I play the Ousak mode in D in three octaves. This Hellenized name stems from the classical Ottoman music system (itself merged from Byzantine, Persian and Arabic music), as most modern Greek modes do. The Turks know it as Uşşak, though played microtonally. The Arabs know variations of it as Ushaq or Bayati, but played quartertonally. In Western music theory, the closest equivalent might be the Aeolian mode. I follow it with four D minor chord voicings.
The trichordo has to be played up and down the neck with it’s modal/open tuning. The tetrachordo is played similarly to a guitar or mandolin, in that economy of movement is kept in mind at all times and the player is expected to jump to the string above or below to reach a note, rather than up or down the same string. More about it’s guitar inspired tuning later.
The trichordo is the original bouzouki. Tri means “three” and chordo “string”. A more adequate name, however, would be “three course”, seeing how today’s bouzoukia have three double courses, so six strings. For this reason, the trichordo is at times also called exachordo, with exa meaning “six”. The instrument is used in rembetiko and old laïka music, as well as some Anatolian Greek folk. It’s smaller brothers are the tzouras (smaller body, same tuning) and the baglamas (a tiny treble bouzouki tuned one octave up).
The tetrachordo is the younger interpretation of the bouzouki and today’s most commonly built and played variant. Tetra meaning “four”. Rinse and repeat, it is at times called oktachordo, okta meaning “eight”. It’s used in virtually all popular music today.
The bouzouki in it’s current form is very young, despite it’s origins going back to the Byzantine tambouras (tambur, thambourin, fandouris) and the ancient Greek pandouras (pandouris, pandourion, pandourida). It’s modern conventions have only been agreed upon in the 1960s, after the construction inched closer to the mandolin out of necessity. When Greek refugees fled from Anatolia to Greece in the 1920s, it was common to take old Neapolitan bowlback mandolins/mandolas and replace their neck with a longer one. Hence the ribs and plate in the bowl. This is why old six string bouzoukis have eight tuning pegs and space for eight strings in the tailpiece, as mando parts were used.
It is an unfortunate claim how the four course bouzouki supposedly was invented in the late 1940s or early 50s by a singular musician. It is true that it was, in it’s current form, and only that, pioneered by an insanely skilled player named Manolis Hiotis. He took the bouzouki from the slums of Greece and hash dens of Anatolia into the night clubs and concert halls of Europe and Northern America. Not without a lot of protest, though! The man made a lot of cash playing pop for the upper classes in his tailored suit, while bouzouki players (read: the working class) were still being brutalized and jailed.
However, two/four/five course bouzoukis had always existed, right next to the most commonly played the three course. These days, the bouzouki consists of an octave pair for the bass(es) and unison pairs for the trebles. Modern standard tunings are Dd aa dd for the trichordo and Cc Ff aa dd for the tetrachordo. Four course instruments of the early 20th century added a low G or A for the bass to the Dad tuning. Other commonly used ones were Agd, A# gd, Bgd, Bbd, Ggd, Gbd, Cgd and Dgd. Re-entrant tunings (aGd, for example), single, double, triple and quadruple courses and multiple bass strings were also common until the 60s; the courses were not always strung 2-2-2. Dd a ddd and D Aa d were some of the other stringings that I have seen in old instruments.
So, what did Hiotis change? He boasted about having added a course, unaware of the history of the tambouras and bouzouki. He didn’t even come up with the CFad tuning. That is just one whole tone down from the treble strings of the guitar (EADGbe). The Bulgarians had also been playing this same DGbe tuning on their tambura! Hiotis’ goal was to get the playing style closer to that of a guitar, with economy of movement in mind. Jumping across the strings, rather than up and down the neck. He added guitar pickups and amplifiers, drastly altering the sound. In the meantime, bouzoukis became pieces of art, with flashy inlays and exotic tonewoods. How that negatively effects the instrument’s sound and our environment still seems to be of no issue to most players. As such, the prices became very inflated and who builds a more flamboyant instrument more important than who achieves a great sound and offers a fair price.
Sadly, it has become the norm for musicians in Greece to not know where the bouzouki came from and what kind of people played it. Western culture deeming and damning it “the Greek guitar” or “an instrument of the mandolin family” has not helped this. As the bouzouki is THE instrument of the dissidents, the oppressed and the persecuted, I find this not only disrespectful, but shameful.
#tambouras
