The neck must be of very dry hardwood in order not to warp and increase the distance of the strings from the fret board (the action height) which makes playing the instrument more laborious. The best varnish is a natural one made of shellac, which is applied by hand in many layers in the traditional way, for both acoustic and visual effects. Another factor that affects the quality of the sound is the varnish and the method of its application. The top plays a major role in the sound because it resonates and strengthens and prolongs the vibration of the strings.

The top or soundboard should be cedar or spruce (preferably spruce) if possible, cut in one piece. The wood must be solid and sourced from slow-growth trees. For the construction of the bowl, mulberry, apricot, cherry, acacia, and elm are considered to be the best woods, with walnut, plane, and chestnut being slightly inferior. On modern instruments the frets are metal, and set into a fixed position in the fingerboard (in contrast to early instruments and the related baglama, in which frets were of gut or cord tied onto the neck, and moveable.) The quality of the wood from which the instrument is made is of great importance to the sound. While neck length can vary from instrument to instrument, most bouzoukis have the same number of frets (27), spaced such as to provide a chromatic scale in 12-tone equal temperament. The size and type of the resonating body largely determine the instrument's timbre, while the length of the neck, and by extension the strings, determines the instrument's pitch range, as well as influencing the timbre. These differences are determined by the manufacturer, who in his experience and according to the sound that the instrument should make, modifies his functional elements to achieve a more piercing, deeper or heavier sound. neck length, width, height, depth of the bowl or main body, the width of the staves (the wooden gores or slices of the bowl) etc. Construction Bouzouki player in Athens, July 2018įrom a construction point of view, the bouzouki can have differences not only in the number of strings but also in other features, e.g. 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. 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. It is in the same instrumental family as the mandolin and the lute. The name bouzouki comes from the Turkish word bozuk, meaning 'broken' or 'modified', and comes from a particular re-entrant tuning called bozuk düzen, which was commonly used on its Turkish counterpart, the saz-bozuk. It is now an important element of modern Laïko pop Greek music. 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. There are two main types of bouzouki: the trichordo ( three-course) has three pairs of strings (known as courses) and the tetrachordo ( four-course) has four pairs of strings. It has steel strings and is played with a plectrum producing a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but pitched lower. 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.

bouzoukia, from Greek μπουζούκια) is a musical instrument popular in Greece. (string instrument with a pear-shaped body and a long neck, played with plectrum)Ĭ3 – E6 (tetrachordo), D3 – E6 (trichordo) Greek plucked stringed instrument Bouzouki

Greek balalaika