lyre

lyre, generic term for stringed musical instruments having a sound box from which project curved arms joined by a crossbar. The strings are stretched between the crossbar and the sound box and are plucked with the fingers or with a plectrum. In ancient times Sumer, Babylonia, Israel, and Egypt had various sorts of lyres. Ancient Greece had two lyres—the kithara, which was the larger instrument used by the professional musician, and the lyra, the smaller instrument of the amateur. Each had from 3 to 12 strings, made of hemp. The tuning and playing techniques of modern lyres in E Africa are thought to be similar to those of ancient Greece and Egypt. After the 10th cent. the lyres of N European countries were bowed instead of being plucked. The bowed lyre that persisted longest was the Welsh crwth, known as early as the 11th cent. and still in use in the early 19th cent. At some time in its history a fingerboard was added, making it an early member of the violin family.

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lyre

East African bowl lyre; in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

(credit: Courtesy of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford)

Stringed musical instrument consisting of a resonating body with two arms and a crossbar to which the strings extending from the resonator are attached. Lyrelike instruments existed in Sumer before 2000 BC. Greek lyres were of two types, the kithara and the lyra. The latter had a rounded body and a curved back—often a tortoiseshell—and a skin belly. It was the instrument of the amateur; professionals used the more elaborate kithara. In ancient Greece the lyre was an attribute of Apollo and symbolized wisdom and moderation. In medieval Europe new varieties of lyre emerged that, like the kithara, were box lyres, although their precise relation to the lyres of Classical antiquity is not known. The lyres of modern East Africa probably reflect ancient diffusion of the instrument via Egypt.