Post by Gus Morea on Sept 8, 2004 19:00:08 GMT -5
Jesus, if not the bouzouki, did the Turks invent anything? But I think it's still safe to consider the bouzouki foreign. It's not exactly the same (just the same family), it's a Turkish version with a Turkish name, and it was introduced with the rebetes and wasn't used by "regular" Greeks per say.
THE BOUZOUKI- The bouzouki is a stringed instrument and belongs to the family of the long-necked lutes. Instruments of a similar shape can be found in Pre-Hellenic civilizations (Egypt, Assyria, China, India). In ancient Greece the same instrument was known under the name «pandouris». From Byzantium onwards it is called «tambouras». On display in the National Archaeological Museum of Greece is the tambouras of a hero of the Greek revolution of 1821, General Makriyiannis. This tambouras bears the main morphological characteristics of the bouzouki used by the rebetes. The Turkish saz belongs to the same family of instruments as the bouzouki. A middle-sized kind of saz is called «bozouk saz». «Bozouk» in Turkish means «broken». Here it is used in order to specify the size of the instrument. It is concluded, therefore, that the bouzouki has been named after the jargon of the Turkish saz.
The bouzouki has a pear-shaped sound-box and a fretboard of 60-70cm length, with metallic frets. It has three double metallic strings (each pair tuned in unison). Its basic tuning is D-A-Doct. There are variations such as the G-A-D or A-E-Aoct., not currently used. Fourty years ago a fourth string was added; regarding the intervals the new D-A-F-C tuning became identical to the first four strings of the guitar. The bouzouki is played with a plectrum, (pena) which in older times would be made out of a bird’s feather or a horn or the bark of a cherry tree.
Artemidoros said:
THE BOUZOUKI- The bouzouki is a stringed instrument and belongs to the family of the long-necked lutes. Instruments of a similar shape can be found in Pre-Hellenic civilizations (Egypt, Assyria, China, India). In ancient Greece the same instrument was known under the name «pandouris». From Byzantium onwards it is called «tambouras». On display in the National Archaeological Museum of Greece is the tambouras of a hero of the Greek revolution of 1821, General Makriyiannis. This tambouras bears the main morphological characteristics of the bouzouki used by the rebetes. The Turkish saz belongs to the same family of instruments as the bouzouki. A middle-sized kind of saz is called «bozouk saz». «Bozouk» in Turkish means «broken». Here it is used in order to specify the size of the instrument. It is concluded, therefore, that the bouzouki has been named after the jargon of the Turkish saz.
The bouzouki has a pear-shaped sound-box and a fretboard of 60-70cm length, with metallic frets. It has three double metallic strings (each pair tuned in unison). Its basic tuning is D-A-Doct. There are variations such as the G-A-D or A-E-Aoct., not currently used. Fourty years ago a fourth string was added; regarding the intervals the new D-A-F-C tuning became identical to the first four strings of the guitar. The bouzouki is played with a plectrum, (pena) which in older times would be made out of a bird’s feather or a horn or the bark of a cherry tree.