The Lyre of Classical Greece!  

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What is the Lyre of Classical Greece, and how it played a key role in shaping the Ideal Past of humanity and ideas such as philosophy, culture, scientific thought, and democracy? What does it have to do with Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Pericles, and Classical Greece in general?
Let's find out the basics in a short video (only 4 minutes), a great introduction to our "10 Ways to Play with your Lyre" video that will premiere soon!
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📽️ Directed by Nikolaos Koumartzis
🎙️ Presented by Lina Palera
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🗒️ 🇬🇧 Transcript
This is the ancient lyra, a musical instrument that dates back thousands of years, all the way to Classical Greece and even beyond. It was present when the greatest philosophers came to be, when ideas were formed that still make us think the way we think today; it was also present when democracy was born.
It was there when Pythagoras talked about the Music of the Spheres, when Pericles gave the order for the Parthenon to be built, and when Plato wrote The Republic, where he presented the ideal society and his ideal philosopher-ruler.
We are sure that the ancient Greek lyra, or lyre as we call it today, was present thanks to hundreds of ancient depictions on pottery, both in black-figured and red-figured amphorae and dozens of ancient Greek statues. We know further details that cannot be depicted visually but can be described verbally, thanks to surviving text sources authored by Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristoxenus, and more.
These sources, though, reveal to us something even bigger and mind-blowing. There are surprising passages from various respected authors,
with credibility beyond all doubts, that the ancient lyre was not just present in all these amazing turning points of the human species. The ancient lyre and the deep integration of music into Greek society were one of the main reasons all these amazing things, philosophy - ideas - and democracy came to be in the first place.
Protagoras, for example, prescribes for the children to hear "harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the children's souls, so that they become more gentle."
In a famous passage from the Republic, Plato says that the proper education of his ideal city's guardians should be physical and musical.
In his famous Timaeus, Plato mathematically relates music with the constitution of the world's soul. He goes even further and says that this harmonic order of the universe can be instilled in the human soul through the psychagogic power of music.
And to quote him, in his Republic, Book 3, he states that «rhythm and harmony penetrate most deeply into the secret places of the soul and take a powerful hold on it, bringing gracefulness if a man is correctly trained."
So, we know what the ancient lyre looked like, what was the music theory behind its teaching, and how it was able to positively form the soul of an individual human and, therefore, gracefully form the collective soul of an entire society.
If we want, then, to introduce the lyre to our lives and gradually to our society, we have to find out how it was played too. Thanks to many ancient sources and modern interpretations from various virtuoso musicians around the world, here are 10 ways to play with your lyre.