Ancient Greek Musical Instruments

Lyra archetypely called Chelys, because of the tortoise shell utilise as its sound box. According to Nicomachus of Gerasa (Ist centime. AD), the tortoise-shell Lyra was invented by god Hermes, who gave it to Orpheus. Orpheus taught Thamyris and Linos, and Linos taught Hercules. When Orpheus was killed by the Thracian women, his lyra was thr admit and twisted into the sea, and washed ashore at Antissa, a city of Lesbos, where it was found by fishermen, who brought it to Terpander, who in turn carried it to Egypt and presented it to the Egyptian priests as his own creation. We dont manage how many strings the original Lyras had. By the time of Terpander (8th-7th cent. BC) Lyra was a septet stringed factor and from many ancient sources we know that this type remained in use for a long time during the classical period. The gain of an eighth string in the sixth century BC is credited by Nicomachus of Gerasa to Pythagoras. By the fifth century in that location were Lyras with anyth ing from 9 to 12 strings. The strings (neura) were make of animal gut of sinew, but on that point are excessively references of strings do of linen or hemp.Lyra was mainly employ for the musical education of the young, and by inexpert players in general. Cithara plucked instrument with 5 strings originally, but later with as many as 12 strings. Cithara was large than the Lyra and it was the principal concert instrument vie by professional musicians, the citharodes. According to Plutarch, cithara was knowing by Cepion, a student of Terpander. many instrument names same guitar, cittern, cither etc. derive from the word cithara. Barbitos or Barbiton is an instrument of the Lyra family and resembles a Lyra, but it has longstanding arms and narrower sound box.Musicians of the School of Lesbos, like Alcaeus and Sappho, are frequently d epic poemted in vases playing the Barbitos. Phorminx probably the oldest of the Cithara type instruments. From references in ancient sources (Ho mer, Hesiod, Aristophanes) we know that Phorminx was richly decorated with gold and ivory, and accompanied the singing of the epic singers called rhapsodes. Epigonion belongs to the psaltery family and it is the instrument with the largest number of strings, sometimes as many as forty (Polydeuces).It whitethorn owe its name to the fact that it was contend on the knee Greek epi gonu, or peradventure because its inventor was someone named Epigonus. Pandouris or pandourion, also called trichord because it had three strings, is the first fretted instrument known, forerunner of the various families of lutes worldwide. Source of our familiarity about this instrument is the Mantineia marble (4th cent BC, now exhibited at Athens archaeologic Museum) depicting the mythical contest amid Apollo and Marsyas, where Pandouris is being played by a muse seated on a rock.