I read recently that the 10-string bouzouki/ long-scale cittern is starting to become popular in ITM circles. I don’t have a bouzouki yet, but I’ve been using 4 strings on my guitar tuned GDAD to learn on until then. Today I changed out the strings, and decided to try out 5 strings tuned DGDAD (versus the standard CGDAE tuning for cittern). I only know some chordal basics right now, but wow, I can definitely see the benefit of that low D! Does anyone else play a 10-stringer, or play with someone that does? When I get a zouk built for me, I’m thinking getting one made this way. There’s prosand cons to everything, I guess, but I’m having a hard time thinking of cons to this particular idea.
Cittern player, here. Anyway, that’s what I call the short-scale 10 stringed thingum. Most usually “The Gizmo”.
I chose it because I knew I’d like the extra bass course, and the short scale was for me because of my small hands. Long-scale 'zouk I can do, but who needs the stretch if you don’t have to have it? 
Been at it as a backup instrument for a few years now, and I use the DGDAD tuning, myself, which suits backup very well, I think. CGDAE isn’t necessarily “standard”. I know one guy who uses it, but Joseph Sobol uses some kind of totally open tuning that I forget the details of, and Gerald Trimble uses something else altogether. BTW, these are the short-scale instruments, and these players call 'em “citterns”, too. 'Zouk, cittern, tomayto, tomahto. Anyway, people tell me they like the sound of the instrument.
Drawbacks? Long-scale or short, these instruments are topheavy, so without the upper bouts a guitar has to help it rest and balance on one leg, you have to either use a strap (which doesn’t work for me for some reason; probably has to do with the fact that I want to keep my picking hand centered at my torso, and so the topheaviness still applies and the neck still requires a lot of support especially if I’m standing), set it on the lap between both legs and play it near vertical like the Portuguese guitarra players do (this is my method), or set it on the leg of the same side as your plectrum hand and use a good deal of forearm pressure to brace it against your body, which I’ve seen at least one person do (too much work for me). Could be there are other methods. These come to mind for me.
Ya know, for some reason I thought that the scale length of a cittern was around 17" like a mandola, but after a quick Google search I see it’s actually about the same as an octave mandolin or tenor banjo/guitar. I’d imagine that would indeed make for a nice accompaniment instrument.
Luckily I won’t have to worry about it being top-heavy. I mentioned this in another thread, but should have mentioned here that this instrument will have a guitar body. A friend of mine just made a dreadnought 6-string, and we’d been talking about an 8-bouzouki on a 00 guitar body. My only concern with this whether or not I’d need a cut-away to get to the higher frets.
Ah, then what you would have is often called a Bouzarre. No kidding.
And here I was thinking that zoukcittaur had a nice ring to it.
I just got back from my session, and I must say the guitar tuned DGDAD, after some good-hearted joking, actually went over really well. At first everyone thought I was trying to do DADGAD with a broken string.
One time I tried DADGD, thinking DADGAD minus the treble A, and for some reason it just didn’t sound very good, so I went back to DGDAD and never looked back. Dunno if it’s because of the double courses and timbre - or maybe there’s a theory explanation involving five courses and that setup - because guitar sounds great with DADGAD tuning. Not so with the gizmo, for me. I wonder if anyone has ever done 'zouk with ADGD…I know one fellow who tried a tuning based on standard EADGBE guitar tuning (minus one, don’t know which) on a cittern and he hated the sound.
Guitouki, maybe? Officially “guittern” (and variant spellings of that) is already taken, though: it’s just an older English term for a type of cittern and its tuning, although it appears that someone over at Mandolin Cafe has built a guitarlike thing with five single courses along the lines of the setup you were playing but tuned CGDAE, and he has appropriated the term. None of the respondents seem to be aware of the word’s historic context.
Actually “guitar” and “cittern” are related words with a common ancestry, much like “violin” and “fiddle”. Apparently “cittern” and “guitar” ultimately come from the Greek word “kithara”, which was the name of a lyre-like instrument of antiquity and of course the kithara looked nothing like either guitar or cittern. Going a bit further with the guitar/cittern etymological connection, it’s documented that in 18th century Ireland the historic cittern was called the English Guitar, whereas “cittern” seems to have been more of a Scots term, and “guittern” more of an English one. But, this last is probably an oversimplification.
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This mandolin family stuff can get pretty confusing! It reminds of the banjo world, with the banjo-ukes, mando-banjos, banjolins, banjitars, etc. I just looked at the “guittern” thread and that is one neat looking instrument… I could see myself being happy with something like that. I just borrowed a session mates Trinity College bouzouki and it’s got me re-thinking this double-course stuff entirely. I actually prefer playing my guitar to that. Unfortunately the action on the TC is way too high so it makes a fair comparison impossible.
Setup is everything. You can get an instrument “out of the box” and it may be just right, or need tweaking. Your friend’s 'zouk could stand a look-see if the action is noticeably high. There’s a tremendous amount of tension on these instruments, especially when you get to double courses. I’m willing to suggest that that particular 'zouk’s high action had nothing to do with it being part and parcel of being a 'zouk, or a Trinity, as such, but is a matter of its setup parameters. I recently tried a TC 'zouk and I don’t recall anything especially unusual about the action height.
I just had my gizmo in for a much-needed go-over by my local luthier - neck adjustment, the fretboard needed planing, new frets, and a fine-tuning of the bridge elevation setup, and for a bonus he lowered the action to a degree I thought not possible, even though where it was originally was pretty good, I thought - and the before-and-after difference was pretty big all around. But I discovered something: a lowest-possible action is not necessarily the best thing, performance or soundwise. Soundwise the difference from before was enough for others to notice; the bass richness typical of Foley’s work had been lost and the sustain was nothing near what it once was (think “remarkable”), and instead of greater playing ease, I had to press really hard, too hard, on the strings to get a proper stop, otherwise the strings would just buzz against the stopping fret similarly to what goes on with a sitar’s bridge or the brays on a bray harp, only not to nice effect. Brought it back to him, and all he did was install a 1/32" (0.0797375 cm, I believe) shim under the bridge. The action now having been raised closer to where it had been, the finger pressure requirement was eased (a counterintuitive thing, to me) to a pretty optimum state, the sound of the whole instrument had changed dramatically for the richer but was still bright, and the sustain was now back! Not quite the seemingly eternal sustain of before, but I don’t feel I really need sustain I’m not going to use. The sound is, I think, great now. More balanced.
It’s pretty amazing how such itty-bitty changes can make such humongous differences.
So in a nutshell, now that I’ve gotten to it: yes, you do need to try a 'zouk or cittern with better action before you can come to a better informed decision. Plus, plectrum technique with double courses, as compared to single, can sometimes require a change depending on the person. It may be that single’s for you, but I wouldn’t rule out the doubles just yet.