Zouk practice!
Sep. 18th, 2011 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAs of this weekend I can say that I can reliably more or less play, without PDF assistance, five tunes: Banish Misfortune, Road to Lisdoonvarna, Swallow’s Tail Jig, Morrison’s Jig, and Si Bheag Si Mhor. I’ve spent some time on Shine specifically trying to play through Lisdoonvarna and Swallow’s Tail and Morrison’s, since Matt likes to link those up in a set at session.
But! I’ve also broken out my bouzouki for the first time in a while. For a variety of reasons!
For one thing, this gorgeous fellow over here is enough to make any amateur bouzouki player go YES I’d like to do that, please!
For another, and more importantly, I’ve wanted to actually learn proper fingerwork on the bouzouki and big mand for YEARS NOW, and Session is finally giving me motivation to do so. I look at the musicians who know what they’re actually doing at session, and note how they’re able to switch happily off between this instrument and that. I want to do that. I HAVE THE INSTRUMENTS. So I clearly need to practice these tunes on multiple ones. Because if I have the instruments, I should be PLAYING them.
My friend 
brightbeak
It nurtures my soul indeed to be reminded of this. \0/
And this, by way, is my bouzouki! Her name is Spring. Say hi, Spring!
Spring Says *TWANG*
So today, in addition to practicing the aforementioned five tunes on Shine, I got out Spring as well and staggered my way through Banish Misfortune. I’ve got a mandolin fakebook with a whole lot of tunes in it, and since Spring and my big mand Autumn are both tuned to GDAE, I can use the fakebook to slowly pluck out the tunes on them both. I’ve already used that fakebook once to try to learn Swallow’s Tail REEL on Spring–and now it’ll be wonderful to start finding more of the tunes we play in session, too. I’m not sure yet whether Spring or Autumn will wind up being my stringed instrument of choice in session, we’ll have to see–another person showed up last time with the same model mand that Autumn is (a Trinity College), so I think I’ll favor Spring for a while. Spring’s got more responsive strings anyway!
Mirrored from annathepiper.org.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 03:34 pm (UTC)And hurrah on playing tunes! Right now I'm concentrating on rhythm backup only... hence the GDAD. I'm finding I now have a couple of sets of callouses on my fingers: guitar/bouzouki and harp. I got a bunch of playing in on Saturday, I'm hoping to practice a bit tonight as well. Band practices tomorrow and I want to make sure I sound good for them.
One random question. I'm getting a tight feeling in my left wrist when I play. I think it might be because I'm holding the instrument more like a guitar. Do I need to hold the neck higher? Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I know my wrist shouldn't be this uncomfortable while I'm playing.
What make is Spring? She's very pretty :)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-21 04:20 pm (UTC)Rhythm backup sounds like a good idea to me! I can do a slightly smaller set of chords on the zouk than I can on the guitar, but what chords I know, I can whip through. (That pretty much means there are four or five Great Big Sea songs I can do either on zouk or guitar.)
And ooh, GDAD. I settled on GDAE just because I started on mandolin as my first thing with strings, and keeping the same tuning made the transition over to zouk easier for me. Plus I like the sound of the high E. But I've periodically wondered whether dabbling in GDAD or ADAD would be beneficial. Maybe when I get better at GDAE!
Re: holding the instrument--your guess is as good as mine on that, honestly (I'm just this chick who futzes around on stringed instruments in her living room, and I'm not nearly as comfortable on them as I am on the piccolo so far), but changing the angle of how you're holding the instrument sounds plausible to me. I've had to shift how I hold instruments depending on which one I'm trying to play and how long it's been since I've held it. Spring is a lot lighter than my guitars (especially the General), so that definitely affects how I need to hold her, including the angle of holding the neck. And since the reach is different I generally have to futz a bit with the angle of my wrist, too, to find whatever's comfortable.
Spring was made by the Olympia Dulcimer Company, who specialize in what they call "walking dulcimers". She looks a lot like their walking dulcimers, in fact, and sound-wise, she's sort of this weird hybrid of dulcimer and banjo and zouk. She's a lot twangier than my partner
no subject
Date: 2011-09-23 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-23 03:59 pm (UTC)