I got a new Johnson 500 Irish bouzouki from Amazon a few days ago, and I am enjoying it a lot. After a few experiments, I settled for unison strings (as opposed to octave) and to GDAE tuning. I like the sound with this set up better. However, I must admit that the long neck of the bouzouki is quite demanding when playing chords, and requires a certain stretch of my fingers that are....well... 58 years old and not very fit ! So, here is my idea : what if I buy a set of octave strings ( as the D'Addarios 0.12, 0.22, 0.32, 0.46) i.e. heavier than the standard Irish bouzouki strings ( 0.11-0.40) then I put them on the bouzouki, and tune it a step lower i.e. F-C-G-D (so that the tension on the neck should be more or less the same). Then I keep a capo on the second fret, and I get a perfect GDAE tuning, and play the bouzouki as an octave mandolin. With a capo on the 2nd fret, in fact, the scale lenght of my bouzouki would go down from 26 1/4 inches to 23 1/4 inches, which is the standard scale lenght of a Johnson or Trinity College bouzouki. I could even consider to go down to the third fret and in this case I would get a scale lenght of around 22 inches.
What do you think ? Is there a flaw in my idea ? Or do you think it could work ?
Thank you for your opinions !
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