Greek baglama

[Bob A]

Speaking as we were of coincidences, Ms Holst's teacher of rembetiko was T. Athanasiou, who is described as having lived in the US for 25 years, during part of which time he lived in NYC and made instruments. Of course, the first initial is different.

[vkioulaphides]

Great! A bit of kitsch is, well... not uncommon in these instruments, flowerpot and all. This, in fact, is a pretty standard design.

In light of the 17 staves and the inlay alone, your baglama would be considered quite upscale. As for the action, with such small instruments that are affected enormously —in proportion, that is— by weather changes, you may need a "summer bridge" and a "winter bridge" eventually. But do string it up first and see how it feels. But no, the bridge is NOT to be glued on the top. What people do to instruments...

Pick on!

[Bob A]

Well, we're strung up (thanks, Victor!) and playing. An interesting sound for sure, and the intonation is quite good all the way on the high D string; A sharps out after fret 17. When you get way up the neck, the sound gets less like a stringed instrument, more like a xylophone or something-definitely sounds like you're whacking a tuned metal bar!

A real hoot to play. As soon as the novelty wears off a bit, Imagonna get the bridge de-glued, and maybe the saddle compensated a bit, new pearl dots where some are missing on the fretboard, and a Borsalino.

Let's all hear it for the piccolo bouzouki!

[vkioulaphides]

Delighted to hear of the outcome, Bob. Enjoy!

With such minuscule instruments, even the slightest inaccuracy in the measurements does indeed become perceptible, vis a vis intonation, action, etc. But one must bear in mind that the original, lowly baglama was far cruder than the one you have: The "real" range was essentially one octave across the strings, one octave up each string; those oldies rarely had more than 12 frets. Why would they need more, considering the gruff, limited voices they accompanied/imitated?

And yes, the Borsalino is a must!