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

I spent two weeks in September on holidays in Greece. Mrs G and I like the country so much that we go there regularly for our holidays. Mrs G decided a few years ago to learn the language, and this is difficult in Ireland because there aren't enough people interested in learning Greek to make up a class. She's tried one-to-one tuition a few times but it is not very satisfactory. So in September we headed off to the island of Syros in Greece, Mrs G with the intention of attending a 10-day intensive Greek course and me with the intention of tagging along and not doing an awful lot.

In case I got bored, the organiser of the Greek course suggested that I could learn the bouzouki. She knew a good bouzouki player, Petros, who lives close to the language school. He'd be happy to teach me. So while Mrs G went off to study her tenses and noun endings, I walked down to the local taverna, where Petros would present me a nice cup of coffee and then we'd play bouzouki together.

The bouzouki is a musical instrument like a big mandolin with a very long neck. It is the mainstay of traditional Greek music. It's used for playing tunes, and also for playing short, elaborate phrases during parts of songs where the singer isn't singing. It has a sharp, twangy sound, more penetrating than a steel-string guitar, but not as obtrusive as a banjo.

In all I had five one-hour lessons, and I learned the basics of how to hold the instrument, the basic scales and how to play a few chords. I can already play guitar and mandolin, so it wasn't difficult for me to press down the strings and to move my hands around. But good bouzouki playing, like good playing on any instrument, requires a lot of practice - typical playing is very fast.

Of course I could only play during the lessons, since I didn't have a bouzouki of my own to practise on. The rest of the time I spent swimming, sitting by the sea, drinking coffee, going out for nice meals, and travelling on the bus to Ermoupoli which is a lovely old 19th-Century city with picturesque squares, a harbour and fancy churches on two hills (one Greek Orthodox, the other Roman Catholic).

When I got home to Ireland, I studied the internet for a bit and then ordered a bouzouki from Greece. It arrived this morning, and it is an absolute beauty. I'm looking forward to playing it.

Thank you for sharing this lovely experience. Really cheered a rainy day.

Nice buzz.