1.
The Beatles
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The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, the Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960, with Stuart Sutcliffe initially serving as bass player. The core of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison went through a succession of drummers, including Pete Best, before asking Starr to join them. They acquired the nickname the Fab Four as Beatlemania grew in Britain the next year, from 1965 onwards, the Beatles produced increasingly innovative recordings, including the albums Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road, after their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers of varying lengths. McCartney and Starr, the members, remain musically active. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980, and Harrison died of cancer in November 2001. The Beatles are the band in history, with estimated sales of over 600 million records worldwide. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act, according to the RIAA, the Beatles are also the best-selling music artists in the United States, with 178 million certified units. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazines list of the all-time most successful Hot 100 artists, as of 2016 and they have received ten Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and they were also collectively included in Time magazines compilation of the twentieth centurys 100 most influential people. In March 1957, John Lennon, then aged sixteen, formed a group with several friends from Quarry Bank school. They briefly called themselves the Blackjacks, before changing their name to the Quarrymen after discovering that a local group was already using the other name. Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after he, in February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the band. The fourteen-year-old auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, after a month of Harrisons persistence, they enlisted him as their lead guitarist. By January 1959, Lennons Quarry Bank friends had left the group, the three guitarists, billing themselves at least three times as Johnny and the Moondogs, were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer. They used the name until May, when they became the Silver Beetles, before undertaking a tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer. By early July, they had changed their name to the Silver Beatles, allan Williams, the Beatles unofficial manager, arranged a residency for them in Hamburg, but lacking a full-time drummer they auditioned and hired Pete Best in mid-August 1960
2.
Rubber Soul
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Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album by the Beatles, and the tenth released in North America. Produced by George Martin, Rubber Soul incorporates a mix of 1960s pop, soul, the albums name comes from the term plastic soul, which popular African American soul musicians coined to describe Mick Jagger, a white musician singing soul music. It was the second Beatles album – after the British version of A Hard Days Night – to contain original material. The project marked the first time that the Beatles focused on creating an album as an artistic work, in 2012, Rubber Soul was ranked number five on Rolling Stone magazines list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2013, after the British Phonographic Industry changed their sales award rules, virtually all of the albums songs were composed immediately after the Beatles return to London following their North American tour. The Beatles expanded their sound on the album, with influences drawn from African-American soul music, the folk rock of Bob Dylan and the Byrds. Rubber Soul also saw the band expanding rock and rolls instrumental resources and he had been introduced to it via the instrumental score for their 1965 film Help. Harrisons interest was fuelled by fellow Indian music fans Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of the Byrds, Harrison would eventually be transfixed by all things Indian, taking sitar lessons from renowned Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. Author Andrew Grant Jackson describes Rubber Soul as the Beatles synthesis of folk, rock, soul, baroque, proto-psychedelia, for the country-styled What Goes On, Starr received his first songwriting credit, as a co-composer with Lennon and McCartney. Lyrically, the album represents a progression in the Beatles music. Author James Decker considers it significant that Rubber Soul took its cues more from folk crossovers such as Bob Dylan. In particular, the relationships between the sexes moved from simpler boy-girl love songs to more nuanced and negative portrayals, songs such as Nowhere Man and Harrisons Think for Yourself explored subject matter that had nothing to do with romance at all. Recording for Rubber Soul began on 12 October 1965, at EMIs Abbey Road Studios, with final production, produced by George Martin, the album was one of the first projects he undertook after leaving EMIs staff and co-founding Associated Independent Recording. Martin later described Rubber Soul as the first album to present a new, growing Beatles to the world, adding, For the first time we began to think of albums as art on their own, as complete entities. This was the final Beatle album that recording engineer Norman Smith worked on before he was promoted by EMI to record producer. Lennon later said that Rubber Soul was the first album on which the Beatles were in complete control during recording, with enough studio time to develop. Before the recording sessions, McCartney was given a new guitar, a solid-body Rickenbacker 4001. Harrison used a Fender Stratocaster for the first time, most notably in his guitar part on Nowhere Man
3.
Abbey Road Studios
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Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St Johns Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, Abbey Road Studios is most notable as being the 1960s venue for innovative recording techniques adopted by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Hollies, Badfinger and others. One of its earliest world-famous-artist clients was Paul Robeson, who recorded December 1931, towards the end of 2009, the studio came under threat of sale to property developers. However, the British Government protected the site, granting it English Heritage Grade II listed status in 2010, originally a nine-bedroom Georgian townhouse built in 1831 on the footpath leading to Kilburn Abbey, the building was later converted to flats where the most flamboyant resident was Maundy Gregory. In 1931, the Gramophone Company acquired the premises and converted it into studios, pathé filmed the opening of the studios when Sir Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music. In 1934, inventor of stereo sound, Alan Blumlein, recorded Mozarts Jupiter Symphony which was conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham at the studios, the neighbouring house is also owned by the studio and used to house musicians. During the mid-20th century, the studio was used by leading British conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent. The Gramophone Company amalgamated with Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI and it was under this name that in 1936 cellist Pablo Casals became the first to record Johann Sebastian Bachs Cello Suites No.1 &2 at the command of EMI head Fred Gaisberg. The recordings went on to spur a revolution among Bach aficionados, in 1958, Studio Two at Abbey Road became a centre for rock and roll music when Cliff Richard and the Drifters recorded Move It there, and later pop music material. The Beatles named their 1969 album Abbey Road, after the street where the studio is located, the studio was renamed Abbey Road Studios in 1970 after the Beatles album had made it famous. Iain Macmillan took the cover photograph outside the studios, with the result that the nearby zebra crossing has become a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans. It has been a tradition for visitors to pay homage to the band by writing on the wall in front of the even though it is painted over every three months. December 2010, the crossing at Abbey Road was given a Grade II listed status. Pink Floyd recorded most of their late 1960s to mid-1970s albums here, the Shadows named their Live at Abbey Road album after the studio, with the cover spoofing the Beatles album. The chief mastering engineer at Abbey Road was Chris Vinyl Blair, in 1979, EMI commissioned the British jazz fusion band Morrissey-Mullen to record Britains first digitally recorded single record at Abbey Road Studios. From July 18 to September 11,1983, the public had an opportunity to see inside the legendary Studio Two where The Beatles made most of their records. While a new mixing console was being installed in the control room, the soundtrack to the video had a number of recordings that were not made commercially available until the release of The Beatles Anthology project over a decade later. The Red Hot Chili Peppers used a photograph of the walking across the zebra crossing naked on the front of The Abbey Road E. P. which was released in 1988
4.
Parlophone
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Parlophone Limited is a German-British record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the company was formed in 8 August 1923 as The Parlophone Co. Ltd. which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a jazz record label. In 5 October 1926, the Columbia Graphophone Company acquired Parlophones business, name, Columbia Graphophone later merged with the Gramophone Company in 31 March 1931 to become Electric & Musical Industries Limited. George Martin joined EMI in 1950 as assistant label manager, taking over as manager in 1955, Martin produced and released a mix of product including comedy recordings of the Goons, the pianist Mrs Mills, and teen idol Adam Faith. For a long time Parlophone claimed the best-selling UK single She Loves You, peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, both by The Beatles. The label also achieved placement of seven singles at No.1 during 1964, Parlophone continued as a division of EMI until it was merged into the Gramophone Co. Ltd. on 1 July 1965. On 1 July 1973, the Gramophone Co. Ltd. was renamed EMI Records Limited, on 28 September 2012, regulators officially approved Universal Music Group s planned acquisition of EMI, on condition that its EMI Records Ltd. group would be divested from the combined group. EMI Records Ltd. included Parlophone and other labels to be divested and were for a time operated in a single entity known as the Parlophone Label Group. Warner Music Group later acquired Parlophone and PLG in 7 February 2013, making Parlophone their new third flagship label, alongside Warner Bros. Records, PLG was renamed as the Parlophone Records Limited group in May 2013. Parlophone is now the oldest of WMGs three flagship record labels, Parlophone was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The name Parlophon had been used for gramophones before the company began making records of their own. The labels ₤ trademark is a German L that stands for its original founder Lindström and it has coincidentally been said to resemble the British pound sign, which itself is derived from the letter L for the Ancient Roman unit of measurement Libra, which means pound in Latin. During World War I, the Transoceanic Trading Company was set up in the Netherlands to look after its overseas assets, on 8 August 1923, the British branch of Parlophone was established, led by artists and repertoire manager Oscar Preuss. Parlophone established a leasing arrangement with the co-owned United States-based record label Okeh Records. The CLPGS has published a list of Parlophone titles issued between the years of 1923 and 1956, in 1927, the Columbia Graphophone Company acquired a controlling interest in the Carl Lindström Company and in Parlophone. In 31 March 1931, Columbia Graphophone merged with the Gramophone Company to form Electric & Musical Industries Ltd, under EMI, Parlophone initially maintained its status as a jazz label. In about 1929 or 1930, the Rhythm Style Series started, besides the Okeh recordings, Parlophone also issued recordings from Columbia Records and Brunswick Records, as well as a few sessions produced at Decca Records. As time went on, the label also released speciality recordings of word and comedy recordings, including the comedy recordings of the Goons and Flanders
5.
John Lennon
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John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE was an English singer and songwriter who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful and musically influential band in the history of popular music. He and fellow member Paul McCartney formed a songwriting partnership. Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the craze as a teenager, his first band, the Quarrymen, first became the Silver Beatles. After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he added Ono as one of his middle names, Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to raise his infant son Sean, but re-emerged with Ono in 1980 with the new album Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release, Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film and in interviews. By 2012, Lennons solo album sales in the United States exceeded 14 million and, as writer, co-writer, or performer, he is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth and, in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, in 1988 as a member of the Beatles and in 1994 as a solo artist. Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman of Irish descent and his parents named him John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John Jack Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, after her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpools Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946 Lennons father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, Bobby Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her, according to author Mark Lewisohn, Lennons parents agreed that Julia should take him and give him a home as Alf left again. A witness who was there that day, Billy Hall, has said the scene often portrayed with a young John Lennon having to make a decision between his parents never happened. It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again, Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence he lived at Mendips,251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own. His aunt purchased volumes of stories for him, and his uncle. In September 1980, Lennon commented about his family and his rebellious nature, Part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society, but I cannot be what I am not. I was the one who all the other boys parents—including Pauls father—would say, the parents instinctively recognised I was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their children, which I did. I did my best to disrupt every friends home, partly out of envy that I didnt have this so-called home
6.
Yoko Ono
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Yoko Ono is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist who is also known for her work in performance art and filmmaking. She is the wife and widow of singer-songwriter John Lennon of the Beatles. Ono grew up in Tokyo, and studied at Gakushuin and she withdrew from her course after two years and rejoined her family in New York in 1953. She spent some time at Sarah Lawrence College, and then involved in New York Citys downtown artists scene. She first met Lennon in 1966 at her own art exhibition in London and she brought feminism to the forefront in her music, influencing artists as diverse as the B-52s and Meredith Monk. Ono achieved commercial and critical acclaim in 1980 with the chart-topping album Double Fantasy, public appreciation of Onos work has shifted over time, helped by a retrospective at a Whitney Museum branch in 1989 and the 1992 release of the six-disc box set Onobox. She received a Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale in 2009, as Lennons widow, Ono works to preserve his legacy. She funded Strawberry Fields in New York City, the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, and she has made significant philanthropic contributions to the arts, peace, Philippine and Japan disaster relief, and other causes. In 2012 Yoko Ono received the Dr. Rainer Hildebrandt Human Rights Award endowed by Alexandra Hildebrandt, the award is given annually in recognition of extraordinary, non-violent commitment to human rights. Ono continues her activism, inaugurating a biennial $50,000 LennonOno Grant for Peace in 2002. She has a daughter, Kyoko Chan Cox, from her marriage to Anthony Cox, Ono was born on February 18,1933, in Tokyo, to Isoko Ono and Eisuke Ono, a banker and former classical pianist. Isokos father was ennobled in 1915, isokos maternal grandfather Zenjiro Yasuda was an affiliate of the Yasuda clan and zaibatsu. Eisuke came from a line of samurai warrior-scholars. The kanji translation of Yokos first name Yoko means ocean child, Two weeks before Yokos birth, Eisuke was transferred to San Francisco by his employer, the Yokohama Specie Bank. The rest of the family followed soon after, with Yoko meeting Eisuke when she was two and her younger brother Keisuke was born in December 1936. Yoko was enrolled in piano lessons from the age of 4, in 1937, the family was transferred back to Japan and Ono enrolled at Tokyos Gakushuin, one of the most exclusive schools in Japan. In 1940, the moved to New York City. The next year, Eisuke was transferred from New York City to Hanoi, Ono was enrolled in Keimei Gakuen, an exclusive Christian primary school run by the Mitsui family
7.
Christianity
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Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
8.
Capo
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It is frequently used on guitars, mandolins, and banjos. The word derives from the Italian capotasto which means the nut of a stringed instrument, the earliest known use of the term capotasto is by Giovanni Battista Doni who, in his Annotazioni of 1640, uses it to describe the nut of a viola da gamba. The first patented capo was designed by James Ashborn of Wolcottville, musicians commonly use a capo to raise the pitch of a fretted instrument so they can play in a different key using the same fingerings as playing open. In effect, a capo uses a fret of an instrument to create a new nut at a higher note than the actual nut. There are several different capo designs, but most commercial capos consist of a bar that clamps to the instruments neck in some way to hold down the strings. Capos come in different sizes and shapes for different instruments and fretboard curvatures, all types of capo should be applied after a fresh tuning by laying the barre, descending from above, and directly behind the fret, so that all of the strings have uniform position and pressure. If the strings are bent or mispositioned, the instrument will sound out of tune in the new key, some types of capo can mar the neck of the guitar if applied incorrectly. Musicians use capos on many stringed instruments, guitars, mandolins, mandolas, banjos, capos exist for square-necked resonator guitars, some of which do not contact the neck, but clamp above and below the strings. Song arrangements often cite capo position, just as they cite alternate tunings, when referencing fingerings for a song that uses a capo, the player must determine whether the chart references absolute finger positions, or positions relative to the capo. For example, in tablature, a note played on the fret of an instrument capoed at the second fret can be listed as 5 or 3. Similarly, a D-shaped chord can be referred to as D, neither method strongly prevails over the other. For this reason, the phrase chord-shape is commonly used to clarify that the fingering shape, in this manner, the two guitars create a fuller sound than they would playing in unison. Playing with a capo creates the musical effect as retuning all strings up the same number of steps. However, using a capo only affects the open note of each string, every other fret remains unaffected, and thus a performer does not need to adjust for or relearn the entire fretboard as they might with retuning. The scale length of the strings of an instrument affects the timbre of the strings, musicians also use capos to bring a guitar tuned below standard up to standard tuning. Manufacturers sometimes recommend tuning a guitar a whole-step or more below standard to offset the additional stress of the additional strings. A capo can raise it to standard tuning, however, improved manufacturing techniques have allowed many modern 12-strings to be tuned to standard pitch. In many cases, they have extended its use past the traditional purpose of changing the key, an example of using a partial capo to produce alternative sounds can be heard from guitar artist Antoine Dufour
9.
Sitar
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The sitar is a plucked stringed instrument used mainly in Hindustani music and Indian classical music. The sitar flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries and arrived at its present form in 18th century India and it derives its distinctive timbre and resonance from sympathetic strings, bridge design, a long hollow neck and a gourd-shaped resonance chamber. In appearance, the sitar is similar to the tanpura, except that it has frets, used widely throughout the Indian subcontinent, the sitar became popularly known in the wider world through the works of Ravi Shankar, beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The word sitar originally derived from Sanskrit words saptatantri veena, which later was called as saat taar which eventually became sitar, another source might be from Persian seh + tar, literally meaning three strings. The instrument is thought to have been a version of the Veena, another prominent instrument in Carnatic and Hindustani music, altered in order to conform with Mughal tastes. The sitar flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries and arrived at its present form in 18th century India, in his Bharatiya Sangeet Vadya, Lalmani Misra traces the instruments development from the Tritantri veena through the nibaddh and anibaddh Tamburas also called tanbur and later the jantra. Construction of the similar tanpura was described by Tansen, a sitar can have 18,19,20, or 21 strings. The frets are movable, allowing fine tuning, the Gandhaar-pancham sitar has six playable strings, whereas the Kharaj-pancham sitar, used in the Maihar gharana, to which Ravi Shankar belonged, and other gharanas such as Bishnupur, has seven. Three of these, called the chikaari, simply provide a drone, the instrument has two bridges, the large bridge for the playing and drone strings and the small bridge for the sympathetic strings. Its timbre results from the way the strings interact with the wide, as a string reverberates its length changes slightly as its edge touches the bridge, promoting the creation of overtones and giving the sound its distinctive tone. The maintenance of this specific tone by shaping the bridge is called jawari, many musicians rely on instrument makers to adjust this. The bridges are fixed to the resonating chamber, or kaddu. Some sitars have a resonator, the tumbaa, near the top of the hollow neck. Materials used in construction include teak wood or tun wood, which is a variation of mahogany, for the neck and faceplate, the instruments bridges are made of deer horn, ebony, or very occasionally from camel bone. Synthetic material is now common as well, there are three popular modern styles of sitar offered in a variety of sub-styles and decorative patterns. The two popular styles are the gayaki style sitars and the full decorated instrumental style sitars, the gayaki style sitar is mostly of seasoned toon wood, with very few or no carved decorations. It often has a dark polish, the inlay decorations are mostly of mother of pearl. The number of strings is often limited to eleven but may extend to thirteen
10.
Bouzouki
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A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin. There are two types of bouzouki. The trichordo has three pairs of strings, and the tetrachordo has four pairs of strings and it is in the same instrumental family as the mandolin and the lute. The type of the instrument used in Rembetika music was a three-stringed instrument, the Greek bouzouki is a plucked musical instrument of the lute family, called the thabouras or tambouras family. The tambouras has existed in ancient Greece as pandoura, and can be found in sizes, shapes, depths of body, lengths of neck. The bouzouki and the baglamas are the direct descendants, the Greek marble relief, known as the Mantineia Base, dating from 330-320 BC, shows a muse playing a variant of the pandoura. From Byzantine times it was called pandouras and then tambouras, on display in the National Historical Museum of Greece is the tambouras of a hero of the Greek revolution of 1821, General Makriyiannis. Other sizes have appeared and include the Greek instrument tzouras, an instrument smaller in size than standard bouzouki, following the 1919–1922 war in Asia Minor and the subsequent exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, the ethnic Greeks fled to Greece. The early bouzoukia were mostly three-string, with three courses and were tuned in different ways, as to the scale one wanted to play, at the end of the 1950s, four-course bouzoukia started to gain popularity. The four-course bouzouki was made popular by Manolis Chiotis, who used a tuning akin to standard guitar tuning. However it allowed for greater virtuosity and helped elevate the bouzouki into a popular instrument capable of a wide range of musical expression. Recently the 3 course bouzouki has gained in popularity, the first recording with the 4-course instrument was made in 1956. This is the style of bouzouki, introduced around 1900. It has fixed frets and 6 strings in three pairs, in the lower-pitched course, the pair consists of a thick wound string and a thin string, tuned an octave apart. The conventional modern tuning of the bouzouki is D3 D4•A3 A3•D4 D4. This tuning was called the European tuning by Markos Vamvakaris, who mentioned several other tunings, or douzenia, the illustrated bouzouki was made by Karolos Tsakirian of Athens, and is a replica of a trichordo bouzouki made by his grandfather for Markos Vamvakaris. The absence of the heavy mother-of-pearl ornamentation often seen on modern bouzoukia is typical of bouzoukia of the period and it has tuners for eight strings, but has only six strings, the neck being too narrow for eight
