Dobrudja Danetz (Dance from Dobrudja)

Switching gears for this month, we have a nice Bulgarian tune from the Black Sea region. "Dobrudja Danetz" (Dance from Dobrudja) comes from the region in northeastern Bulgaria that borders the Black Sea. I learned this tune from Stanley Greenthal, a wonderful Celtic and Balkan bouzouki and guitar player who lives in Seattle. I had the pleasure of recording this with him on his recent CD "Melodie." Check out Stanley's website: http://www.stanleygreenthal.com/recordings.html

For "Dobrudja Danetz" we'll stick with the same altered tuning (or scordatura) that we used for "Lamento di Tristano" and "English Dance" in my April and June columns: First, drop both of your E strings down one whole step to D an octave above your D strings. Then, tune ONE of your G strings down to a D an octave below the D string, then tune the other G string up to A one octave below your A string. This gives you DADAD and it will make your mando sound HUGE. I like this tuning for a lot of drone-based tunes. It's not very flexible for chords but we are not especially concerned with chords for this kind of tune. We'll use the two lowest pairs of strings for open drone notes, letting them ring out under the melody notes we are picking on the two highest pairs. In addition to the open string drones, I have written one fretted chord on the 2nd fret.

Note: Since the two strings in your lowest course are now tuned to different notes, I've used what looks like 5 course tablature in order to notate both notes in that lowest pair. You can ignore that and play both strings in the pair at once as usual.

If you are wondering why I've written the tune out in two keys it's because that is the way Stanley arranged it for his recording and while tracking the tune I realized I liked the open D drone in both keys (even though we didn't record it that way). Give it a try in both keys and see what you think.

For a picking pattern I suggest straight reciprocal down and up strokes. This will help you maintain a nice rhythm, clipping along through the tune with down strokes on the accented notes and using upstrokes only for the second, unaccented 1/16th note in each group of two.

As before, try and keep the drone ringing below the melody notes without overpowering them. This time I've written a lot more potential chords than in the previous two pieces. Keep in mind that you don't have to play them all-pick and choose as you wish. Try to keep the melody out in front of the drone and as legato as possible.

I like a brisk tempo for "Dobrudja Danetz"-around 160 - 200 bpm.

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