No, I don't play a Bela (unless you were talking about another Melissa, which
is quite possible, since there are a lot of us.) My tekero was made by Balazs
Nagy:
http://www.musicart.hu/balazs/index_en.htm
I am very happy with my tekero, as it sounds beautiful, and is very reliable.
I highly recommend Balazs. He also wrote the book on tekero, translated into
English by Arle on this list.
I also have to disagree when you say that the tekero can play only Hungarian
music. I play New England contra music on it in my contra dance band, and
Turkish music in my belly dance band (sometimes tuning tangents to
quarter-tones) and of course Hungarian music in my international folkdance
band, so I have to say that it is quite adaptable. I can also play French music
on it, although it's true that it doesn't really have that French sound.
With my current strings, I can tune to either G (with G drones and D
chanters) or A (with A drones and E chanters.) It sounds great in either of
these tunings. I can also turn my drones off to play in D or E, but it doesn't
sound as cool without drones of course. I could also tune my drones to A and my
chanters to D to play in D, but I haven't been doing this much. I actually
change tuning very rarely, only when my bands really demand it, since changing
tuning all the time makes me go out of tune. If I stick to one tuning, my
tekero stays in tune very well.
Melissa
www.melissatheloud.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Rob,
I'll be the first to say this because it will get asked anyway.
What kind of music do you want to play, where do you want to play, are you
planning on playing with a group?
Yes you can capo a drone. Are you looking for an additional drone string
for the instrument?
Bela is a well known and good maker. I think Melissa has one. I know of a
few others that have them and they are happy with them but make sure that you
get the instrument that you will play. The Tekero is very specific as far as
playing with others and some times does not lend itself (in it's regular
tuning) to playing with others that are playing Irish, English, French, etc.
music. There was just a discussion about retuning and the types of pressure and
strings required so that you can play with others playing in D/G or C/G.
Food for thought. Although I don't own or play a Tek I am aware of a few
of the difficulties relating to the instrument. The first questions are the
most important to know in advance.
Scott
---------------------------------
8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time
with theYahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut.
