mandolins.

I guess names only make sense as long as there's standardized classes those names stand for. In the CBOM world, it would be better to have codes that contain information on scale length, body style, stringing and tuning, as in "I left my 25-A-cCgGddaadd at home tonight". Plus, for convenience, electronic tuners should be programmable to show the current instrument code at all times in bright LED letters, thus avoiding the need for answering questions and providing a reason for leaving the tuner clipped-on at all times.

Or, following the Spanish guitar/electric guitar line of history, we might give in to what audience knew all the time and call them all "guitars".

[zoukboy]

Still, this leaves unexplained examples and exceptions, such as Andy Irvine who tunes everything in GDAD (or CGDG or whatever), even mandolins - if you can still call them mandolins.

I guess names only make sense as long as there's standardized classes those names stand for. In the CBOM world, it would be better to have codes that contain information on scale length, body style, stringing and tuning, as in "I left my 25-A-cCgGddaadd at home tonight". Plus, for convenience, electronic tuners should be programmable to show the current instrument code at all times in bright LED letters, thus avoiding the need for answering questions and providing a reason for leaving the tuner clipped-on at all times.

Or, following the Spanish guitar/electric guitar line of history, we might give in to what audience knew all the time and call them all "guitars".

Personally I like the ambiguity and the fact that because the instrument is not standardized builders feel free to keep interpreting the relatively open concept as the please. In a world dominated by Gibson and Martin copies (not that there is anything wrong with those) the variety is refreshing.

The only time that ambiguity seems to be a problem is in discussions on forums like this...

[Kyle Baker]

I'm guilty like Andy Irvine... I own 2 zouks, a tenor banjo and a mandolin... all are tuned GDAD. Also, one zouk is a long scale trinity college, and my other has the same scale length as an acoustic guitar.
I'm too lazy to learn to play GDAE after already learning GDAD.

[Rob Meyer]

I've been lurking here awhile and finally I am posting. I thought I was the only one who tuned everything (OM, tenor banjo, zouk) GDAD! Like Kyle, I just can't be bothered to learn play GDAE and I find that GDAD works fine for both melody and chords.

[Bertram Henze]

Like Kyle, I just can't be bothered to learn play GDAE and I find that GDAD works fine for both melody and chords.

There's nothing wrong with that. Player + instrument must work as a whole.

I learned to play violin as a first instrument, so GDAE is forever burned into my brain. If I got a long-scale zouk, I'd probably tune it GDAE as well. And I could even argue that this way I would maintain transposability across strings and save on capo usage (lame excuse though, isn't it?).

Never touch a running system.

[Eddie Sheehy]

I use GDAD on my zouk and GDAE on my OM - that's basically the only reason I have for keeping both instruments - even though the scales differ by 4 inches... But to each his own. Once Johnny "invented" the Irish Zouk from the Greek zouk - which was "invented" from a Turkish saz/baglama, then it was only a matter of time and license before tuning/string-configuration/shape allowed for new names - an instrument by any other name would sound as sweet...(Eddie Shakespeare - Will's cousin)

Vive la Difference

[Dustin]

I had tried out the GDAD tuning for a while and loved the sound of the chords. Since I usually don't play melodies very fast, it did not matter if it slowed me down. The problem I ran into was that since I am the replacement for the guitar, it thins things out if you just play double stops instead of a full chord. Some of the modern music we play uses some very difficult chords and I was getting tired of the capo.

Since I had already played mandolin before this, it was just easier to go back to the more versatile GDAE tuning (at least more for me). I figured out how to play all the main chords without the thirds to get that "Irish bouzouki" sound for most songs, but it does not always sounds as good.

But, now that I am getting my hands on a guitar... I might switch back to the GDAD tuning.....

[Talabardio]

Call it whatever you like... If you don't play Irish music, 'Irish bouzouki' isn't a real fun thing to call your instrument, so I never have.

[zoukboy]

Call it whatever you like... If you don't play Irish music, 'Irish bouzouki' isn't a real fun thing to call your instrument, so I never have.

Well, maybe it's not "real fun" if you don't care about the history of the instrument...

"Irish" + "bouzouki" completely covers the origin of the instrument and also honors the fact that if the Greek bouzouki had not been brought into Irish music in the late 60s/early 70s we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

But it is probably inevitable that other names will come and go, used by people with agendas that don't include Irish trad music.

[allenhopkins]

..."Irish" + "bouzouki" completely covers the origin of the instrument and also honors the fact that if the Greek bouzouki had not been brought into Irish music in the late 60s/early 70s we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. But it is probably inevitable that other names will come and go, used by people with agendas that don't include Irish trad music.

Guess the point I'd try to make, is that playing Irish/Celtic music on a bouzouki, whether from Greece or elsewhere, is a bit different from building an octave mandolin with a longer scale, and calling it an "Irish bouzouki." Because a bouzouki isn't really an octave mandolin, although Irish players tuned it like one.

The great LA session guitarist Tommy Tedesco, called "the most recorded guitarist in history," owned a collection of dozens of stringed instruments -- all of which he tuned like a guitar, so he didn't need to learn different chord shapes and between-string intervals. (I assume "like a guitar" meant relative string pitches, 4ths and a 3rd, rather than absolute pitches.) These re-tunings did not create a series of new instruments. Tuning a bouzouki GDAE did not create a new instrument, the "Irish bouzouki." Perhaps it was a "bouzouki in Irish tuning." The subsequent GDAE instruments being built in the last 30 years are, IMHO, octave mandolins of different scale lengths.

But I understand that mine is a minority position, and that usage has implanted "Irish bouzouki" in the musical vocabulary. I still think it's a "Mexican pizza."

[zoukboy]

a bouzouki isn't really an octave mandolin, although Irish players tuned it like one.

Actually they didn't. Almost no one in Ireland uses GDAE on bouzouki.

Tuning a bouzouki GDAE did not create a new instrument, the "Irish bouzouki." Perhaps it was a "bouzouki in Irish tuning." The subsequent GDAE instruments being built in the last 30 years are, IMHO, octave mandolins of different scale lengths.

Here again, GDAE and "Irish bouzouki" are being associated when GDAD is almost universal. There is a tendency among some players here in the States towards GDAE but I think that is attributable to their experience with mandolin or tenor banjo and their desire to "retain" a tuning they already know (I see this a lot in workshops).

But it does seem that there is something of an octave mando movement in the US that is completely independent from Irish trad music and the bouzouki. Maybe John McGann will chime in here :-)

At any rate, it makes sense to call a medium scale instrument tuned GDAE and which is played with a mandolin sensibility an "Octave Mandolin," just as it makes sense to call a dissimilarly tuned and played instrument with (usually) a longer scale length an Irish bouzouki if the context warrants it.

And there you have it: discussions such as this one usually attempt to resolve an issue irrespective of the contexts in which either side of a disparity makes sense. I don't think there is a whole lot to be gained from that.

[Theo W.]

I once knew a Lakota Sioux man who referred to himself as an Indian and felt it was the correct term, preferred over "Native American." He helped organize "Indian Pow-Wows." He's a proud member of an ancient tribe, and descended from one of the most influential holy men of the Sioux nation. Are you presuming to step in from the outside and say he's technically incorrect?

Yes I am. I personally think he's right. You should always be called what you want to be called out whether it be Indian, Native American, White, Black, American, British etc. But geographically an Indian is a Native American. The term Indian just cones from Columbus having no idea where he was. But as I said, everyone should be called what they want to be.

[Graham McDonald]

The part of this discussion which no-one has looked at is the origin of the mid-scale length (20-23") octave mandolin. While there have been what the Europeans would call an octave mandola around probably since the 1880s, with a short 17-18" scale, and Regal Octophones in the 1920s, and then tenor guitars from the 20s onwards, the modern octave mandolin I suspect is a product of the 1970s, made for people who wanted a four course Irish bouzouki type instrument, but found the scale length a bit intimidating and/or wanted to play more melodically.

I would be pleased to be proved wrong here, but in all the research I have been doing on mandolin family history, mid length OMs didn't really appear until after the Irish bouzouki. I have a pic from Rich Westerman of Charlie Piggot and Alec Finn from around 1978, with Piggot holding one of Rich's OMs

As an interesting aside, I have some pics of Johnny Moynihan's original Irish bouzouki with a tape measure next to it. It has a scale length of over 29"!

cheers

graham

[Dagger Gordon]

I'm really not sure that changing the tuning of an instrument could merit calling it by a different name - although I do follow the logic of that.

After all, some people play in lots of different guitar tunings. A guitar is not suddenly going to be an 'Irish' guitar if it gets tuned to DADGAD, for example, It's still a guitar.

In my case I bought an instrument from Stefan Sobell in the 1980s which I'm pretty sure was sold to me as an '8 string cittern'. In the intervening years, it seems that the word 'cittern' has come to mean an octave type of instrument which has ten strings rather than eight, but out of habit I still tend to call it my cittern.

I have always tuned it ADae, which is clearly a variation of (octave) mandolin tuning. The same could also be said for the tuning GDAD.
I have a Gold Tone octave mandolin which I also tune to Adae, but which I often retune to GDae if I lend them to any of my students, who often already play fiddle and are more comfortable with that. Incidentally, fiddles sometimes get retuned, but they're still called fiddles.

In my view, all of these four course instruments tuned to GDae (or its variants like GDad or ADae) are obviously octave mandolins. They are tuned basically like a mandolin but pitched an octave below.

On the other hand, what Alec Finn plays is definitely a bouzouki. It LOOKS like a bouzouki, doesn't have eight strings like an octave mandolin and is being used to play Irish music. What he does with it is what I would call 'Irish bouzouki'.