Genre with Lyre. The lyre is a string instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later periods.
The lyre is similar in appearance to a small harp but with distinct differences. In organology, lyre is defined as a yoke lute, being a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke that lies in the same plane as the sound-table and consists of two arms and a cross-bar.
In Ancient Greece, recitations of lyric poetry were accompanied by lyre playing. The earliest picture of a lyre with seven strings appears in the famous sarcophagus of Hagia Triada.
The sarcophagus was used during the Mycenaean occupation of Crete. The lyre of classical antiquity was ordinarily played by being strummed with a plectrum, like a guitar or a zither, rather than being plucked with the fingers as with a harp.
The fingers of the free hand silenced the unwanted strings in the chord. Other instruments, also called lyres, were played with a bow in Europe and parts of the Middle East, namely the Arabic rebab and its descendants, including the Byzantine lyra. The earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning lyrists and written in the Linear B script. In classical Greek, the word lyre could either refer specifically to an amateur instrument, which is a smaller version of the professional cithara and eastern-Aegean barbiton, or lyre can refer generally to all three instruments as a
The lyre is similar in appearance to a small harp but with distinct differences. In organology, lyre is defined as a yoke lute, being a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke that lies in the same plane as the sound-table and consists of two arms and a cross-bar.
In Ancient Greece, recitations of lyric poetry were accompanied by lyre playing. The earliest picture of a lyre with seven strings appears in the famous sarcophagus of Hagia Triada.
The sarcophagus was used during the Mycenaean occupation of Crete. The lyre of classical antiquity was ordinarily played by being strummed with a plectrum, like a guitar or a zither, rather than being plucked with the fingers as with a harp.
The fingers of the free hand silenced the unwanted strings in the chord. Other instruments, also called lyres, were played with a bow in Europe and parts of the Middle East, namely the Arabic rebab and its descendants, including the Byzantine lyra. The earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning lyrists and written in the Linear B script. In classical Greek, the word lyre could either refer specifically to an amateur instrument, which is a smaller version of the professional cithara and eastern-Aegean barbiton, or lyre can refer generally to all three instruments as a
Wikipedia ...