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Tuning the Greek Trichordo Bouzouki for Irish Traditional Music

There are three types of bouzouki:

• The Greek Trichordo - this is the traditional Greek instrument invented around the end of the 19th century by merging a large Italian mandolin and the Turkish Saz. It has the long, narrow neck and the three courses¹ of the Saz, but the geared tuning heads, fixed metal frets and equal-tempered fret spacing of the mandolin. It is generally tuned² to D₃A₃D₄, with an 'octave string' in the bass course so that the two strings in the course are D₃ and D₄. The upper two courses are normally pairs of plain steel strings giving a clear tone, and these are used for playing tunes. The thicker string in the bass course is generally a wound string which makes it a duller sound. The combination of this duller sound with the octave string means that the bass string sounds out of place when used for tunes, so it is generally only used in chords.

• The Greek Tetrachordo - this is a variant of the Trichordo which is now more common than it. It was invented in the mid-20th century and popularised by Manolis Chiotis. It has four courses and a correspondingly wider neck. It is generally tuned to C₃F₃A₃D₄. Tunes are played over all four courses. Since the strings are tuned closer together in pitch, less movement of the left hand is required and as a result, very fast playing of melodies is possible. It also allows fuller chords to be played, using Guitar/Ukulele chord shapes. Both third and fourth courses have thicker wound strings paired with plain octave strings, giving the tunes an odd feel as they change from 1st and 2nd courses to 3rd and 4th.

• The Irish Bouzouki - developed by Donal Lunny, this has a shorter neck than either of the two Greek bouzoukis and usually has a flat back rather than the rounded bowl shape, for playing standing up with a neck-strap. It is generally tuned to G₂D₃A₃D₄ or G₂D₃A₃E₄ making it more like a large mandolin than a bouzouki. Most players seem to prefer using 'unison string pairs' but many instruments sold have 'octave string pairs' on the lower two courses.

Greek traditional music and Irish traditional music are quite different from each other. Greek music tends to do a lot of variations around a note, rarely moving more than a few notes at a time. Irish music on the other hand has a lot of arpeggios, with large jumps. A typical Irish tune will range over about 2 octaves. This makes it difficult to play on a Trichordo instrument, as it's not possible to play even one octave on the two upper courses of the trichordo without moving the left hand, and to play two octaves you need to move your left hand a lot, which slows down the speed of playing as well as requiring great accuracy.

The Irish bouzouki gets around this by having a shorter neck so that the frets are smaller, allowing the strings to be tuned a fifth apart, which increases the range. The tone suffers as a result - a shorter string will sound more rounded and less piercing, so you lose the distinctive bouzouki sound.

The tetrachordo instrument may be the answer - with four courses, tunes can be played over all four allowing very rapid tune playing. The bottom C is low enough that a D chord (the most common key for both Irish and Greek traditional music) can be easily played with a bottom D bass. (Use the guitar E shape)

Given a trichordo instrument, as I have, what should I do?

Tuning in Fourths

By tuning the strings a fourth apart, with a fourth between treble course and middle course (as usual) and a fourth between middle course and bass course, I can use the same fingering patterns whichever string I'm on. The octave is now all within reach without moving the left hand.

One problem is that the "octave string" on the bass course sounds odd, as a downstroke sounds the lower note louder while an upstroke sounds the upper note louder. (Greeks seem to get around this by not using the bass string much and by always using downstrokes on it.) It would be better to have the lower note doubled rather than an octave string.

One approach to the "fourths" tuning is to raise the bass string to E and leave the other two the same: E₃A₃D₄. The problem with this is that it is no longer possible to play a D major chord with a bottom D as the bass note.

Another approach is to leave the bass course as it is at D₂ and to tune the middle and treble courses down one tone: D₃G₃C₄. Because this slackens the strings, I'm better off with replacing the strings with slightly thicker ones. While I'm at it, I've got rid of the bass course octave string, so the bass course is now two identical thick wound strings.

I'm going to temporarily call this instrument the Resoldo Bouzouki³. I may come up with a better name later.

Getting Used to It

The standard trichordo 'home position' is the fifth fret of the middle string, which is D. This is played with the second finger for major scales and the first finger for minor scaled. In the new tuning, the home position will have to be on the 7th fret.

In the following instructions, the first line gives the names of the notes in the tonic solfa system. The second line gives the fingering: the vertical line symbol indicates a change to the next highest string. Where instructions are given for both ascending and descending scales, the up arrow ↑ and down arrow ↓ are used to indicate a change to a higher string and a change to a lower string respectively.

The left hand normally is positioned so that the 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers cover one fret each, and these are numbered 2, 3 and 4. The first finger covers two frets - the one beside the 2nd finger fret is called 1 and the one closer to the nut from this is called 0. The first finger should stretch to reach this without moving the hand from its normal position. If the first finger must move from 0 to 1 or back for two successive notes, it should slide up or down the string without being lifted. This is indicated in the diagrams with a left or right arrow.

All of the patterns given here start on the bass string. None of the fingerings here use open strings, so you can play in any key by starting at a different position along the neck.

Major Scales

A major scale is one where the third note of the scale is four semitones (a major third) above the first note, and the fifth note is seven semitones (a perfect fifth) above the first note. In English, it is normal to call the first note in a major scale 'do'. Major scales seem to work best when do is fingered with the 2nd finger, putting mi on the 1st finger on the next string up.

All the major scales except the basic Major scale require the first finger to stretch to the '0' fret for some of the notes.

Basic Major Scale

Hijaz

Hijazkiar

Pireotikos

Houzam

Sengiach

Tabahaniotikos

Rast

Rast is very like the basic major scale except that when descending the ti note is flattened to ta.

Tsiganikos

Tsiganikos is another major scale where the ascending and descending versions are different.

Minor Scales

A minor scale is one where the third note of the scale is three semitones (a minor third) above the first note, and the fifth note is seven semitones (a perfect fifth) above the first note. In English, it is normal to call the first note in a minor scale 'la'. Minor scales seem to work best when la is fingered by the first finger on fret 1.

Natural Minor

Harmonic Minor

Ousak

Niavent

Nigridz

Melodic Minor

This is common in Western music but not in Greek music. It has different patterns for ascending and descending. Here the up arrow means change to a higher string while the down arrow means change to a lower string.

Weird Scales

Kiourdí

The Kiourdí scale falls into the 'weird' category because its fifth note is not a perfect fifth above the first note. It has a minor feel to it because of the third note, so I'll write it starting on la.

Summary of Fingering Patterns

Colour used: orange for bass, yellow for middle, green for treble.

The "do" pattern - used for mainly major modes

The "la" pattern - used for mainly minor modes