Phil Crump makes great instruments. It’s been years since I had my hands on one to play it but I remember what is was like. It had a big bass that could vibrate a room.
Yes, and mine, his first 10-string B-III with a redwood top, is even that much more bassy: DGDAE tuning.
Vibrate a room is exactly what this thing did the other night; the mic had died, so we hooked up a much less sensitive mic. I was worried the vocals would come through but that the bouzouki would be lost. Apparently I had nothing to worry about - come through it certainly did.
I recently visted a maker in Maleny and checked out his Irish bouzoukis. I am told there is a difference between Irish and Greek bouzoukis - not just the body shape but the string courses. Any comments (especially given your comparative reference to Greek tunings)?
Thanks.
I played a Greek bouzouki about 35-40 years ago. It had three courses and was tuned 1-5-1, like a mountain dulcimer. It was a very fancy bowl-back, with a pickup in the soundhole, and belonged to a professional musician.
Thank you for the informative response, Mike.
Mike’s three-courser and its tuning would be one of the older 'zouks, the kind you met in the 20s and 30s. Players sometimes varied the tuning from tune to tune to suit the mode being played.
Modern 'zouks have four courses and have been tuned in fourths like guitars to facilitate more fluent melody playing. The innovator was Manolis Khiotis who added the fourth course, adopted the guitar tuning (both c.1953) and later added amplification. Given the difference in tuning, I imagine the gauges of string would be quite different.
Irish 'zouks are really members of the mandolin family. Greek instruments have the top two courses tuned in unison and the bottom two tuned in octaves—like a twelve string guitar. Some Irish 'zouks are strung this way but it is considered a bit crass in some circles. My Trinity came that way but my McDonald is strung in unison all the way down. (It is also wired like a Strat. 
)
Rembetes tend to drone on the bottom two courses while all the melodic action happens on the top two.
Lets say I wanted to do this and I want to sing in G Phrygian.
I set the two drone courses to low G (tonic) and D (dominant).
Now, on the melody strings, I want it so that a get a drop down of 3 notes below the tonic. That would mean a setting of
Low G
Low D
Middle D
High D
?
Would that be reasonable and nice?
(PS I have little experience as a player of stringy thingies)
There’s nothing difficult about your suggestions for the first three courses but octave jumps would be eccentric. The tendency when using deviant tunings is to tune down rather than up and use heavier guage strings when you do to give tonal balance. That said, it is easy enough to put strings designed for one course in another position so long as you aren’t asking the instrument to take too many very low courses—that would strain the neck. Also, it’s easier to compress the range of the instrument than to stretch it.
Your first two suggestions match the standard tuning for Irish zouk. Your third matches the standard tuning for the top course so just switch positions for those strings—no problem.
The top course is what might present problems. What you are asking is to put the top course of a mandolin in that position on a zouk. I doubt that you would find commercially made strings long enough to facilitate that tuning but you might. You might be able to get them specially made or you might be able to get there with strings adapted from a different instrument, say banjo. (Some guitarists use a banjo string in place of the top E and string their instrument with higher strings in other positions tuned down a fourth to facilitate string bending. I’ve done it myself.)
For my part, if I wanted to play over that four octave range, I’d use both mandolin and 'zouk. Obviously, that requires either two players or overdubbing.
Wombat, in my example (based on a real desire), I would want the lower courses to allow G Phrygian lines such that we can, more or less, cover 2 octaves from the 5th (D) below the tonic to the 5th above the tonic octave.
IE.
top course > G tonic drone
2nd course > D dominant drone
3rd course > (my socalled) middle D melody course
bottom course > high D melody course.
Other than being practicable though “eccentric” as you say, would this sound nice? (Triadic+ chords are not a prominent consideration for me).
You’re losing me in these speculations a bit. You obviously aren’t asking would it sound good to have music with these features, perhaps played on more than one instrument simultaneously. The answer to that is yes, easy—just adapt a an Irish zouk for most of the jobs and play the high melody on a mandolin high course tuned down a step to D.
So are you asking whether an instrument could be built which had these features and just these features? Only a luthier could answer with certainty but I would think it could be done although you might need two sound boxes or something weird for it to sound good. You can play a stringed instrument either finger style or with a pick. The two sound boxes idea would be a bit odd but might work—a sort of mandobouszouki.
I take it what you are really asking is whether an ordinary zouk could be adapted to a tuning like this. Whether it is a viable idea depends on things that could only be tested by trying. I’ve mentioned some already, finding high strings long enough and robust enough for the highest course. When I said that an octave jump is eccentric, I wasn’t being insulting. I was trying to point out the these instruments aren’t designed for octave jumps between courses. Many things conspire to determine whether the instrument sounds good—shape and kinds of wood used in construction, subtle features of design. You need an instrument in tune across the whole range. You want a reasonable balance between frequencies across the instrument, you want balanced volume, you want consistent sustain. Having a sudden jump of an octave between courses could throw any or all of these out, especially as you are not going to be able to use 'zouk strings for the highest course—my guess is that would be a design nightmare. These features are sensative to the tiniest changes. Dreadnought guitars have a tendency to be boomy on the low mids (baritone region). Other guitars tend to be muddy in this region. Twelve string guitars tend to be out of tune up the neck on the bottom (lowest) two or three courses—those strung in octaves rather than unisons. This is because the string length required for a low D (say) is slightly different from that required for a middle D and the mismatch gets accentuated the higher you go. This is one reason why some Irish 'zouk players like me tend to avoid octave tuning and why Greek players drone on the bottom two courses—no tuning problems with open strings.
If you are really serious about having something suitable built, email Graham McDonald in Canberra with your idea. He’ll custom build something if he thinks it can work or he’ll explain why it is a bad idea if he thinks it won’t. He’s very approachable and a really nice guy to work with. He’ll send you his academic papers on acoustics if he really thinks you are into this stuff.
Nice work Lorenzo, at first glance I thought it was a Gibson. A good friend of mine plays a Gibson mandocello that I have been drooling over for years now.
Thanks Joseph, it was the most fun thing I’ve ever done–I totally lost track of time…and food, money, religion, politics, and women. 
Hey, you might like a shot of my new acoustic bass guitar. It’s really a riot and the body is HUGE. It sounds better than any ½ size upright bass I’ve ever played. A friend of mine in NE Oregon made it for me.
A better perspective of the body…
Yep. I’m afraid so - as simple as that is exactly what I have asked. Could you test it on your “zouk”?
Not really. The first 3 courses you suggest are similar to the way it is currently tuned with the middle D course where the A course would normally be. But I have no way of finding a course that would give me high D on a zouk. If I simply tried to tune up a middle D (E) course, the strings would snap long before I got even close.
Thank you for your very precise, relevant, practical and non-academic answer. I appreciate it.
So now, on these bottom “melody courses” (my middle D and my rejected “high D”) how would you set that last course so that it continues the G tonic phrygian mode from the 3rd course?
For instance the middle course gives me
dominant
flattened 6th
flattened 7th
tonic (of the melody middle octave)
flattened 2nd
flattened 3rd
sub dominant
dominant
up to ? (any more frets?)
My other answers were just as practical. Understanding the problems faced in bouzouki design is critical to coming up with sensible ideas for tunings. Also, I don’t know how better to describe a dreadnaught that’s boomy in the low mids than to say just that. Too loud in first position on the bottom two strings? Or, when you play the lower strings down the bottom it goes blah blah?
You describe a zouk going up to the 12th fret. I have an electric which is easily playable right up to the 17th or 18th fret which would get you up to the high tonic. I wouldn’t go for a weird tuning if I wanted to get the range you want, I’d rely on playing up the neck. I’d tune it G, D, G, D which is very close to the most common Irish tuning G, D, A, D.
If you absolutely must get something higher than mid D on the top course, I’d go for the G above and use extra light guage strings. They could be tuned up to E without concern and some Irish players do. You’d need to tune them three half steps higher still. Check with a luthier before trying something like this. Any serious attempt to tune up or extend the range for which the instrument is designed could put too much strain on the neck.
Really? Why would I do that? I think I was posing questions (wasn’t I?)
Hmm?
Almost all questions have presuppositions. They are sometimes implicit and sometimes explicity statements from earlier in the conversation.
You explicitly described how things would go up to the 12th fret, just as I said. You then asked a question concerning what if anything happens next which I answered.
What am I missing that has you so confused?
You may be missing that it is you who is confused because your suppositions about my “presuppostions” may in fact be impositions
on the facts.
AS is patent from my posts, some of which EXPLICITLY say that I do not have any experience with chordophonic stringy thingies (other than dulcimers), I know nothing about bouzoukis other than I likem.
If I were Wombat, who like Darwin, has experience of stringy thingies, I would answer Talasiga’s question according to this (or similar) framework:
The Irish bouzouki has XXX frets and to obtain the range of notes on the bottom string courses (your proposed melody courses) you would need to set them at XXX and XXX .
A CUT TO THE CHASE ANSWER WOULD HAVE BEEN:-
No, talibaba, you don’t need to do this. The instrument has 18 frets that are playable so you would set your lower melody course at D and the highest one at G to do what you want.