Irish traditional music bouzouki players may play single note melody instead of harmonizing accompaniment, but in live acoustic sessions with more than two or three players but it is difficult to produce sufficient volume to be heard over drumming and the piercing sound of fiddles and penny whistles. Although not traditional, the Irish bouzouki has found a home in the modern Irish traditional music scene. The Greek bouzouki was introduced to Irish traditional music in the late 1960s by Johnny Moynihan and then popularised by Dónal Lunny, Andy Irvine, and Alec Finn. Today's Irish bouzouki (usually) has four courses of two strings (usually)
Irish bouzouki is closer to the D3A3D4 tuning of the Greek trichordo bouzouki than is the guitar-like tuning C3F3A3D4 used on the modern Greek tetrachordo, and is particularly well suited to a modal harmonic approach to accompaniment as used in Irish traditional music. Alec Finn, playing a Greek trichordo bouzouki, uses the traditional D3A3D4 tuning with the octave pair on the low D course changed to unison. Amongst many luthiers and musicians the Irish bouzouki is considered to be part of the mandolin family, but for others this new family of instruments is a separate development. In actuality, the mandolin and lute