The Irish Bouzouki Paperback – September 1, 2011

The book starts with a fairly thorough description, with many pictures and a few diagrams, of the parts, interior, and construction of the Irish-style bouzouki. It also mentions how the Irish bouzouki fits into the lute family and its Greek bouzouki origin.There are about two pages of pictures and instructions on how to hold the bouzouki, and a couple of pages about strumming and typical rhythms in Irish dance music. There are two pages on scales and the location of notes on a GDAD (G2 D3 A3 D4) and ADAD (A2 D3 A3 D4) tuned fretboards, and one and a quarter pages each of fingering diagrams for chords for GDAD and ADAD tunings. Other tunings, such as mandolin and upper-4 guitar tunings are mentioned, but no chord charts.Most of the book (more than twenty pages) is taken up with treble clef notated tunes with letter chords that match all but a couple of the 15 tracks of Irish music on the companion CD. (The notated tunes are listed below.) Two tunes, 'Bridget' and 'Brackagh Hill' have lyrics. The CD has two other tracks played on Greek tzouras and tetrachordo bouzoukis which have no matching notation in the book. The tunes section has half-page photos and half-page blurb biographies of the bouzouki players from the CD.On the whole, the book seems to me like a quarter-version each of a chord-book and tune book (do the math). It would be appropriate as a book to for a first-time bouzouki buyer along with the instrument, just to get started. The chords and fingerings are only a basic set, adequate for the tunes notated in the book, and include no mention of sliding-pattern chords or chords where a course of strings is left out. The book will need to be be supplemented with larger chord and fingering charts downloaded from enthusiasts' web pages, and with other tune books. Unfortunately, this is the only chord-book that I've found for Irish bouzouki on Amazon US, except for Irish Bouzouki Chord Bible (Fretted Friends Series) , which appears to be just what I want, but costs hundreds of dollars! On Amazon UK, you can get the same thing for about 20 pounds.GDAD Chord list (ADAD very nearly the same):A Maj, A min (2 versions), A7B min (2 versions)Bb Maj, Bb minC Maj, C openD open, D7E Maj, E min, E openF MajG min, G open (2 versions)List of Notated Tunes:Brackagh HillBridgetCarolan's DraughtConnachtman's RamblesDoctor Gilbert's ReelEamonn a'ChnoicFearghaill O'Gara's ReelGold RingLads of LaoisLucky in LoveMist-Covered MountainNiamh's CapersPaddy went to LondonReturn to MilltownRights of ManTrip to LerwickWalsh's HornpipeWise MaidWoman I Never Forgot

Who ever wants to learn to play the bouzouki, don't buy this book!!. It gives some nice information about history and artists, but thats stuff you can find anywhere on the net.It maynly deals with the gdad and adad tuning, not the gdae (mandolin) tuning. OK i can live with that.You can get a cassette tape with it (not even a cd!) but you discover that when you already received book. The music in it is staffmusic with chordnames on top,No tab, no example strokes, you just have to figure it out all byyourself.Wel why should i need this book then?

There are very few pages in this book devoted to learning how to actually play the bouzouki and even those pages are very simplistic. The book mostly contains short biographies of bouzouki players and some tunes with chords written in standard musical notation rather than tab. Although the Amazon description refers to a CD and the book continually refers to a cassette, neither come with the book and there is no information that I can find in the book telling how to obtain the recording. There was really nothing in the book about the Irish bouzouki that I hadn't already found on the web during some quick searches making the price of the book way out of proportion to what I received.