Re: Still considered an Irish Bouzouki?
I've gotta say that the term "Irish bouzouki" has always bothered me, sorta like the "Mexican pizza" Taco Bell sells. A bouzouki is a bouzouki, with certain dimensions, stringing etc. It comes from Greece, mainly, and in various forms and tunings is played around the eastern Mediterranean. Irish musicians took Greek bouzoukis and strung them like octave mandolins; that doesn't make them "Irish." Now many manufacturers are making longer and shorter-scale octave mandolins, and calling the longer-scale ones "bouzoukis." They don't look all that much like the original Greek instrument -- most aren't bowl-backs -- and few of them get tuned the way Greek bouzoukis were generally tuned.
There seems to be a perceived need to differentiate between longer and shorter-scale octave mandolins, by calling some of them "bouzoukis." I have a Flatiron OM that's labeled "bouzouki" inside, but I've never considered it to be anything other than an octave mandolin.
Now we're getting "Irish tenor banjos," by which the makers generally mean a shorter, 17-fret scale, as opposed to the 19-fret scale that became near-standard 75 years ago. Why are they "Irish"? Because some musicians use them to play Irish/Celtic music. Not because they're made in Ireland, designed in Ireland, or exclusively played in Ireland.
I guess if you're marketing to Celtic/Irish music fans and players, the adjective "Irish" is a selling point. However, to me a bouzouki is a bouzouki, an octave mandolin is an octave mandolin, and a short-scale tenor banjo has no ethnicity.
Allen Hopkins
Gibsn: '54 F5 3pt F2 A-N Custm K1 m'cello
Natl Triolian Dobro mando
Victoria b-back Merrill alumnm b-back
H-O mandolinetto
Stradolin Vega banjolin
Sobell'dola Washburn b-back'dola
Eastmn: 615'dola 805 m'cello
Flatiron 3K OM
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