h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A1098263

Based on some information provided by Recumbentman, who knows many of the musicians in Ireland, I'd like to make some changes to this entry. Instead of giving you individual words or sentences, I've just changed the whole paragraph. Can you please replace the parragraph in the "Bouzoukis in Irish Music" section with the following two paragraphs:

Some time in the 1960s, an Irish musician called Johnny Moynihan brought his first bouzouki, a four-course model, home from Greece and used it in the band Sweeney's Men. He thought 'its plangent quality suited Irish music'. His fellow band members were initially not impressed: it kept going out of tune and didn't fit in. He persevered and it became clear that bouzoukis suited Irish music much better than the acoustic guitar. Moynihan soon abandoned the Greek tuning and switched to G2D3A3D4 which ironically is closer to the original Greek instrument than modern Greek ones are.

Soon, musicians Andy Irvine and Dónal Lunny started to use them too, popularising them in such trad groups as Planxty, The Bothy Band and Moving Hearts. They made a few changes, though, to make them fit in better. Irish music relies less on virtuoso melodies played on double courses, and more on the bass courses, so they got rid of the octave strings which only confuse things and replaced them with pairs tuned to the same note. They used much heavier strings at higher tension for extra volume. To cope with the extra tension, they commissioned sturdier flat-backed instruments with metal reinforcement in the neck. The bouzouki is now an important part of the Irish trad scene.

G

Thanks Gnomon, I've made that change for you

GB