Irish bouzouki
Three shared strings and a drone
A free online Irish bouzouki tuner covering GDAD and GDAE, listening through your microphone in the browser.
Tap a string to hear its reference tone and tune to it by ear. The microphone pauses while a tone sounds.
Listens through your microphone. Nothing is recorded and nothing leaves your browser.
Press a string to hear it. The microphone pauses while it sounds.
Ready to play? Open the Irish bouzouki GDAD chord chart or find bouzouki tune tabs.
A free online Irish bouzouki tuner covering GDAD and GDAE, listening through your microphone in the browser.
The tuning you choose decides what the instrument is good at. This is the part that is rarely written down.
The common Irish tuning and what most bouzouki players use. Three strings shared with GDAE and the top dropped to D, which is where the drone comes from.
Chosen by players who also play mandolin or tenor banjo and want one set of fingerings across everything. It trades the drone for consistency.
Tuning and stringing reference: Hobgoblin’s bouzouki guide. Confirm the scale length and course arrangement of your own instrument before changing its setup.
Everything people ask before they tune up.
Yes. No account, no app and no adverts. It runs in the browser using your microphone.
Usually GDAD. Some players use GDAE instead so the fingering matches a mandolin or tenor banjo exactly.
The top string dropped to D gives an open drone that suits accompaniment, which is what the instrument mostly does in Irish music. GDAE keeps melody fingering consistent with a mandolin but loses that drone.
Low to high: G2, D3, A3, D4. Compared with Irish GDAE, the highest course is a whole tone lower, D instead of E. The first two intervals are fifths; A to the top D is a fourth.
Both arrangements exist. The reference tones here give the main, lower note of each course. Unison pairs share that note; an octave-strung pair has a partner one octave higher. Follow the stringing specified for your instrument and tune each string separately.
Choose bouzouki strings matched to the scale length, GDAD tuning and your unison or octave course arrangement. Follow the maker’s gauge guidance. A tenor-banjo gauge table is not a suitable specification for an eight-string bouzouki.
Start from a reliable reference. Fret G at 7 to match open D, and D at 7 to match open A. Fret A at 5 to match the top D. Use the main notes of the courses for these comparisons. In GDAE, the last comparison changes to A at 7 matching open E.
Yes. Keep your usual tuning and use the ABC transposer to change the tune’s key and regenerate the tab. Choose the instrument and tuning that match your setup.