Bouzouki Chords

Online help for players of the Irish bouzouki

by Terry Bell

Q: I heard a bouzouki player playing like a fiddle, you know, the melody. Bouzoukis have chords?
A: Yes.

Q: A bouzouki is like a mandolin. Are bouzouki chords the same as mandolin chords?
A: Yes. Plus there are many other chords that sound good on a bouzouki that you may never use on a mandolin.

Q: I'm confused about the names 'Bouzouki, Mandolin, Cittern, Octave Mandolin' and instruments in this "Family." What exactly is a bouzouki?
A: Generally speaking, a pear shaped instrument with four sets of two strings. They're popular today, especially in Celtic music.

You may find this page helpful if you're new
to the bouzouki. The chords here are for the
tuning of GDAE. Personally, I prefer this tuning
because I also play the fiddle and I can play
my fiddle tunes on my bouzouki with no new left
hand movements to memorize. Learning chords
was not difficult at all. The only real problem I
ran into with chords was, at times, the bouzouki
sound seemed to be losing its "ancient" flavor
when some chords became too involved and
complicated. Of course there are many ways to
play and many tunings to use, thus, many chord
forms. These are some of my common favorites.
I will not go into any definitions beyond
"Major,minor, & modal," I try to keep a 'bouzouki' sound,
resisting the temptation to play and sound like a guitar. Usually I play modal chords,
opting for a major or minor only when I
feel it helps the music sound better.
Concentrating on the "modal" chords makes the
sound more "ancient," or "mysterious" in my
opinion, and also lets the singer or lead
instrument player define the "key" by
his / her use of melody notes (tonal ambiguity). In other
words, I think this is a good method if
you are playing celtic music.

USING THE CHORD CHART

In the chord chart below, the four numbers
represent the string pairs GDAE, respectively.
In other words, the chord, "2002" would be played by fretting the:
2nd fret on the G string, leaving the D and A
strings open, and fretting the E string on the
2nd fret with another finger. This is a picture
of the D major chord, and it's four
numbers are 2002.

CHORDS

A

modal
2200

minor
2230

major
2234

B

modal
4422

major
4422

minor
4422

C

modal
5533

minor
0133

major
0230

D

modal
7005

minor
2001

major
2002

E

modal
0220

minor
0223

major
1220

F

modal
x331

minor
5334

major
5335

G

modal
0053

minor
0013

major
0023

A nifty trick is found by using the
"A modal" chord of "2200" and moving
it up the neck. Example:

2200
4400
5500
7700

Also, a higher form of "A modal" moved downwards:

9700
7500
5300

These work great in the key of A, of course.
Use a capo and experiment with other keys.

A great bagpipe sound can be made on the bouzouki.
Many tunes of this type only use two chords,
but are in the key of "A." Put a capo on the
second fret and play:

0553
0331

THE CAPO TRICK

This 'trick' is a way to get more variations of sound without retuning. This GDAE tuning is popular. So is GDAD. There are zillions of tunes in the key of A and E, whether they be modal, minor, or major. This trick seems to bring out the GDAD sound in a GDAE tuning. It's great.

Hopefully you have a quick clamp type capo, spring loaded. Place it behind the second fret ON THREE STRINGS ONLY. Do not capo the E string(s).

Try these chords in 'E' -

7000

5500

3300

Here are some chords in 'A' -

0550

0330

0320

Try some pretty sounds in A major -

0020

0230

0450

Here are some backing chords to 'Captain Campbell' in A I'm playing the bouzouki tuned GDAE and Danny's banjo is tuned the same way.

That's all for now.
I hope you learned something here you can use.

Check out my site featuring beautiful 19th century minstrel banjo replicas.
Historically accurate, easy to play, affordable, just plain cool.
Google 'Bell and Son Banjos'

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