Bouzouki Asia Minor and the subsequent exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey when the ethnic Greeks fled to Greece. The early bouzoukia were mostly three-string ("trichordo"), with three courses (six strings in three pairs) and were tuned in different ways, as to the scale one wanted to play. At the end of the 1950s, four-course (tetrachordo) bouzoukia started to gain popularity. The four-course bouzouki was made popular by Manolis Chiotis, who also used a tuning akin to standard guitar tuning, which made it easier for guitarists to play bouzouki, even as it angered purists. However it allowed for greater virtuosity
Bouzouki Bouzouki The bouzouki (; also "buzuki"; , ; plural "bouzoukia" ) is a musical instrument popular in Greece that was brought there in the 1900s by Greek immigrants from Turkey, and quickly became the central instrument to the rebetiko genre and its music branches. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the bouzouki has a flat front, usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but pitched lower. There are two main types of bouzouki: the "trichordo" ("three-course") has three pairs of strings (known as courses) and