The Phaistos disc is the oldest dactylic hexameter example and the earliest song in the world. Greek here is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language.
It always puzzles me how the first person even thought to put these things together to create this wonderful sound, when you take into consideration that this instrument is ancient and probably during that time life was extremely difficult and busy, and one hardly had time to sit around thinking of how to build a musical instrument.
Nowdays we have a difficult and busy life my brother cause "caring" about money make us so weak. The real power exists in knowledge which should be free for everybody. Don't believe that ancient times were worse than today.
Ancient hunters turned their bows into single stringed musical harps. By adding more and more strings, it became a triangular harp. Eventually, they turned the strings vertically, added a tortoise shell for a hollow amplifier, and attached a cross bar. Because of this you could carry it while you walked or rode on a horse as a portable instrument. Interesting note, the lyre and the bow are both symbols are related to Apollo. I think there's a correlation there
ACHO MUITO LINDO O SOM DESSE INSTRUMENTO! Por esse motivo eu também me senti inspirado para TOCAR, FILMAR E PUBLICAR. Quando tocamos esse instrumento, o som sai perfeito porque as cordas já estão afinadas baseadas em uma escala. Eu uso esse tipo de instrumento até para compor minhas músicas.
Ancient hunters turned their bows into single stringed musical harps. By adding more and more strings, it became a triangular harp. Eventually, they turned the strings vertically, added a tortoise shell for a hollow amplifier, and attached a cross bar, creating the first lyre. Because of this you could carry it while you walked or rode on a horse as a portable instrument. Interesting note, the lyre and the bow are both symbols are related to Apollo. I wonder if there is a hidden meaning there beyond that.
Some questions on lyre construction: Can you confirm that the arms were simply pegged in, as on your example? I have read of ancient accounts, mentioning the use of "canes", and that, without these, the lyre would simply fall apart. Is the back lacing of the skin corroborated by historical example? Ancient iconography does not show this, unfortunately. I realize that the modern style tuning pegs are more convenient; but have you tried the traditional tuning arrangement?
Yes, the ancient Greek texts about the construction of the lyre describe the use of reeds inside of the turtle's shell, which certainly played a useful role in the intensity created inside the turtle shell by the strings, etc. and sure some other roles. Our copy here is made of wood and not of turtle shell, as a result it has different pressures-tensions , so we place the arms little bent and inside the wooden shell as you would notice.They are very stable. As a result, we do not need reeds. We have also made lyres with the reeds way and lyres that their skin is stabilized with small pins, as it described in the ancient greek texts about the construction. Both ways of construction are remarkable and neither of our lyres has collapsed. In our workshop you can see our different types of lyres, even those that have different types of tuning pegs. Thank you very much for your time and your questions.
Fascinating! What are the original ancient sources which confirm that sometimes the shell of the Chelys form of lyre was sometimes made in wood (like the one being made here) in the form of the tortoise shell?
Dear Mr Levy thanks for your interesting comment , We believe that because the Greeks were philosophical and from them came the democracy, they would certainly have thought of making some wooden copies of turtle shells than killing the turtles, and we think that it is also very likely because they have built other musical instruments that were wooden. As we know, Unfortunately information to prove this has not yet been found. Nikolaos Bras is the first that revived the ancient Greek musical instruments, constructing them after a 35 years of research and study in collaboration with musicologists and archaeologists. Our musical instruments has been certified by the Ministry of Culture. We've ended up with certain woods that have the same hardness as a turtle shell and are very close to the sound that produces a true turtle shell. First of all our idea started for ecological reasons. Sorry if my English are not so good, I hope I made myself clear. :)
ευχαριστω! I've always wondered what they were like inside the chelys, is the bridge just stuck onto the skin surface or is it connected inside somehow?
Καλησπέρα σας, ρίξτε μια ματιά στο website μας αν θέλετε. www.nikolaosbrass.com Εναλλακτικά για περισσότερες πληροφορίες μπορείτε να επικοινωνήσετε μαζί μας μέσω της σελίδας μας στο Facebook facebook.com/nikolaosbras (Μουσικά όργανα ''Νικόλαος Μπράς'') Σας ευχαριστώ!
+Chinmay Ranodaria Hello, yes you can find a lot of books about ancient greek music and instruments, such as ''ancient greek music'' by M.L. WEST and other authors. I am glad that you liked the video.
+albusmagus I am indian classical music lover especially rudra veena its string instrument of india very deep voice I want learn and I want to know about world music
Yes it is a same size lyre with this in the video, I am Glad that you like the sound of our lyre, if you want you can hear some great bands that playing with ancient greek musical instruments we have made for them. One is : Daemonia nymphe and the other is : eveldor. Thanks
Καλησπέρα, είδα στο προφίλ σου ότι είσαι από Ελλάδα. Εμείς έχουμε απόθεμα από δέρματα που τα έχουμε φέρει από Αίγυπτο, μπορείς να κάνεις μία αναζήτηση στο ίντερνετ για "δέρματα κρουστών" νομίζω ότι θα βρείς. Για οποιαδήποτε πληροφορία μπορείς να επικοινωνησεις μαζί μας μέσω της ιστοσελίδας μας www.nikolaosbrass.com ευχαριστώ
+charaev82 Hello, and thank you for your interest. The tuning I used is based on the scale of A (A2,B,C3,D3,E3,etc. And the harmonics are per four strings. :)
Καλησπέρα σας, το εργαστήριο μας βρίσκετε στα Εξάρχεια. Μπορείτε να δείτε στον χάρτη την τοποθεσία του nikolaosbrass.com/index.php?controller=contact Εναλλακτικά για περισσότερες πληροφορίες μπορείτε να επικοινωνήσετε μαζί μας μέσω της σελίδας μας στο Facebook facebook.com/nikolaosbras (Μουσικά όργανα ''Νικόλαος Μπράς'') Ευχαριστούμε πολύ.
