Lyre (musical instrument)
The lyre (from the Greek «λύρα», later in Latin «lyra»), is an ancient plucked string instrument, shaped like an abacus, whose origin the Greeks attributed to Hermes, god of rhetoric and trade (other less popular versions attribute it to the muse Polyhymnia, one of the nine artistic muses, daughters of Zeus). It was the musical instrument that Orpheus carved, and the one carried by Apollo (god of music), as a symbol of the unification of the citizen state, of culture, music, religion and science. This instrument was very important in daily and popular life in all Greek populations, and it is very common to find scenes in ancient vessels where characters can be seen playing the lyre and other chordophone instruments.
The lyre is a musical instrument that, like the harp, is played with both hands.
According to the Bible, centuries later, in the hands of David, the poet and wise king, he played the lyre (kinnor) as the psaltery, evoking the union with divinity and religion. King David played the lyre to calm Saul.
Some instruments descended from the lyre are the zither, harp, guitar, and lute, which continue the tradition of the lyre to this day as the instruments of the poet and troubadour. Djehuty is the god of wisdom, writing, music and the Moon, in Egyptian mythology. He was related to music as the inventor of the lyre. Precisely the lyre comes from the Egyptian harp.
History
The oldest and simplest lyre had three strings but later became four, five, six, seven and even twelve. In Egypt, he came to have up to eighteen. The parts of the lyre, in addition to the strings were:
- the Box, which was initially made with turtle shells and after wood.
- the Table that closed the box and that was often nothing but a simple distended dry skin.
- the assemblers adopted to the box.
- the yogo placed through one mount to the other.
In Greece, the three strings were named after the three Muses of Delphi; from low to high: Nete, Mese, and Hípate. a certain kind of lyre, whose phonetics inspired a new instrument, the cello. The addition of the mogas made the lyre heavier than the zither and for this reason they carried it hung on the back by means of a strap or balteo, and from this Apuleius derived the name apta balteo , that is, suitable to be hung on the back. Philostratus describing the lyre of Amphion (king of Thebes) says that the wood used in the construction of the lyre was boxwood and the rest was made of wild goat horns. The two arms of the Terpsichore lyre in the Napoleon Museum are made of rings. This lyre represents one of those that are made of a tortoise shell and the arms of goat horns. The lyre, which Achilles holds in his hand in the 8th plate of the 1st volume of the Herculaneum paintings, is red in color, from which it can be deduced that they painted the wood of the lyres that color that was the favorite of the. A passage from Ovid's splendors shows that the Citarists liked to wear a Chlamys or red-colored cape. The aesthetics of the instruments for that time also included decorations in gold and white, and with elegant finishes.
Poets have understood by lyre the most beautiful and calmest harmony so it plays a big role in their poems and they talk enthusiastically about the pleasure it causes. It had the advantage of being able to sing and accompany it and it was used in tragic choruses. Precisely, "lyre" comes from the Greek "λυρικός" (lyrical or lyrical).
The art of playing the lyre was called citaristica or lirística, and the act of playing was given the names Lyrizein, Kytarizein and Psallein and the players the lyricists and citarists. The one who sang and accompanied himself on the lyre was known by the name of Lyrodos or Citharaedus and those of Lyrodia and Citharaedia were the words that designated the action of accompanying each other in this way. Sometimes the lyre and the flute accompanied each other to what Suidas gives the name of Synaulia or according to the Attic dialect xynaulia with whose word the reciprocal accompaniment of two flutes was understood..
It would be long to list the musicians who have been famous on this instrument. Mythology points to Apollo, Mercury, Terpsichore, Orpheus, Lino, Amphion, Demodocus, etc. as the most famous. All the Greeks learned music and at the beginning or at the end of the meals they sang songs called scolia and mainly that of Harmodio and Aristogiton. He passed the lyre from one to the other and each one in turn sang a verse accompanying himself with it. In Athens, having on such an occasion passed the lyre into the hands of the great military strategist Themistocles, who did not know how to play it, he was held for lack of education. The word amousikos or man who does not know music meant a man without taste and without education or, as they say among us, a redneck.
Many centuries later, in his Renaissance work entitled Lira Barberina, Giovanni Battista Doni made a collection of different lyre figures. He gave it that title because he gave in it the explanation of one that he had fabricated for Cardinal Francesco Barberini according to the system of the ancients as he conceived it. The editor of this work, after Doni's death, put together in two large volumes everything he had written about music.
In pre-classical Greece, and with the evolution of the theories of harmony, where the discussion that the number of notes should be 7 was definitively closed, it was common to use lyres and zithers with seven strings.
Mythology
In Greek mythology, the lyre was invented by Hermes, who gave it to Apollo in exchange for the caduceus (a rod with two snakes that represents trade) and, since then, it has figured as an attribute of this god. In Egyptian mythology the god Djehuty was associated with music and was considered the inventor of the lyre: its name is said to come from the lily flower due to its very similar shape.
Classical Greek lyre
In Ancient Greece, the recitation of lyric poetry was accompanied by the playing of the lyre. The oldest image of a Greek lyre appears on the famous sarcophagus of the Hagia Triada (a Minoan settlement on Crete). The sarcophagus was used during the Mycenaean occupation of Crete (c. 1400 BC).
The lyre of classical antiquity was usually played by strumming like a guitar or zither, rather than being plucked like the harp. A pick called a plectrum was held in one hand, while the fingers of the free hand muted unwanted strings.
Construction
A classical lyre has a hollow body or sound box (also known as a sound box or resonator), which, in ancient Greek tradition, was made from the shell of a tortoise. Two arms protrude from this sound box raised, sometimes hollow, and curved outward and forward. They are connected near the top by a crosspiece or yoke. An additional crosspiece, fixed to the soundboard, constitutes the bridge, which transmits the vibrations of the strings. The lowest note was the closest to the musician's body; as the strings did not differ much in length, more weight could be gained for the lower notes with thicker strings, as on the violin and other similar modern instruments, or they were tuned to a looser tension. The strings were made of gut. They were tensioned between the yoke and the bridge, or to a stringer below the bridge. There were two ways of tuning: one was to attach the strings to pegs that could be turned, while the other was to change the placement of the string on the crosspiece; it is likely that both files were used simultaneously.
Lyres were used without a tuning fork, and no Greek description or representation has been found that can be interpreted as referring to one. Nor was it possible to use a bow, as the flat soundboard was an insurmountable impediment. However, the pick or plectrum was used constantly. It was held in the right hand to vibrate the upper strings; when not in use, it hung from the instrument by a strap. The fingers of the left hand plucked the lower strings (presumably to mute those whose notes were not wanted).
Number of strings
Before the Greek civilization had assumed its historical form, it is likely that there was great freedom and independence of the different localities in the matter of stringing the lyre, which is corroborated by the ancient use of chromatic (medium) tunings. tone) and enharmonic (quarter tone)—pointing to an early exuberance, and perhaps also a bias toward refinements of intonation. The number of strings on the classical lyre therefore varied, three, four, six, seven, eight, and ten having been popular at various times.
The priest and biographer Plutarch (c. AD 100) wrote of the Archaic period musicians Olympus and Therpander using only three strings to accompany their recitation; but there is no evidence for or against this dating back to that period. The earliest known lyre had four strings, tuned to create a tetrachord, or series of four tones that filled the interval of a perfect fourth. Doubling the tetrachord produced a lyre with seven or eight strings. Likewise, the three-stringed lyre may have given rise to the six-stringed lyre depicted on many archaic Greek vases. The accuracy of this rendering cannot be stressed, as the vase painters were little conscious of the full expression of detail; however, it can be assumed that their tendency would be more to imitate than to invent a number. It was constant practice to represent the strings as being damped by the fingers of the musician's left hand, after having been struck by the plectrum held in the right hand.
Origin
According to ancient Greek mythology, the young god Hermes stole a herd of sacred cows from Apollo. So that they would not follow him, he made shoes for the cows that forced them to walk backwards. Apollo, following the tracks, could not follow where the cows were going. On the way, Hermes sacrificed one of the cows and offered the gods everything except the entrails. With the innards and a turtle shell, he created the Lyre. Apollo, finding out that it was Hermes who had his cows, confronted the young god. Apollo was furious, but after hearing the sound of the lyre, his anger faded. Apollo offered to exchange the herd of cattle for the lyre. Hence the creation of the lyre is attributed to Hermes. Other sources attribute it to Apollo himself.
Some of the cultures that used and developed the lyre were the Greek colonies of Aeolia and Ionia on the shores of Asia (formerly Asia Minor, present-day Turkey) that bordered the Lydian Empire. Some mythical masters, such as Musaeus, and Thamyris, are believed to have been born in Thrace, another place of extensive Greek colonization. The name kissar (cithara) given by the ancient Greeks to Egyptian snare instruments reveals the apparent similarities recognized by the Greeks themselves. The cultural heyday of ancient Egypt, and therefore the possible antiquity of the first instruments of this type, is before the 5th century Classic from Greece. This indicates the possibility that the lyre existed in one of Greece's neighboring countries, be it Thrace, Lydia, or Egypt, and that it was introduced to Greece in pre-classical times.
Middle Eastern Lira
The Ur lyres, excavated in ancient Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), date back to 2500 BC. C. and are considered the oldest surviving string instruments in the world.
The kinnor is an ancient Israelite musical instrument of the lyre family, the first to be mentioned in the Old Testament. Its exact identification is unclear, but today it is generally translated as "harp" or "lira", and is associated with a type of lyre depicted in Israelite imagery, particularly on Bar Kochba coins. It has been called the "national instrument" of the Jewish people, and modern luthiers have created lyre reproductions of the "kinnor" based on this imagery.
Central and Northern European Lira
Reproduction of the lyre of the actual burial of Sutton Hoo (England), c.600 AD
Reconstruction of a Germanic lira (Rotte, Round lyre)
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Other instruments known as lyres have been made and used in Europe outside the Greco-Roman world since at least the Iron Age. The remains of what is believed to be the bridge of a 2,300-year-old lyre were discovered in the Isle of Skye, Scotland in 2010 making it the oldest surviving piece of a stringed musical instrument in Europe. Physical evidence suggests that lyres became widespread during the Early Middle Ages, and one view holds that many modern stringed instruments are examples of the late-appearing lyre class. There is no clear evidence that non-Greco-Roman lyres were played exclusively with a plectra, and numerous instruments considered by some to be modern lyres are played with bows.
Lyres which appear to have arisen independently of the Greco-Romans [were used by the Germanic and Celtic peoples of the Early Middle Ages. They are sometimes called a psaltery. Dates of origin cannot be ascertained, which probably vary from region to region, but the oldest known fragments of such instruments are thought to date from the V d. C., with the discovery of the Abingdon Lyre in England.
Other instruments
- Citara
- Kithara
- Hydraulis
- Selfish (instrument)
- Tympanum
- Kinnor
- Music of Ancient Greece
- Music of Ancient Rome
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