Andy Irvine. playing the now famous, Stefan Sobell guitar shaped bouzouki with his band Patrick Street in La Tentation, Brussels, Belgium, 24/10/00. Photo used with kind permission of J.Perroy.
Quite possibly one of the most exciting developments in the long journey of the bouzouki, has been the recent addition of the Guitar Shaped Bouzouki. At first glance you could mistake it for a guitar, but you will quickly notice eight strings on the head. This new addition has also been called a Bizar, and Gazouki, among other things. Both pretty ugly names, so let’s stick with Guitar Shaped Bouzouki for this.
Andy Irvine’s main instrument these days is a Stefan Sobell Guitar
Shaped Bouzouki.
It was commissioned by Andy who wanted to play bouzouki tunings and fingerings
while getting a deeper and mellower sound than he could get from a smaller
bodied standard bouzouki. The results are a very powerful and extremely versatile
instrument. Andy tunes his Bouzouki GDad and uses a capo a lot in his playing
style.
Before Andy’s commission, there was no such instrument but since then this instrument has become extremely popular. More so for song accompaniment than for playing melody, but either would be possible on this instrument.
It has long been recognised that the continual changing, improving and in some cases reinventing has had a lot of input from Andy Irvine. Not only the Guitar Shaped Bouzouki, but the modern Irish Bouzouki it’s self, including the Octave mandolin, and the Bass-bouzouki. Infact, even the modern tuning of the bouzouki has changed a lot from the traditional Greek instrument. Andy has used GDad exclusively, and has pioneered its playing style to what many players use today.
Stefan's current model is a development of that first guitar shaped bouzouki that Andy commissioned in the late eighties and was designed in consultation with Andy Irvine. As was the original Octave mandolin I believe, where Stefan modelled it on a Portuguese mandola that Andy showed Stefan.
This current model of Stefan’s Guitar shaped Bouzouki gives easier access high up the fingerboard, and has a balance between bass and treble that suits the bouzouki tuning well, both acoustically and through the pickup. It has a longer neck (16 frets to the body instead of the standard guitar's 14) and a slightly shorter bodyIt is on this instrument that Stefan based his model 3 (16 fret to the body) flat-top and arch-top 6 string guitars.
Andy did also play a ‘Fylde’ Guitar Shaped Bouzouki at one point. Infact, I think they named their version of the instrument a ‘Gazouki’.It had a cedar top and maghogany back and sides and built on a Goodfellow guitar body. This instrument had the standard, 14 frets to the body and not 16 as with the Sobell. It was strung with Octave strings and had a particularly good sound when playing tunes like ‘Banaesa’s Green Glade’.
Andy Playing his Fylde Gazouki in 1992.
Andy plays a Sobell guitar-bouzouki, bouzouki, long-scale mandolin, and mandola.
"In the 1970s, many musicians were looking for new instruments to take traditional music in new directions. Stefan was one of the first to come up with a distinctive and useable instrument when he built his first cittern in 1973. I've owned and played several of his instruments over the years, and in the mid 1980s he and I developed the guitar-bouzouki that has been my main concert instrument ever since.
Stefan's instruments have always been built with a rare dedication and love
and are now better than ever. His worldwide reputation is more than justified."
Andy Irvine.
Next time you see Andy playing on stage you'll know a little more about what
that guitar-thing is that he is playing all that wonderful music on !
Enjoy
Kieron
