Re: Mandolin, bozouki, octave mandolin questions
Maybe 30 or so years ago, some Irish musicians took 8-string Greek bouzoukis and tuned them GDAE like octave mandolins. Thus was born the "Irish bouzouki," which was basically an octave mandolin with a slightly longer neck. Now I'd say that a plurality of "bouzoukis" you find for sale -- other than those made specifically by Greek or other Mediterranean builders -- are designed to be tuned GDAE or some variant thereof, rather than in 4ths/3rd as the Greek four-course 'zouks are.
If you're worrying about covering the same range as your guitarist, either "standard" mandolin, or mandola, might be a good fit. The mandola's an interesting compromise "voice," in between mandolin and octave mandolin. It's tuned CGDA, so its highest-pitched three string courses are like the three lowest courses of the mandolin.
You're playing a large-bodied ukulele in non-re-entrant tuning, and its range of pitches largely overlaps that of a "standard" GDAE mandolin: the low G strings are the same, the D (3rd) string of the mandolin is the same as the uke's 3rd string at the second fret, etc. The "closer" 4ths/3rd tuning of the ukulele means that its 1st string is the same as the mandolin's 2nd string, and you have the mandolin's high-E 1st string pitched well above the uke. And, of course, the instruments' timbres differ, and playing techniques are distinct enough so that the mandolin won't "sound like" the ukulele in your ensemble. But it will play in a similar register, again excepting the high E string.
Allen Hopkins
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