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Bouzouki
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The bouzouki(gr. t? µp???????; pl. ta µp???????a) (plural sometimes transliterated as bouzoukia) is the mainstay of modern Greek music. It is a stringed instrument with a pear-shaped body and a very long neck. The bouzouki is a member of the 'long neck lute' family and is similar to a mandolin. The front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound.
Many musicians such as Manolis Chiotis and Giorgos Zampetas began using specially designed pickups to achieve a slightly thicker humbucker-like sound in the mid-1960s.
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The bouzouki(gr. t? µp???????; pl. ta µp???????a) (plural sometimes transliterated as bouzoukia) is the mainstay of modern Greek music. It is a stringed instrument with a pear-shaped body and a very long neck. The bouzouki is a member of the 'long neck lute' family and is similar to a mandolin. The front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound.
Many musicians such as Manolis Chiotis and Giorgos Zampetas began using specially designed pickups to achieve a slightly thicker humbucker-like sound in the mid-1960s. These pickups are widely used by several Greek artists today and came in active and (usually) passive versions. Bouzouki pickup manufacturers include EMG, Lace Actodyne and Seymour Duncan.
There are two main types of bouzouki:
- Three-course, having three pairs of strings (courses).
- Four-course, having four pairs of strings.
History
In Greece, this instrument was known as the pandura or pandourion, also called the "trichordo" because it had three strings; it was the first fretted instrument known, forerunner of the various families of lutes worldwide. The source of our knowledge about this instrument is the Mantineia marble (4th century BC, now exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens), depicting the mythical contest between Apollo and Marsyas, where a pandouris is being played by a muse seated on a rock.
From Byzantine times it was called the tambouras. The modern Turkish Tanbur is practically identical to the ancient Greek pandouris. On display in the National Historical Museum of Greece is the tambouras of a hero of the Greek revolution of 1821, General Makriyiannis. This tambouras bears the main morphological characteristics of the bouzouki used by the Rebetes.
The Turkish Saz belongs to the same family of instruments as the bouzouki. A middle-sized kind of saz is called a "bozouk saz". Bozuk in Turkish means "broken, not functioning, modified". Here it is used in order to specify the size of the instrument. It is concluded, therefore, that the bouzouki has been named after the jargon of the Turkish saz. An alternative popular etymology maintains that the word "Bozouk" was used because different tunings (the Turkish 'düzen') are required for the instrument to play in different musical scales (known as Dromoi in Greek, Maqam (pl. Maqamat) in Arabic). A tuning known as the "bozuk düzen" (broken tuning) still exists in Greek folk music.
The early bouzoukia were mostly Three-string (Trichordo), with three courses (six strings in three pairs) and were tuned in different ways, as to the scale one wanted to play.
After the late '50s, four-course (Tetrachordo) bouzoukia started to appear. The four-course bouzouki was made popular by Manolis Chiotis. Chiotis also used a tuning akin to standard guitar tuning, which made it easier for guitarists to play bouzouki, even as it angered purists.
The Irish bouzouki, with four courses, a flatter back, and differently tuned from the Greek bouzouki, is a more recent development, dating back to the 1960s.
The three-course bouzouki (trichordo)
This is the classical type of bouzouki, that was the mainstay of most Rebetiko music. It has fixed frets and it has 6 strings in three pairs. In the lower-pitched (bass) course, the pair consists of a thick wound string and a thin string tuned an octave apart. The conventional modern tuning of the trichordo bouzouki is Dd-aa-dd. This tuning was called the European tuning by Markos Vamvakaris, who described several other tunings, or douzenia, in his autobiography. The illustrated bouzouki was made by Karolos Tsakirian of Athens, and is a replica of a trichordo bouzouki made by his grandfather for Markos Vamvakaris. The absence of the heavy mother of pearl ornamentation often seen on modern bouzoukis is typical of bouzoukis of the period. It has tuners for eight strings, but has only six strings, the neck being too narrow for eight. The luthiers of the time often used sets of four tuners on trichordo instruments, as these were more easily available, since they were used on mandolins.
The four-course bouzouki (tetrachordo)
This type of bouzouki has 8 metal strings which are arranged in 4 pairs, known as courses, typically tuned Cc Ff aa dd (i.e. one full note below the four high strings of a guitar). It was established in the scene by a major Rebetis, Manolis Chiotis, during the 1960s. 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. 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 Baglama
The little Greek Baglama, (named after the Turkish Baglama) is a version of the bouzouki 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 baglama is most often found supporting the bouzouki in the Pireas style of Rembetika.
The body is often hollowed out from a piece of wood (skaftos construction) or else made from a gourd but there are also baglamas with staved backs. Its small size made it particularly popular with musicians who needed an instrument transportable enough to carry around easily or small enough to shelter under a coat. During parts of the 20th Century, players of the bouzouki and baglama were persecuted by the government, and the instruments were smashed by the police.
Uses in popular culture
In the Cheese Shop sketch by Monty Python, one of the men in the shop is playing the bouzouki.
Brian Henneman plays the bouzouki on the Uncle Tupelo album March 16-20, 1992.
Alex Lifeson of the Canadian rock band Rush plays the bouzouki during the solo passage on "Workin' Them Angels," the third track from the band's 2007 album Snakes & Arrows. His use of the instrument in a live version of the same song can be heard on 2008's Snakes & Arrows Live, as well as seen on the DVD/Blu-ray release of the same title. In the live concert footage, Lifeson transitions during the performance between his electric guitar and a bouzouki positioned on a customized stand that he invented himself, referred to as "The Omega Concern."
Aaron Jones of the Scottish Celtic band the Old Blind Dogs plays a bouzouki.
Nick Urata Of DeVotchKa is noted for using a bouzouki for many of the band's songs, both for studio and live performances.
Colin Meloy and Chris Funk of The Decemberists made use of a bouzouki in songs off their album The Crane Wife.
The Greek bouzouki can also be heard throughout the contemporary acoustic music of Fernwood.
Notable players of the Greek bouzouki
See also
Further reading
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External links
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