A Lyre is a stringed musical instrument well known for its use in Classical Antiquity. The recitations of the Ancient Greeks were accompanied by it, yet the lyre was not of Greek origin. We have to seek in Asia, the birthplace of the genus, and to infer its introduction into Greece through Thrace or Lydia. The historic heroes and improvers of the lyre were of the Aeolian or Ionian colonies or the adjacent coast bordering on the Lydian empire, while the mythic masters, Orpheus, Musaeus and Thamyris, were Thracians. A string instrument (also stringed instrument) is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. ... This article describes the ancient classical period: for the classical period in music (second half of the 18th century): see Classical music era. ... Ancient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. ... World map showing location of Asia A satellite composite image of Asia Asia is the central and eastern part of the continent of Eurasia, defined by subtracting the European peninsula from Eurasia. ... Thrace is a historical and geographic area in south-east Europe spread over southern Bulgaria, north-eastern Greece, and European Turkey. ... See 110 Lydia for the asteroid. ... Aeolis (Aiolis) or Aeolia (Aiolia) was an area in west and northwest Asia Minor, mostly along the coast and offshore islands (particularly Lesbos), where the Aeolian Greek city_states were located. ... Ionian Islands Ionia (Greek Ιωνία) was an ancient region of western coastal of Anatolia (now in Turkey). ... For other senses of the word Orpheus, see Orpheus (disambiguation). ... Musaeus was the name of three Greek poets. ... In Greek mythology, Thamyris, son of Philammon, was a Thracian bard who was so vain and proud, that he boasted he could outsing the Muses themselves, according to a passage in Homer (Iliad, book ii, 594-600) that is taken up in Euripides Rhesus. ... Thrace is a historical and geographic area in south-east Europe spread over southern Bulgaria, north-eastern Greece, and European Turkey. ...

Woman playing lyre, 1913 photo posed to recall Classical Antiquity

The frame of a lyre consists of a hollow body or sound-chest. From this sound-chest are raised two arms, which are sometimes hollow, and are bent both outward and forward. They are connected near the top by a crossbar or yoke. Another crossbar, fixed on the sound-chest, forms the bridge which transmits the vibrations of the strings. The deepest note was the farthest from the player; but, as the strings did not differ much in length, more weight may have been gained for the deeper notes by thicker strings, as in the violin and similar modern instruments, or they were turned with slacker tension. The strings were of gut. They were stretched between the yoke and bridge, or to a tailpiece below the bridge. There were two ways of tuning: one was to fasten the strings to pegs which might be turned; the other was to change the place of the string upon the crossbar; probably both expedients were simultaneously employed. Woman playing lyre, 1913 photo. ... Woman playing lyre, 1913 photo. ... The violin is a stringed musical instrument that has four strings tuned a fifth apart. ... For the Physics term GUT, please refer to Grand unification theory The gastrointestinal or digestive tract, also referred to as the GI tract or the alimentary canal or the gut, is the system of organs within multicellular animals which takes in food, digests it to extract energy and nutrients, and...

The number of strings varied at different epochs, and possibly in different localities - four, seven and ten having been favourite numbers. They were used without a finger-board, no Greek description or representation having ever been met with that can be construed as referring to one. Nor was a bow possible, the flat sound-board being an insuperable impediment. The plectrum, however, was in constant use. It was held in the right hand to set the upper strings in vibration; at other times it hung from the lyre by a ribbon. The fingers of the left hand touched the lower strings. A plectrum (plural: plectra) is a device for plucking or strumming a stringed instrument. ...

There is no evidence as to what the stringing of the Greek lyre was in the heroic age. Plutarch says that Olympus and Terpander used but three strings to accompany their recitation. As the four strings led to seven and eight by doubling the tetrachord, so the trichord is connected with the hexachord or six-stringed lyre depicted on so many archaic Greek vases. We cannot insist on the accuracy of this representation, the vase painters being little mindful of the complete expression of details; yet we may suppose their tendency would be rather to imitate than to invent a number. It was their constant practice to represent the strings as being damped by the fingers of the left hand of the player, after having been struck by the plectrum which he held in the right hand. Before Greek civilization had assumed its historic form, there was likely to have been great freedom and independence of different localities in the matter of lyre stringing, which is corroborated by the antique use of the chromatic (half-tone) and enharmonic (quarter-tone) tunings pointing to an early exuberance, and perhaps also to an Asiatic bias towards refinements of intonation. Mestrius Plutarch (c. ... This article refers to a mountain in Greece. ... Terpander, of Antissa in Lesbos, was a Greek poet and citharode who lived about the first half of the 7th century BC. About the time of the Second Messenian War, he settled in Sparta, whither, according to some accounts, he had been summoned by command of the Delphian oracle, to... A quarter tone is an interval half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which is half a whole tone. ...

Types of Greek lyre:

• phorminx
• kithara

Other folk lyres: The kithara was an ancient Greek musical instrument. ...

• krar (Ethiopian)

See also: The krar is a five- or six-stringed lyre from Ethiopia and Eritrea, tuned to a pentatonic scale. ... The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (Ityopiya, Amharic ኢትዮጵያ) is a country situated in the Horn of Africa. ...

• aulos

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The ancient Greek aulos, often mistranslated as flute, was a double-piped reed instrument. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ( 1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...