I think a lot of the evolution has come through what exactly is being played. The early days of Planxty featured bouzoukis and mandolas etc as accompaniment instruments to pipes or whistles, playing tunes or harmonies, with Christy Moore’s guitar providing the strumming background. When Andy for example became a solo musician he moved to a more mellow, guitar sound hence the guitar bouzouki or the bass bouzouki; warmer and less strident. Donal also developed the bouzouki strumming prevalent on his solo albums to complement or back-up pipes or fiddles and again appears to have gone for larger, deeper bodies for that bass accompaniment sound. If I listen to Mozaik, for example, Andy's melodies appear more strident and treble from smaller-bodied instruments that need the projection; other solo albums feature the beautiful mellow lower bass strings to complement his voice.
As the bouzouki (and as Francis J says, I never refer to it as ‘Irish’ bouzouki over here) becomes more and more of a replacement for the guitar we’ll see more of those warmer, mellow instruments to complement it's smaller cousins.
Incidentally it’s one of the reasons I sold my Gazuki, firstly people thought it was just a guitar, and secondly I couldn’t get the stage projection I needed to be heard over small pipes and flutes in my last band. It was great when recording but not on stage.
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