Bouzouki heavy mother-of-pearl ornamentation often seen on modern bouzoukia is typical of bouzoukia 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, being also used on mandolins. 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 whole step below the four high strings of a guitar). In the two higher-pitched (treble) courses, the two strings of
Irish bouzouki Sweden, Jamie McMenemy of the Breton group Kornog, Elias Garcia of the Asturian groups Tuenda and Llan de Cubel, and Ruben Bada of the Asturian group DRD, typify the complex admixture of melody and chordal accompaniment to be found amongst skilled continental players. It has also become fashionable for some of these musicians to mix instrumental pieces from the Balkans into their material, creating the novelty of western European instruments playing music typically played by Bulgarian/Macedonian tamburas or Greek bouzoukis in their native setting. By far the most common tuning for the Irish bouzouki is G2D3A3D4. This was pioneered by