The lyre is a type of stringed musical instrument that is well known for having been used widely in classical antiquity as well as later on. The recitations made by the Ancient Greeks were often accompanied by playing the Lyre. The Lyre known of in classical Antiquity was typically played by way of it being strummed using a pletctrum, similarly to a guitar or to a zither rather than it being a plucked instrument like the harp. The fingers of the player's free hand would be used to silence the unwanted strings in whatever chord was being played. The lyre is quite similar in appearance to a small type of harp, but there are certain specifically differences in the way it looks and the way it plays that make it unique to the harp.

The word lyre is capable of referring either specifically to a common type of folk instrument, which is similar in nature but smaller than the professional Kithara or the Barbiton of Eastern-Aegean descent, or the word Lyre can refer generally to all three of these instruments in a single family of instruments.

Classification of the Lyre

Lyres from a variety of different times and places are all regarded by certain organologists as being a branch from the zither family of instruments. Organologists are specialists in the field of musical instrument history. The zither family is a general category of musical instruments that includes a wide variety of different stringed instruments including guitars, lutes, kantele and psalteries in addition to plain old zither instruments as well.

Lyre Construction

Classical lyre instruments have hollow bodies or hollow sound chests, sound boxes or resonators. Extending from the sound chest you will find two raised arms that are sometimes hollow. These arms are curved simultaneously forward and outward and they are connected by a yoke or a crossbar near the top. There is an additional crossbar that is fixed to the soundbox and makes the bridge, which is what transmits the string vibrations to create the sounds. The deepest note is the note that is the furthest from the body of the player. The strings never differed much in terms of length, but more weight may have been capable of being gained using thicker strings for the deeper notes just like with the violin or the guitar. Tension may also have played a role in achieving deeper notes with this instrument. The strings were made out of gut and stretched between the bridge and the yoke or to a tailpiece that was below the instrument's bridge.

There were two different methods of tuning the lyre, one which involved fastening all of the strings to pegs that could be turned, and the other method was to change the placement of the string along the crossbar. Sometimes both of these methods were simultaneously used for the best result.

Photo Credits: Remote Sky

Originally posted 2009-09-15 03:19:53. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Categories:

Acoustic Musical Instruments, Instrument History, lyre

Tags:

aegean, ancient greeks, barbiton, classical antiquity, crossbar, folk instrument, hollow bodies, kantele, kithara, lyre, lyres, musical instrument history, psalteries, recitations, resonators, sound boxes, soundbox, stringed instruments, stringed musical instrument, zither