Every country in the world has a few things that upon hearing someone can immediately correlate them to that country. For example the Eiffel tower in France, the Pisa tower in Italy and the Parthenon in Greece. Upon listening to these names one connects automatically the word with the respective country.

This is not only relevant to big monuments but also expands to objects, cuisine, habits, music, culture and customs. A typical example is moussakas that is connected to Greek cuisine no matter on which country you are. The same with tulips that even though they do not originate in Holland, the Dutch have managed to connect that flower with their country.

One of the distinguishing features that are part of our national identity and that promotes our cultural heritage to a universal stage  is the favorite musical instrument of all Greeks, the bouzouki.

Bouzouki is a purely greek musical instrument that is the evolution of the ancient greek instrument “pandourion”.

The marbles of Mantineia that are being dated to 400 b.c. and which are on display on the Archaeological museum of Athens are displaying a muse on a rock to be playing the pandourion during the mythical fight between Apollo and Marsyas.

The pandourion was transferred from the ancient Greeks to the Byzantines and through the ottoman occupation where some people believe that the name was replaced with the word buzuq.

It is our duty as greeks to maintain our cultural characteristics and to make sure that the bouzouki gets transmitted as an instrument and as a carrier of music, not only among the present and future generations of Greece but also to all over the globe.

As piano is being taught all over the planet why can’t our bouzouki reach this national level of recognition?

But first of all we as greeks need to embrace and transmit our cultural heritage.

How can we succeed on that task?

For starters you can subscribe to our online lessons that we offer on www.bouzoukigreek.com and teach yourself and your children how to play the bouzouki from the comfort of your home, defining the time and the day that you want to watch the lessons.

Not only will you reinforce the relationship with your kids since you will be sharing common activities but you will also transfer our music, identity and cultural heritage to the next generations.