Transcript To the lyre

The Ancient instruments and
their myths: string instruments
and Apollo
Vesa Matteo Piludu, 2010
Origins
• First string instrument in neolitic period
(8000-6000 BC)
• Lyres were know in Egypt and Near east
• Greek and Roman perfectioned the
original instruments
Ancient musical theories
• The civilization that used string instruments were
aware of the octave divided into 12 semitones
and of the perfect intervals (unisons, octave, fifth
and fourth)
• A primitive form of musical notation existed
• Even so, Ancients didn’t use musical notation
because music was considered an oral art
Apollonian side of Greek music
• Accompainment
• Poetry, epos, mythical memory, poetic
inspiration
• moderation, harmonius control and mental
equilibrium, health
• Harmony of the kosmos, mysticism
• mathematics, philosophical speculation,
astronomy
Apollonian side of Greek music
• education, maturation of the young
• unprofessional, domestic music,
aristocracy, conservativism
• virtuosi of the kithara, competitions
• songs, string instruments (lyra)
Lyra
• The most widely used and popular string
instrument in Ancient Greece was the lyra
• it was played not only by professional
musicians
• It was a symbol of Apollo
• used as part of young people’s education
• could be characterized as the national
instrument of the ancient Greek
Bow and Lyre
• Apollon have as attribute a bow and a lyre
(considered a musical bow)
Strings
• 3 strings, 4 strings, 5 strings,
• 7 strings, 9 strings, 12 strings
• 4 strings: seasons, four part of the world,
herma, equinoxes and solstices
• 7 strings: 7 planets, celestial spheres
Chelys Lyra (χέλυς λύρα)
• tortoise shell covered by leather
• The tortoise is a symbol of union between sky
and earth
• played by women: hetairai or courtesans who
entertained at the symposia
• respectable women played at weddings or for
their own entertainment
Historical origins
• Probably of neolithic origins
Herma: squared, 4 directions,
2 equinoces and 2 solstices
as the 4 notes of Chelys lyra
The Lyre, with 3 strings,
according to mythology was invented by Hermes
and was given to Apollo (who some say added another 4 strings).
Lyre symbolism
Earth-Sky
• Carapace: intermediary
between sky and earth
• Skin: sacrifice
• Two horns: celestial bull
• The lyre unified sky and
earth
Apollon and lyre
Hermes
• this instrument was discovered by the god
Hermes (messenger, boundaries, rites of
passage)
• At the age of one day, he climbed out of his
cradle and he found the shield of a turtle. He
stretched the skin of a cow around it, fixed
two horns through the holes were once the
paws of the animal stood
Synaulia
• Volume 2: string instruments
• Track 1: Invocation to Mercury, 4 string
lyre
• Every musical work started with the
invocation to Mercury (Hermes)
Ovid, V, 663 Fasti
• Come, oh famous nephew of Atlantis,
• Who one time at Jove produced one of the Pleiades on
the mountains of Arcadia
• Arbitrator of Peace and war for the celestial and infernal
gods
• Who runs trough the air with winged feet, thrilled with
the sound of the lyre
• Thrilled by the lucent gymnasium
• You who with your teaching began to speak the tongue
so elegantly
Synaulia
• Volume 2: string instruments
• Track 3: Ode to the lyre
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Five stringed lyres
First string: D3 or paranetè
Second: G2 or lichanós
Third: A2 mèsè
Fourth: paramèsè
Fifth: nètè
• Arpeggio with all five fingers, with both hands
Horatius – poem XXXII
To the lyre
• If I ever I would write with you, frivolous, in the shadow
• Something that in a year and ever more might last up
here, give me a Latin song, I pray
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O lyre, that was first held by Alceste of Lesbo,
so daring in war
Among the battles or tied to the banks
Of the shore-ridden ship
Horatius – poem XXXII
To the lyre
• Even Bacchus sang, the Muses and Venus
• And her son who accompanies her always
• With black eyes and dark hair, shining Lycos
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O glory of Phoebe (Apollo),
welcome to the table of the mighty Jove
Oh Cithara, oh from anxiety’s sweet relief
Be ready, when I call you
Synaulia
• Volume 2: string instruments
• Track 1: Villa of Mysteries
• Lyre, played with plectra, and Syrinx
• Two instruments that most perfectly
dictates musical intervals
Lyre and Syrinx at Villa dei Misteri
(Pompei)
Playing the lyra
• Classic Lyra
• customary tuning: Pentatonic without half
tones (E-G-A-B-D)
• Additional strings: duplicate the same
notes in the higher and lower octave,
• they don’t fill the missing notes F-C
• Curt Sachs ”History of the instruments”
Playing the lyra
• ”Nubian Style”
• The right hand scratched all strings at
once with a big plectron
• The fingers of the of the left hand deaden
those string which must not sound
• small ostinato motif
Other styles
• ”japanese koto style”
• a melody is tinkled out with the left fingers
• the plectrum scractched rapidly all the
strings to mark ”pauses” in the melody and
in the rythm
• Play with two hands
Phorminx (φόρμιγξ)
• One of the earliest form of the ancient
lyres and was mainly associated with the
presentation of Homeric epics
• It was considered to be a sacred
instrument and perhaps one of most
ancient string instrument
Playing a lyre, painted by the Achilles Painter, around 450-440 BC
Phorminx
• played by women and used as a domestic
instrument
• the wooden soundbox of the phorminx has a
softer, rounder curve
(13C fresco in throne room of "palace of Nestor" at Pylos)
Kithara (κιθάρα)
• Made by wood, it was usually designed
with a square base
• Developed from the Phorminx, probably
louder due to the larger sound box
• considered a demanding instrument as it
required skilful playing
• it was an instrument for professional
musicians called “kitharodoi” and was
used in music competitions.
The kithara
• The kithara was a large performance lyre
• held in the left hand, and strummed with the
right.
• The left hand was used to pull away strings
which were not to sound when strumming.
• Though famously of seven strings (the "seventone lyre") in the archaic and classical periods,
the performance kithara could have 11 or 12
strings by the Roman era, a practice which
probably began as early as the fourth century
B.C.
Historical origins
• Sumerian civilization (3000 BC)
• Kinnor in ancient Israel
• Ethiopians today use a similar instrument: Keràr
• In Rome there was a variety of Kitharas:
Contest of Apollo and Marsyas, 350-320 BC from Mantineia.
Part of the Base of a Sculpture, National Museum of Athens, Greece.
Synaulia
• Volume 2: string instruments
• Track 15: Phoebus
• Arpeggios
• Tuning E/G/A/C/D/E/G
• Sweet, harmonious
Emperors and Kithara
• Emperor Nero was a skilled kithara player
• Fair and well balanced man, patron of the arts and
reformer
• He called to his court the most esteemed kitharists of the
time: the Greek Terpnos and Menecrates
• He founded the neronia, a musical, gymnastic and
equitation festival: the kitharist Pollione was the idol of
the women in Rome
• Hadrian was himself a musician and encouraged musical
studies
Synaulia
• Volume 2: string instruments
• Track 6: Orpheus
• Kithara
• Tuning E/G/A/C/D/E/G transformed
• In E/G/A/C/D/D#/G
• E lowered by a semitone (blue note)
Ovidio Ars Amatoria III, 321
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The cantor of Rodope with his lyre
Moved wild beast and boulders
The three-headed dog, the infernal lakes.
By virtue of his song, both pebbles and rocks,
Just avenger of your mother,
New barriers were ready to be layered;
And story so famed,
Although speechless, even a fish had been moved by
the sound of the zither of Arion
Erato
• Erato, the muse of love poetry and geometry, played the
kithara
Synaulia
• Volume 2: string instruments
• Track 8: Erato
• Tuning: E/G/A/C/D/E/G considered the most harmoniuos
• Ovidius (Art of Loving II, 16):
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If ever I once was in your favor,
Come to me propitious, oh Cytherea,
And you, Love, who, from love
Oh Erato, have received your name.
Sambuca - Sambyke
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Sabka in Babylonian
Boat-like instrument
Arched orizontal harp
Symilar instruments are now
plyed in Africa and in Burma
(saung)
Sambuca-type instrument
Synaulia
• Volume 2: string instruments
• Track 9: Sambuca
• Burman sambuca with eight silk-strings
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Track 11: Syrian Dance
Sambikae: Syrian dancers
Sambuca tuned in C/D#/F/G/G#/A#/B/C
Tympans and fistulae, cymbalum
• Track 13: Cithara and Sambuca
• Painting from Stabia: demonstrate that the 2 instruments could be
played toghether
Cordae Obliuquae
• Other harp of
Egyptian origin
• Magadis in Greek: it
could have 20
strings
Synaulia
• Volume 2: string instruments
• Track 16: Cordae Obliquae
• Angular harp
• Sixteen intestinal strings
• Tuning: G/A/Bb/C/D/E/F/G/Bb
Pandura
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Sumeric
Little bow
3 strings
Trichordon in Greek
• Mandoline-like or lutelike instrument
Synaulia
• Volume 2: string instruments
• Track 12: Pandura
• Tuning: C F Bb
• Fingered scale: F/Gb/A/Bb/C/Db/Eb
Barbitos
• The poetess Sappho is shown often playing the
Barbitos in Lesbos where it was called barmos
"lyre for drinking parties"
πανδοûρα pandoura
Eros and pandura
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minor instrument in the
musical culture of Greece
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"vulgar" and "common"
Barbitos (βάρβιτος )
• It has longer arms than the lyra therefore it
has longer strings.
• This instrument has a lower extent and
produces a sweeter and deeper sound
than that of the lyra.
• Aristotle says that it is used for pleasure
and not for educational purposes
A Trigonon is a small triangular harp occasionally
used by the ancient Greeks
and probably derived from Assyria or Egypt.
Harp
• Considered an alien instrument in Greece
and Rome, coming from the Orient
• great number of strings
• played by women (heterae and ladies)
• Hedone, sensory pleasure
• played with the bare fingers, without
plectron
• 20 strings, ten double tuned in octaves
Harp Player around 2800-2300 BC (From Keros, Early Cycladic).
A woman (Terpsikhore) playing a Harp.
Magadis (μάγαδις )
• a harp with 20 strings, probably Lydian origin.
• It comprised two full octaves, the left hand
playing lower notes, the right the upper.
Hydraulos or Hydraulikon
organon
• The first keyboard musical instrument in
the history and ancestor of the later church
organ, invented by Ctesibius (Ktesibios) in
Alexandria.
• In 1992 Greek archaeologists recovered a
fragmentary hydraulis with 19 bronze
tubes dating from the 1st Century BC.
Archaeological Museum of Dion