Tunings
A douzeni is a tuning used on the bouzouki or baglama (e.g. the set of notes to which the open strings are tuned); in the early days of rembetika, a particular douzeni was chosen based upon the dromos needed for a song. As Greek music edged toward the Western major/minor scale system in the 1930’s and ’40’s, most of the douzenia gradually fell out of use.
The douzeni used on today’s three course instruments is generally D-A-D’ (Re-La-Re’), which Markos Vamvakaris called evropaikos (european). Markos said it can be used to play all the dromous. He also stated that the arampien douzeni (B-G-D) was chosen for housam, rast douzeni ( A-C-G) for rast dromo, etc. Other douzenia include karadouzeni (G-A-D’) and anikta (A-E-A’).