Lyre Facts
Lyre Facts
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| Interesting Lyre Facts: |
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| The word lyre is derived from an Ancient Greek word 'lura' which means a 'stringed instrument with sounding board made of a tortoise shell'. |
| The first lyres in Ancient Greece were made of tortoise shells. They had two fixed upright arms and a cross bar. There were tuning pegs often made of bone, ivory, wood or even bronze. Strings were usually made of sheep gut. |
| The lyre in Ancient Greece was one of the most popular string instruments of its time. |
| Lyres have had a variety of numbers of strings throughout history. The most common configurations have included lyres with 4, 7, and 10 strings. |
| Playing the lyre involved a plucking motion, usually with a plectrum (pic). |
| The classic lyre has a hollow body with two raised arms curved outward and forward and connected by a crossbar. |
| Most lyre players were male but some art dating back to 1300 BCE shows female lyre players. |
| Lyres were often depicted on ancient coins. |
| A lyre believed to be 2300 years old was discovered in Scotland in 2010. This makes it the oldest surviving stringed musical instrument in Europe. |
| Some people classify the lyre as an instrument of the zither family while others do not. |
| In Europe the lyre was known by a variety of names (with variations), including the gue or cruit in Scotland; the rote or crowd in England; the crwth in Wales; the giga in Norway; the talharpa in Estonia; the jouhikko in Finland; the Lira in Poland; the chorus in Latin; and the rotte, crotte, or Anglo-Saxon lyre in Continental Europe. |
| In Africa the lyre was known by a variety of names such as: the kisser, tanbura, or simsimiyya in Egypt; the tanbura or kisser in Sudan; the begena, dita, or krar in Ethiopia; the ntongoli or endongo in Uganda; the litungu in Tanzania; and the obokano, nyatiti, litungu, or kibugander in Kenya. |
| The lyre is mentioned in Beowulf - the Old English 3182 line epic poem written between 975 and 1010 AD. |
| In some places in north-east Africa the lyre is still played. |
| Lyres are sometimes confused with harps, but the strings on a lyre pass over a bridge and the strings on a harp enter through the instrument's body. The lyre is more similar to a guitar in that the strings passing over the bridge create the vibrations to the body. |
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