Bouzouki

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Category: Music

Published on Friday, 18 December 2020 16:18

The bouzouki (Greek: μπουζούκι) is one of the most popular Greek instruments, mainly used for rebetika, a type of Greek improvised music.  It is a long necked plucked lute, similar to the mandolin that consists of a round wooden body, a fingerboard and either six or eight metal strings.

The bouzouki is played with a plectrum. The musician plucks the strings over the sound hole with the right hand while using the left hand to press on the strings on the fingerboard.

Depending on the amount of strings a bouzouki is either a trichordo, which has three pairs of strings, also called courses which means six strings in total or a tetrachordo with four courses which means eight strings in total.  The trichordo is known as the classic bouzouki while the tetrachordo became the most common bouzouki used for today’s Greek music. Only a few traditional bouzouki players sometimes still play the trichordo for older styles of rebetika.

The bouzouki is derived from the Turkish buzuk and is closely related to the Turkish saz and the Asian tanbur. Besides rebetika it is also used for other genres such as jazz, bluegrass, rock and folk music.