Anything that gets me to practice
Aug. 26th, 2011 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperI may not have reached GBS levels of fangirling with these new boys from Quebec, but Le Vent du Nord have done something only GBS has seriously been able to do before: they’ve gotten me to pick up my instruments and try to play along, especially now that 
spazzkat
Because it means I can do things like watch this video or this one of Le Vent du Nord, and try to pick apart the songs they’re playing and see if I can do it too!
“Laniaire” is currently my favorite LVN song sung by Simon Beaudry, and he’s very easy to follow on the melody line in that–I picked out the melody pretty quick, just by whistling the first couple of notes into a tuner to get the starting pitches and then picking up the piccolo to get the whole tune. But Simon’s capoed on his fifth fret in that video, and based on what the piccolo was telling me, I was fairly sure the key was G minor.
Which gave me a bit of a fit. I had to backtrack down the neck to try to figure out what key’s chords he must have been playing in order to wind up in G minor, and that told me he’s playing chords in D minor. Which, for a fairly beginner-level guitarist like me, is CRAZYTALK. D minor has never been my friend. Fortunately, capos are mobile! So I capoed on 3 instead of 5 and instantly got a set of chords much better matched to my skill level. I love you, E minor. (heart) (heart) (heart)
(ETA: D minor, not C minor like I’d originally thought. I forgot about the frets going up by half steps! See what I mean, people? Beginner-level guitarist.)
Now, though, the trick is to try to work out the actual changes. I’m not as comfortable with minor chord progressions as I am with major ones, so I’m going to have to step through this song slowly and see if I can figure out what Simon is doing based on what’s described here. Also, any guitarists out there want to chime in on basic progressions I should get to know for purposes of Celtic-flavored music, by all means, please do!
Meanwhile, “Cré mardi” is my favorite LVN song sung by Nicolas Boulerice, the hurdy gurdy player, so far. This thing’s in G, which is about as friendly a key as you can get. I was able to more or less pick out the first half (where they’re all doing call and response vocals) on the piccolo; the second half is harder, where they’re going into the mouth rhythm and Olivier Demers is echoing them on the fiddle. The tune is called “La turlette du rang des Sloan” according to the album this song comes from, but Googling for that basically gets me hits about that exact track on that exact album. TunePal doesn’t know it either. So I guess I get to figure this thing out the way a proper traditional musician should: BY EAR. ;) Fun!
Also, as soon as I can figure out how to say “my fandom plays bouzouki” in French, I am totally going to have a Simon icon. Possibly also Nico, because the hurdy gurdy is AWESOME. And very possibly also Olivier’s stompy!feet, because that’s +20 to Awesome on top of his being a fiddle player. \0/
On a final (not related to Le Vent du Nord) note–HA, I have in fact managed to get “Banish Misfortune” into my brain enough that I can stumble through it without consulting Matt’s PDF of session tunes! Now if I can do this again on my octave mandolin, that’d rock.
Mirrored from annathepiper.org.
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Date: 2011-08-29 07:51 pm (UTC)How hard is it to learn? I know that everything has a learning curve, but it might be awesome just to get that zouk flavor.
Any recommended sites for aspiring zouk-ists? Do you play GDAD tuning? What's a good (i.e. nice quality but won't break the bank) maker for a beginning instrument?
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Date: 2011-08-29 08:07 pm (UTC)If you or your bodhran player are comfortable on the guitar taking up the zouk shouldn't be too hard for you, IMO--it'll just be a matter of getting accustomed to fingering different chords and perhaps to different fret widths as well, depending on what guitars you're used to, I guess. The width of the frets has always been the challenge for me to play on a zouk, since my hands are small.
Re: tuning, my partner and I tend to favor GDAE, because that means we can play the same chords on both mandolin and bouzouki, and for the convenience of having all four courses be a fifth apart. I've occasionally experimented with both GDAD and ADAD but keep coming back to GDAE. Y'all may wish to do the same to see what works better for you; I'm given to understand that the other tunings may work better for players with larger hands, as well as for ease of chords.
There are a whole bunch of chord charts over here, and that's been my best reference for zouk-related stuff so far.
I also have a weirdo bouzouki that actually sounds kinda more like a banjo or a dulcimer in some ways--it was made by these people, and while it doesn't roar like Dara's zouk does, it has a nice voice on it.
Hope this helps! :)
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Date: 2011-09-02 05:25 am (UTC)One more silly question: do you tune the courses to octaves or unisons? I've heard you can do either. Which do you prefer?
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Date: 2011-09-02 05:44 am (UTC)Dara says that if I wished I could have the nut on my octave mand redone so that it could take octave strings, but I haven't felt a need to do so. I kinda like the big mand the way she is. :) Even though I actually like the octave strings on our zouks better, since I feel those make for a richer, fuller sound. My big mand's got a sound I'm reluctant to mess with, though!
And yay for your new bouzouki, I hope it serves you well and lets you decide if you want to graduate to the Trinity College!