A workshop guide to building Irish bouzoukis and citterns. In the past forty years bouzoukis, citterns and octave mandolins have become an essential part of acoustic music. The Bouzouki Book is the first, and only, book to guides the reader through the steps to build one of these fascinating stringed musical instruments. The book includes nearly 200 colour and B&W illustrations as well as plans for all major components.

Make a Cittern or Bouzouki both Long & Short scale instruments are described.An easy Step by Step method is used with full detail of each section coupled with drawings.The making of specialist Luthiers Tools are also shown

Twenty tunes in styles from Irish to American, in a variety of tunings, melody and accompaniment, presented in standard notation and tablature, with a stereo CD (left channel melody, right channel accompaniment). Left and right hand techniques and chord voicings are thoroughly discussed. for the first time, the Celtic style woven texture accompaniment unique to the instrument is fully notated. Unique to the book are melodic Irish ornamentation, blues, jazz, American fiddle tunes with variations and improvisations (all fully notated), and a chapter Breaking Away from Block Chords extending knowledge of the fingerboard.

(Instructional). The Hal Leonard Irish Bouzouki Method is designed for anyone just learning to play the Irish bouzouki. This comprehensive and easy-to-use beginner's guide focuses on teaching the basics of the instrument as well as accompaniment techniques for a variety of Irish song forms.

The Bouzouki Building Bible . The first and only complete guide, in any language, to constructing your Greek bouzouki from scratch. This book covers every aspect of Greek bouzouki building, in great detail. It presents a unique approach to bouzouki building, in which the major parts are constructed, as much as possible, separately, so that any major problems can be easily corrected, or discarded and redone, without damage to the instrument as a whole. More traditional and alternate construction practices are, of course, also discussed. Section 1 is Preparation : basic design parameters, tools, safety, workspace, and detailed construction overview. Section 2 is Building the Body : design and wood selection, making the form, the staves, the sides, and the capping strip. Section 3 is Building the Neck : design and wood selection, building the neck blank, headstock construction, neck reinforcement, truss rod installation, headstock veneer, shaping the headstock, and drilling and slotting the headstock. Section 4 is Building the Soundboard : design and wood selection, gluing the soundboard, the rosette, the pickguard, and bracing. Section 5 is Building the Fretboard : fretboard design and wood selection, fretboard slotting and shaping the fretboard, and fretboard markers. Section 6 is Assembling the Major Parts of the Instrument : shaping the rim and preparing the inside of the body, kerfed linings, reinforcing and lining the body, label, attaching the top to the body, neck tenon and the neck block mortise, purfling and binding, gluing the fretboard and shaping the neck, gluing the neck to the body, and fret work. Section 7 is Finishing and Setup : sanding, pore filling, finishing, level sanding and buffing, bridge, final assembly and setup, and pickups. Appendices cover Names of Parts of the Bouzouki, and Dimensions of Parts. Includes drawings and plans for the form on which to build the body, and instrument. 288 pages, with over 230 color pictures and diagrams. In English. 8-1/2 x 11.

Markos Vamvakaris, born in 1905 in Syros was a pioneer of rebetiko, the urban folk music of Greece. The bouzouki was a disreputable instrument but he paved its path to glory. He spent many years, first as a stevedore in the port of Piraeus and then as a butcher in the slaughterhouse. During this time he fell in love with a tigress, his first wife, he learnt to smoke hashish and to play the 'sacred' instrument: 'I had a great passion. My life was all bouzouki. It took me over - but it also took me up in the world, way up ...' This is the first ever translation into English of the autobiography compiled by Angeliki Vellou Keil in 1972. It opens a window onto a time of extraordinary creativity in the history of Greek music, an explosion of songwriting in the interwar period. Its composers wrote about themselves and each other, the rituals of hashish smoking and the landmarks of a now vanished city. Markos the repentant sinner and living legend, looks back at childhood idylls in Syros, the arrival of the Asia Minor refugees, the terrible years of the Nazi Occupation, the ceaseless love affairs and disappointments, and the triumphs of the bouzouki. He offers a rare insight into the lives of toiling workers and the lowlife of one of the world's most ancient ports, where East meets West. Out of this melting pot he produced the classic songs that Greeks of all ages still love and know by heart.

The Irish Bouzouki GDAD Chord Bible, with its 2,520 chords offers a complete solution for both beginner and experienced professional musician alike. The layout is uncomplicated and follows a logical musical progression from standard major chords up to the more esoteric thirteenths used by many jazz players. To accompany the 2,520 chords, a further 576 possible moveable chord configurations are included, together with a useful range of major and minor slash chords, reflecting the popularity of this type of chord in many of today's artist and compilation topline songbooks. To fully exploit the ringing quality of the Irish bouzouki, a selection of open and drone string chords has also been included. This highly comprehensive guide provides the musician with no fewer than 60 different types of chord in all twelve keys, making it the definitive publication for the Irish bouzouki. Whether you play folk, rock, pop, jazz or any other type of popular music, The Irish Bouzouki GDAD Chord Bible makes the ideal reference source for all occasions. Standard Chords covered in The Irish Bouzouki GDAD Chord Bible (using the key of C as an example): C, Cm, C-5, Cdim, C4, C5, Csus2, Csus4, Csus4add9, C+, C6, Cadd9, Cm6, Cmadd9, Cm6add9, Cdim7, C7, C7sus2, C7sus4, C7-5, C7+5, C7-9, C7+9, C7-5-9, C7+5-9, C7+5+9, C7add11, C7+11, Cm7, Cm7-5, Cm7-5-9, Cm7-9, Cm7add11, Cm(maj7), Cmaj7, Cmaj7-5, Cmaj7+5, Cmaj7+11, C9, C9-5, C9+5, C9+11, Cm9, Cm9-5, Cm(maj9), Cmaj9, Cmaj9+5, Cmaj9+11, C11, C11-9, Cm11, Cmaj11, C13, C13-5-9, C13-9, C13+9, C13+11, Cm13, Cmaj13. Slash Chords covered in The Irish Bouzouki GDAD Chord Bible (using the key of C as an example): C/C, C/Db, C/D, C/Eb, C/E, C/F, C/F#, C/G, C/Ab, C/A, C/Bb, C/B, Cm/C, Cm/Db, Cm/D, Cm/Eb, Cm/E, Cm/F, Cm/F#, Cm/G, Cm/Ab, Cm/A, Cm/Bb, Cm/B. Beside the many pages of chord boxes or windows, the book features useful sections on tuning, chord construction, fingerboard layout, FAQs, alternative chord naming, fingering, slash chords, harmonic intervals, chord window blanks for transcribing your own favorite chord sequences etc. The aim of this guide is to provide the musician with the flexibility only really offered to guitar and keyboard players in the past. Now, with the help of The Irish Bouzouki GDAD Chord Bible, musicians will be able to pick up any songbook and instantly have access to even the most complex and advanced chords.