Learn To Play The Bouzouki

WHO IS TASOS?

Tasos Issaakidis is a true maestro of the Greek Bouzouki. He has played over 20 years and taught for more than a decade. His educational background includes private advanced orchestration, arranging, and theory under prominent University music professor David Neale.

Learn to play the bouzouki, dispel all the myths, ensure success….

Learning to play the Greek bouzouki is similar in learning to play any other stringed instrument. In order to succeed, you need to have a good instrument, the right attitude, good practice habits and know what to practice.

Choosing the right instrument:

What makes a bouzouki a good instrument?

1)The action

The action is the height that the strings rest on top of the fretboard. The idea is that the lower the strings are on top of the fretboard, the easier it is to play. You need to have a bouzouki with low action otherwise your fingers will suffer. A high action bouzouki is very difficult to play and will make your hands cramp. Sometimes a high action bouzouki hides imperfections on the fretboard.

2)The break

The break is the downward angle of the strings after the bridge towards the back end of the bouzouki. When purchasing a bouzouki, make sure that the strings slope down between the bridge and where the strings tie over. The reason is that enough pressure must be put on the bridge in order for the sound to resonate from the bridge to the sound hole. If enough pressure is not put, much of the sound will be lost. Another reason that we need this angle is for the tunning of the instrument. If not enough pressure is put on the bridge, the bridge will move very easily. Moving the bridge changes the tunning of the instrument. When setting up the bouzouki there is a procedure that must be followed in order to put the bridge in the right place. After this the bridge should not move. If it does there is no way to tune the bouzouki.

The action and the break should be looked at together. Remember that you need to have a low action bouzouki with a good break!

3)The neck and fretboard

When purchasing a bouzouki look at the neck and make sure that it is straight. Usually bouzoukis/bouzoukia have a white stripe on the top and bottom sides of the neck. Line up your eye to this line and check to see if it is straight. Make sure you do this with both the top and bottom sides of the neck. Also make sure that the fretboard is made of hard wood. You will need this in order for the freboard to last. The most common woods used in fretboards, are rosewood and ebony. Also hold up the bouzouki from the back end and look from behind the bridge towards the frets. All the frets on the fretboard should line up. There should not be any frets popping up.

4)Check the tunning

Make sure before you purchase a bouzouki to get a tuner and tune it or get someone you know to do this for you. Make sure that the bouzouki tunes correctly before you purchase it. Although very rare, there are some bouzoukis where the fretboard have been build inaccurately and cannot be tunned.

There are more things to look at and watch out for when purchasing a bouzouki however these are the most important ones.

Having the Right Attitude

In learning to play the Greek bouzouki, having the right attitude is one of the key elements. Here is something to keep in mind:

Learning is much like running a marathon rather than running the one hundred meter dash. It is not a question of getting there faster but getting there at all. Have you ever seen your favorite artist(s) perform live? How is it that they make it look so easy? They could be performing very difficult material but they are so fluent at it! This is gives us an insight on their attitude of practice.

When learning a new concept, or a new idea, or anything new on your instrument, the idea is that you give yourself enough time to let this new material be absorbed. Ultimately your have to be able to use this new information/material at a moments notice or at will and it has to feel as second nature to you. Your choice of using this new information/material when playing, should feel much like a natural response to an outside stimulant (the outside stimulant could for example be the music that other band members are playing and your response is what you play) just as pulling your hand away when you accidentally touch something hot. The reaction is instant and without thought!

If you give yourself enough time to learn the fundamentals of music in the above discussed manner, you too will be able to reach same plateau as your favorite elite artists! If you are someone who is thinking of beginning to learn to play the Greek bouzouki or you already do but you want to get better at it, then you should adapt (instill) this attitude in you.

Dispelling the Myths!

 In all my years of studying music, if have heard it all. I have heard a lot of “sayings” . Many of them are myths or at best half truths. Here are some:

1. In order to play bouzouki you have to have the fingers for it

2. You have to build strength in your fingers

3. You have to be born for it

4. Play slow, the ability to play fast will come by itself

5. Practice makes perfect

6. It must in your blood

7. It runs in the family

And many more!

Let me take some time to discuss the above points

Let’s first take a look at point 1. There is no specification of the size or shape of your fingers or hand that will give you and advantage or disadvantage over another musician. Long fingers have their advantages and disadvantages and short fingers have their own advantages and disadvantages. If we are to compare a musician with long fingers verses a musician with short ones, we will find that the difficulties lie in different areas. Thus if you have long fingers, you might find a certain piece difficult where a musician with short fingers will find the same piece easy. However a piece that may seem easy to you might seem difficult to someone with short fingers.

In point 2 there is a lot of confusion. The confusion lies in how this saying is used and explained by a teacher to the student. Building strength will slow you down. When someone tells you that you have to build strength (because of how we think) most of us think of strength much like a massive body builder. This tends to have an effect on our practice. When practicing, we tend to use too much pressure in our hand thus cramping our muscles and that is why we slow down. This is like wanting to go fast in a car but you are ridding on your breaks! Granted you will gain some strength in your hand but your ultimate goal should be to gain flexibility, coordination and stamina. Think of a martial arts master verses a massive body builder. Your goal is to become like the martial arts master.

Your hand and fingers should be as relaxed and as loose as possible. Use only as much pressure as you need. Most of us and by reflex tend to use too much tension when we are playing.

Point 3 in my opinion is a half truth. Granted some people have the ability learn music faster than others. This is the same like some people are better in math were other are better in history but it is not true to say that the people that are better in math will fail their history and those that are naturally good in history will fail math. Given the right attitude and with good guidance everyone can learn to play the Greek bouzouki!

Point 4 “Play slow the ability to play fast will come by itself”. If have seen this advice destroy potential masters of the Greek bouzouki! There is a precise and specific procedure that must be followed when increasing your ability to play fast. If this procedure is not followed, the student will soon reach a point that he/she will not be able to overcome. When this point is reached I have seen two things happen. First the student keeps trying to surpass this “brick wall” but soon finds the task futile. Then the student falls in to the myth that a)they are not born for it or b)they don’t have the fingers for it and soon give up. The second thing that happens is that the student researches the problem, finds out why the have come up against this “brick wall” which they cannot pass. They realize that they have to start almost from scratch again and get disheartened and quit. Very few continue after this! This is one of the reasons that we have a lot of people with genuine thirst for the instrument but the drop rate is large.

Point 5 “Practice makes perfect”. This is the second advice that has destroyed a lot of potential masters of the instrument. Remember that you should never aim for quantity but for quality. Therefore Practice does NOT make perfect! PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT! Knowing what to practice, how much you should practice, how slow or how fast you should practice, what you should gain from the specific material you are practicing and what the results will be, are a few things that make a practice routine a perfect practice routine.

Points 6 and 7 are closely related. A lot of people attribute the fact that someone is a good bouzouki player to the fact that it runs in his/her family or that it is in their blood. Having someone in your family that already plays an instrument such as a father or a grandfather helps in the fact that you have been exposed to music at an early age but it is not the deciding factor whether you will become a good musician and by no means does it ensure success.

 ENSURE SUCCESS

In my long and continuous study of music, I have many times come at crossroads and know how difficult it is to be pointed in the right direction. Many times I have reached the point were I felt that I did not know how to and could not progress anymore, I felt myself resigned to the task. I have found the bad advice plentiful! It is easy to loose yourself in the many misconceptions and ‘false prophets’ that exist around this instrument. This is the reason that I have chosen to teach bouzouki. The method that I use is not my own. One my call it a hybrid of various different but well established and tested methods, supported by years of research at different Universities.

 I believe that no one has the true ability (although many proclaim) to ensure your success in learning to play bouzouki, but you.