Any other string things?

B

buzzard bass

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I'm seeing a lot of threads r/t acoustic guits, but not much else. Anyone play any acoustic stringed instruments besides the guit? A friend at work intro'd me to the hammered dulcimer, I just got one myself. Beautiful sounding instrument, just learning to play it. Very different from anything else I've tried. Anyone else have something a little different on the go?
 
I played cello last year for school. It is quite fun to fiddle around with. I tried recording it one time, but I didn't exactly have the proper mic for the job. It still came out alright, though. I added a bunch of reverb and it really brought one of my tracks to life.
 
I've got a Washburn mandolin, just use it for song accents.

Also, an antique banjolin (8 string short-neck banjo). Had a hell of a time finding a new head for it - found a banjo head a little large, but made it work. It doesn't sound all that different from the mand.
 
Tenor guitar and ukulele.

I have become a ten-times better harmonica player in only about 5 years that I am a guitarist in 43. Pisses me off, too- can't help wonder how good I might be if I's blown harp all that time.

Also have dabbled in Irish tin whistle, recorder and pan pipes.
 
buzzard bass said:
I'm seeing a lot of threads r/t acoustic guits, but not much else. Anyone play any acoustic stringed instruments besides the guit? A friend at work intro'd me to the hammered dulcimer, I just got one myself. Beautiful sounding instrument, just learning to play it. Very different from anything else I've tried. Anyone else have something a little different on the go?
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mandolin, hammer dulcimer, fiddle, dobro, open back banjo here.
 
I use the mandolin. I like it acoustically but I love it electrically. Even today an experienced pianist/saxophonist asked me during one track they were playing to if the mandolin part 'was a guitar'. I also play the acoustic bass guitar.
Before the children came along, I had a suz, sitar, tampura, cello and double bass. I was crappy on all of them but I used the double bass extensively. I've also used the tin whistle but I lost interest and with the harmonica I've been terribly lazy.
 
I play mostly middle-eastern music (I'm the percussionist) and one band mates plays oud (it's almost exactly like a lute but unfretted and a much older instrument) he also plays sitar, sarod, guitar and bass. Another plays baglama (saz) and bouzouki and the other plays qanoon (a large multi stringed flat zither-like or hammered dulcimer-like instrument that is played with finger picks) The sounds are beautiful. These are the classical instruments of their culture.
 
Gibson RB4 5 string banjo with a custom mic/pickup arrangement i rigged, a mando with a pickup, a Deering Crossfire electric banjo with a synth driver on it (digi signal goes thru a Roland JV synth, analog signal goes thru a 2120 tube preamp), Fender P-Bass, and even though it is in fact a guitar, not some other stringed thing, it kinda is another stringed thing, is my Paradis Avalon; a solidbody nylon string polyphonic electric made out of pear tree and ebony. homerec1.webp
 
I'd not paid much attention to Ukes..always associated them with the college dudes from the 20's weary those huge raccoon coats..:eek:

Adam Sandler got me interested in their sound through his zany performances on SNL.:spank:

I've grown fond of their sound now...depending on the song and placement of the Uke..I can say Uke can't I?:D


By the way Brumus...nice and unusual guitar. I love the look of the seperated(individualized) bridge?saddle?

I see no knobs or switches however...or PUs...are the PU cleverly digused within the bridge/saddle?...tell me more.
 
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Regrets......

guitarplayr82 said:
I played cello last year for school. It is quite fun to fiddle around with. I tried recording it one time, but I didn't exactly have the proper mic for the job. It still came out alright, though. I added a bunch of reverb and it really brought one of my tracks to life.
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I took up the cello at school, when I was 12. But for entirely the wrong reasons. Cello clashed with French so I figured if I did cello, I wouldn't have to do French homework over the weekend. But my French teacher, the delectable but fiery tempered Mrs McNicholls {she was Miss Hughes in my first year} soon disabused me of such notions. And thus, I lost interest. But I was too scared to pull out so I spent a year 'learning' it {ie, carrying it miles home and setting it down !}and getting nowhere and having bus conductors making gags about carrying IRA bombs and all that. Each friday was a nightmare as it became more and more obvious that I hadn't been practicing. Whereas this girl called Lalleen or something like that, who was learning with me, made superb progress and the fact that she was a year younger compounded my shame. I wanted to break the cello across her back every time I heard her play. She was marvelous.
Still, I can read the road signs when I'm in France, Belgium and Switzerland !

moresound said:
Bouzouki !!!! A Greek friend turned me on to one, very cool!!!
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I don't regret much in life. The episode with the cello wasn't one that left me full of regret because 20 years later I bought one and did quite a bit of recording with it. Even though I couldn't really play it. I just love that sound.
But the bouzouki, ah well, that's another story. When I got into Irish/celtic folk back in the early 90s, I noticed the bouzouki turned up on loads of albums that I'd get. I later realized that it was like a big sized mandolin. Anyway, when my wife and I were in Crete, I saw a bouzouki in a shop there and I had just enough money to buy it. But the shop was closed that day and so we proposed to go back the next day and buy it. But it was on the other side of the island and we wanted to explore the one side we'd not seen. It was our last day and I figured we could fit it all in and get back to that other shop and get the bouzouki. But the buses took so long to get us where we wanted to go that half way back on the way to getting the bouzouki I realized we'd never make it. And we were flying back home that night. I actually read the whole of Dee~Dee Ramone's autobiography on those busrides !
 
grimtraveller said:
But the bouzouki, ah well, that's another story. When I got into Irish/celtic folk back in the early 90s, I noticed the bouzouki turned up on loads of albums that I'd get. I later realized that it was like a big sized mandolin.
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The bouzouki that is played in Irish/ Celtic music is actually a very different instrument than a Greek bouzouki. The Irish bouzouki is actually a form of "mandocello" rather than a form of baglama (saz). The tuning is different between the two and the very traditional Greek bouzouki is a six stringed (3 courses of two) or a five string (2 courses of two and one single) it is tuned D A D. The Irish bouzouki is an 8 stringed instrument tuned G D A E and very often with a flat back as opposed to a bowl back. The Greek bouzouki has a much longer neck and fingerboard.
My band mate is a bouzouki player and I spent a couple of years playing in a Greek wedding band.
 
I was in a band called "The Malakas". Three out of the five of us were of Greek heritage and when they told me what it meant I said what the heck.









:cool:
 
Rimshot said:
The bouzouki that is played in Irish/ Celtic music is actually a very different instrument than a Greek bouzouki. The Irish bouzouki is actually a form of "mandocello" rather than a form of baglama (saz).
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A Turkish fiend of mine {known as 'the Turk with eyebrows'} bought me a saz once. I thought it was called a suz. I wish I'd tried to get to grips with it.
Rimshot said:
The Irish bouzouki is an 8 stringed instrument tuned G D A E and very often with a flat back as opposed to a bowl back. The Greek bouzouki has a much longer neck and fingerboard.
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That makes sense, that's also mandolin tuning.
Rimshot said:
I spent a couple of years playing in a Greek wedding band.
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That must've been some wedding !
 
grimtraveller said:
That must've been some wedding !
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If you've never worked a Greek wedding than you just don't know. :)
I made more playing at Greek weddings than anywhere else. The flat pay was average, but the tips were unbelievable (the worst I ever did was $700 in tips at a wedding). The weddings are really fun.......... everybody dances and everybody is a comedian and has a good time.
I was replacing their regular debakki (toumbeleke) player while he was on tour with another group, and then he took a hiatus................. and then he came back (DAMN!)
 
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