"When not playing solo, her group Kalafka features Ron Keller (percussion) and Tom Jenkins (bass).
Influences
"Rush, Donal Lunny, prog rock, world music of all sorts (recent faves include Balkan music, Scandinavian fiddling, and Tuvan throat singing).
Sounds Like
"A musical misfit who crawled out of a Louisiana swamp, embarked on a journey paved by progressive rock, headed for Ireland, and took a wrong turn at Damascus.
"Patterson displays true fierceness in her singing and continues her mastery of dozens of instruments, most notably the Irish bouzouki."
-Dirty Linen Magazine
Known for her razor wit and musical versatility, her performances are chock-full of drive, savage energy, and passion, laced with humor and rapport with her listeners, dishing out an eclectic repertoire of original and traditional songs. Whether solo or with her trio Kalafka, she integrates her progressive sound with Irish music and other ethnic styles, resulting in her own sound she deems
SWAP (Songwriter/World/Acoustic/Progressive).
Described by viewers as a cross between a cobra and a puppy, multi-instrumentalist Beth Patterson is foremost a player of the eight- and ten-stringed Irish bouzoukis (adaptations of a traditional Greek instrument).
Beth has appeared on over seventy recordings, including her three solo albums, Hybrid Vigor, Take Some Fire, and Caught in the Act, and the soundtracks to The One - Eyed King (featuring William Baldwin and Armand Assante) and the independent motion picture Lucindas Spell. A prolific songwriter, over two dozen of her compositions have appeared on recordings by various artists.
the bouzouki has such a facinating sound,its much more rich in person,im still getting used to the extra length and finger spaceing since i usually play mandolin and fiddle,but things are comeing allong really quickly on the transition,even with the thin tailpeice i am getting alot of volume out of the trinity college,i still have the factory octivated strings on it for now but i do have the irish unison set here, i figured though since i wanted the heavy cast bronze tailpeice that ill just play these out untill i can send off for the hundred dollar tailpeice,i decided on one called orrico which had a celtic design look to it and allowed the easy string change,as good as this sounds now i think anything better would be stellar,it really is a super quality instrument,o i put up a crude video up of me playing yeasterday just to see how the mic took the audio,it wasnt bad at all,thanks again for your help,o btw i found out the capo thing,the banjo mandolin one is the one for bouzouki but they just dont put it on the package that way,i saw the one i got on a jam members banjo last week and the measurements came out right,best wishes to you on your continued success,i hope to catch u on the tv again soon, any plans for another abita opry ?
Hey girl!! I spoke to Angie the other day. When I heard that laugh of hers I almost cried cause I realized how much I have missed it! Hope youre doing well. <3
the trinity college finnally came in, every thing was awesome on it except one thing,the tailpeice on it was so thin that it cant possably carry the string transfer so when u said to me that trinity college bouzoukis werent loud thats probably why as mine showed up with top tuners and bone nut bridge and bridge,anyhow by doing some research i found that if i bought a heavy cast tailpeice like the montelone that things should be perfect,i also recently did some work on the mandolin i have which brought it up in tone and sound,the tailpeice on that one is thin as well and could stand to be replaced also, i guess im a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to fixing things up right,lol,those tailpeices are about a hundred bucks so ill be patiently out of commision untill than as i want to do the complete inital trussrod settup with the new equipment, i had to order the strap buttons,just all minor things i want done before getting started,i have a dvd comeing to me now by zan mccleod to get things started right on the first day so i dont goof up to bad, o btw what kind of capo do you use as im sure that ill be needing one ,thanks again for your help,ive learned alot !
my trinity college finnaly came of backorder i just received the email,i wanted to ask you i see that you use a capo and im shure ill need one as well,ive looked all over and all i see are ones for banjo or guitar ,so are u useing a 6 string capo ? anyhow i should have it in a week to start the transition from mandolin to bouzouki,hopefully it will be fairly quick with alot of practice as i need it into use asap ,i really got my feelings hurt last week at the jam battling a room of guitars with my poor f5 mandolin, i tried to play the blarney pilgrim and armagh polka thing galic storm did on the titanic movie,i was holding the pick tight to bear into the strings enough to be heard and about half way through i lost muscle controll in my fingers and couldnt get full controll of my ability to hold the pick but i kept going working around it the best i could , once again i thank you for your help,lol, i think now there are two irish bouzoukis in the u.s. truely the only ppl i see with them are like in ireland,like the bothy band being one of them, it is gaining in poularity though as they must be in huge demand as to be so expensive and still have to be on a waiting list also, with any luck ill be able to play half as good as you soon enough,my biggest hanicap though is that i hate my singing voice ,even though i took chorus in h.s. years ago ,that i havent tried in public or even at home anytime lately, anyhow best wishes to you !
Your music is being featured on the current episode of the Cleveland Celtic Podcast, the Dublin Irish Festival Special! Check it out and I'll see you in Dublin OH!
my trinity college is still on backorder and the anticipation to play it just grows by the munite,ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh,anyhow just stopping in to say hi as i saw that you were online,best wishes !
