Bouzouki
The bouzouki (/buːˈzuːki, bʊˈ-/,[1][2] also US: /bəˈ-/;[3] Greek: μπουζούκι [buˈzuki]; alt. pl. bouzoukia, from Greek μπουζούκια) is a musical instrument popular in Greece. It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat top and a long neck with a fretted fingerboard. It has steel strings and is played with a plectrum producing a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but pitched lower. It is the precursor to the Irish bouzouki, an instrument derived from the Greek bouzouki that is popular in Celtic, English, and North American folk music. There are two main types of Greek bouzouki: the trichordo (three-course) has three pairs of strings (known as courses) and the tetrachordo (four-course) has four pairs of strings. The instrument was brought to Greece in the early 1900s by Greek refugees from Anatolia, and quickly became the central instrument to the rebetiko genre and its music branches.[4] It is now an important element of modern Laïko pop Greek music.
Other names
Buzuki, trichordo, tetrachordo
321.321
(string instrument with a pear-shaped body and a long neck, played with plectrum)
Etymology[edit]
The name bouzouki comes from the Turkish word bozuk, meaning "broken" or "modified",[5] and comes from a particular re-entrant tuning called bozuk düzen, which was commonly used on its Turkish counterpart, the saz-bozuk. It is in the same instrumental family as the mandolin and the lute. Originally the body was carved from a solid block of wood, similar to the saz, but upon its arrival in Greece in the early 1910s it was modified by the addition of a staved back borrowed from the Neapolitan mandola, and the top angled in the manner of a Neapolitan mandolins so as to increase the strength of the body to withstand thicker steel strings. The type of the instrument used in rebetiko music was a three-course instrument with three pairs of strings, but in the 1950s a four-course variety was developed and was made popular by Manolis Chiotis.[6]
Four-course bouzouki (tetrachordo)[edit]
This type of bouzouki has 8 metal strings, which are arranged in 4 pairs, known as courses, typically tuned C3C4–F3F4–A3A3–D4D4 (i.e., one whole step below the four high strings of a guitar). In the two higher-pitched (treble) courses, the two strings of the pair are tuned to the same note. In the two lower-pitched (bass) courses, the pair consists of a thick wound string and a thin string tuned an octave apart. On the bouzouki the lower-pitched string comes first in these courses, the reverse of most other instruments with octave-paired courses (such as the 12-string guitar, charango or bajo sexto). These 'octave strings' add to the fullness of the sound and are used in chords and bass drones (continuous low notes that are played throughout the music). The guitar-like tuning was introduced by composer and soloist Manolis Hiotis, who found it better suited to the kind of virtuoso playing he was famous for. Today, the tetrachordo is the most common bouzouki used in Greek music, though a few traditionalists still prefer the trichordo, particularly for the older rebetiko style of playing.[14]
Amplification[edit]
In addition to developing the modern tetrachordo bouzouki, Manolis Hiotis was a pioneer of the use of amplification for the instrument, which he may have been using as early as 1945.[16] However, the earliest documented use of amplification for the bouzouki comes from a 1952 photograph, showing Vasilis Tsitsanis and Yiannis Papaioannou playing bouzoukis, each with an electric guitar-style pick-up attached in the soundhole. There are also numerous photographs between 1953 and 1959 showing bands in which both vocalists and bouzouki players are using microphones for amplification.[17] By 1960 special bouzouki pickups (such as the German "Ideal") were being produced and permanently mounted in the instruments.[17][18][19] Similar pickups are widely used by several Greek artists today and come in active and passive versions.
The Greek baglamas (Greek: μπαγλαμάς) or baglamadaki (Greek: μπαγλαμαδάκι) is very different from the Turkish bağlama. It is tuned the same as the trichordo bouzouki but pitched an octave higher (nominally D–A–D), with unison pairs on the four highest strings and an octave pair on the lower D. Musically, the baglamas is most often found supporting the bouzouki in the Piraeus style of rebetiko.