2300 years of bouzouki.

[Ellinas]

Bried history of the instrument.

I. Classical Greece

The bouzouki appeared in Greece in the 4th century B.C. with the name “Pandoura” or “Pandouris”. It is remarkable, that even that period, the instrument was much slandered, like in the last century. The following occurrence is distinctive: The Athenian orator Demosthenes, in one of his texts he is blaming the king of Macedonia Phillipos for offering hospitality to Pandoura players, players of an instrument for the corrupted people!
They are many assertions that the Pandoura has its roots in older instruments of ancient Egypt, Assyria and India. However it was first used in classical Greece with its current form.
The ancient Pandoura had a soundboard in the shape of a pear, long fingerboard, and three couples of strings. It was about the same with what we call trichordo (3-string) bouzouki today. In spite of the continuous reactions of the Greek aristocracy against the Pandoura, the instrument survived and continued to be used because of the harmony and the variety of sounds it can reproduce with a small number of strings.


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Mousse is playing the Pandoura. National archaeological museum of Athens.

II. Byzantine period

The Pandoura continued to be used in the Byzantine period, with the same name. Specifically, at Byzantium the instrument was usually called Pandouris. The archbishop Chrysanthos wrote once: “The Pandouris, or else called Phandoura or Tambura, is one of the easiest to learn instruments. Together with the kanonaki, it is the most advisable instrument for teaching Byzantine music.”
They are plenty of paintings and images in walls and furniture from the Byzantine and later period, which represent Tambura players.


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Painting from the Faneromeni monastery ,in the island of Salamis.

III. Ottoman era

In this period, they are also plenty mentions of the Pandoura in Greek texts and folk songs.
There is a rumor that Tambura and baglama are instruments that Greeks adopted from the Turks, but actually, the Turkish similar musical instruments (Saz, Turkish baglama etc.) were based in the older Greek instrument Pandoura/Tambura.
At the late Ottoman era, we had the change of the name Pandoura to Bouzouki. The word Bouzouki, most possibly comes from the Turkish word “bozuk” which means broken/corrupted.

IV. Modern Greek state

During the Greek war of independence, we have the famous mentions of “The Tabura of Makrigiannis.” The bouzouki becomes a symbol of “Mangia” and “Leventia”, as it was frequently used by the klephts.
At the end of the 19th century, the bouzouki is eliminated from the Greek orchestras and bands. The main instruments used in the bands were violin, clarinet, santur, lute and lyre. Now the bouzouki is more a “lonely” instrument as it is played by single musicians, and not organized band musicians. This was the start of a new flourish for the Bouzouki. The rebetika songs make their appearance and flourished in a few years. The rebetika players are creating some other instruments, variations of the bouzouki: The Tzouras, the baglamas, the Tzourobaglamas etc.
All these had as a result the appearance of the first “Bouzouki Bands” in the 1920s. The rebetiko music flourished in Asia Minor, from the Greeks who were there. After the catastrophe, the rebetiko activity became much more popular in the Greek state. The most known bouzouki band was the “Tetras Piraeus famous” which was founded in 1929 by Markos Vamvakaris. The band contained 3 bouzoukis (Vamvakaris, Dellias, Pagioumtzis) and a baglama (Batis). The bouzouki is becoming now the “king” of Greek folk music.
After WW2, the musician Manolis Chiotis founded the tetrachordo bouzouki, a bouzouki like the previous, but with four pairs of strings. This was probably the bigger change in the 2300 years of the bouzouki history. The tetrachordo bouzouki is used more frequently in the Modern Greek folk music. This change, offered to the bouzouki new prospects in a very critical period, and made the bouzouki the absolute master of Greek music.


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Young man playing the baglama, The image is from a trunk in a Greek island. It is remarkable that the way the baglama is carried and played today, is exactly the same the Pandoura was played in classical Greece.


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The “Tetras Piraeus famous” bouzouki orchestra.

[Μακεδόνας]

Good information Ellinas. Greece is music.

[Takis83]

Indeed Greek is music. Really interesting information.