Manolis Chiotis Manolis Chiotis Manolis Chiotis (Greek: Μανώλης Χιώτης; March 21, 1920, Thessaloniki – March 21, 1970, Athens) was a Greek rebetiko and laiko composer, singer, and bouzouki player. He is considered one of the greatest bouzouki soloists of all time. He popularised the four-course bouzouki (tetrachordo) and introduced the guitar-like tuning, who found it better suited to the kind of virtuoso playing he was famous for. Chiotis had other successes. In the summer of 1961, he played for Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas, Prince Rainier III of Monaco and Grace Kelly. Journalist Dimitris Liberopoulos, Onassis’ biographer, writes in his book that
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