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 the mainstay of most Rebetiko music. It has fixed frets and 6 strings in three pairs. In the lower-pitched (bass) course, the pair consists of a thick wound string and a thin string, tuned an octave apart. The conventional modern tuning of the "trichordo" bouzouki is DD–AA–DD. This tuning was called the "European tuning" by Markos Vamvakaris, who mentioned (but failed to describe) several other tunings, or "douzenia", in his autobiography. The illustrated bouzouki was made by Karolos Tsakirian of Athens, and is a replica of a "trichordo" bouzouki made by his grandfather for Markos Vamvakaris. The absence of the