Learn to Play the Ancient Greek Lyre! (Lesson 1 -The Basics)

Today I'm going to feature the first in a series of some basic online lyre lessons. And the lyre I'm going to feature is this amazing beauty. This is handmade in Greece by a company called Luthérios Ancient and Modern Music Instruments. They have a store in Etsy where you can buy one of these amazing beasts. Now, Luthérios have been manufacturing these ancient Greek lyres as part of a project of theirs called the Lyre 2 Project. In short, the Lyre 2 Project, in which I am collaborating, is dedicated to reintroducing the lyre of antiquity back into our much more bland modern world. And it's about time as well because they're amazing instruments. So that's a bit about Luthérios. The type of lyre that I'm playing is what they call the chalice, which in Greek literally means the tortoiseshell lyre. Now, if you look at many pictures on ancient Greek vases, in ancient Greek times, actual tortoiseshells were used as the resonator of the back of the instrument over which its skin was stretched. But unfortunately, the species of tortoise that was used in ancient Greek times, and hence the variety of the European tortoise, is now sadly an endangered species. So Luthérios make all their instruments with a resonator fashioned in wood. And this actually gives a much more resonant sound than an actual tortoiseshell would give because a tortoiseshell is quite thick and much denser than wood. It's also quite likely that in ancient Greek times they also fashioned resonators out of wood as well as tortoiseshell. Obviously the wood would be fashioned in the form of a tortoiseshell. As we say, if you have a pair of tortoiseshell glasses, it doesn't mean that they're made of tortoiseshell, it just means they have a tortoiseshell effect. So that's a bit of the semantics about what a tortoiseshell lyre is, or can be, and what it isn't. Some details about the components of the lyre. As we see there's a skin membrane. The range of strings on the lyres made by Luthérios starts off with seven strings, that was like the lyre of Hermes. And the ancient Greeks generally had a seven string lyre because the ancient Greek Apollo was apparently born on the seventh day of the seventh month, and so seven became a sacred number associated with music. But Luthérios do a whole range of strings, from seven strings, nine strings, this particular model has eleven strings. I think they go right up to fourteen strings, but I find ten or eleven strings is the optimum amount. Any more strings, and it's almost impossible to actually tell which string you're playing, because unlike the harp, the strings aren't colour coded. So to actually get your bearings, you have to calculate in your head the spaces, the number of strings in between. So a fifth always has three notes in between it, a fourth has two notes in between it, and so on, that's how you can navigate. Another essential difference between the position of the strings on the authentic ancient Greek charise lyre and a harp, is that the strings are strung with the bass string nearest to the player, a bit like on a guitar, and the treble strings farthest away. And there's actually a really useful reason for this, that's because the resonance of the instrument can be felt with the bass strings nearest to the player. Whereas on a harp, the path of resonance is different. So as you're actually playing the instrument, you can actually feel the music as well as playing it. That's how people in the ancient Greeks were. So more about the components of the lyre. In ancient Greek times, the tuning pegs usually had some oxide, which you had to fiddle around with to actually get the thing in tune. Sometimes they had a tuning stick inserted into the leather, the band to help you a little bit, but it was still a very slippy method. So in order to actually manufacture these beautiful instruments on demand, and to make it more feasible to play, Lutherius used these very elegant looking friction pegs. They actually looked more like the original tuning sticks that would have been inserted into the string spool. So it was very aesthetically pleasing all round. They also, Lutherius, made these wonderful things called the talimon, I think I've pronounced that right, which is basically a strap that the left hand snugly fits in. Because as we're going to talk about lyre playing techniques, basically you do a combination of finger pluck tones with the left hand, that's why you need the talimon to keep your left hand in position, but also to keep the lyre upright, and plectrum pluck tones with the right hand. Lutherius also made these wonderful replica 2500 year old plectrums. I think these were actually made from authentic tortoiseshell as well, either tortoiseshell or bone. And I found these much more easy to use, in fact, than modern guitar picks. Because you can actually play a chromatic scale with them. You can use them as a fret on the string. So for example, if I play an open string there, hold this about an inch higher up, I can play a semitone below it. So and so, and you can play a full chromatic tone with one of these amazing replica 2500 year old plectrums. So that's a little bit about the various components of these beautiful lyres. In the next lesson, I'm going to show you some basics of how to get the instrument in tune. And I'm going to discuss about the ancient Greek modes, and how you can tune into the wonderful, pure, just intonation of antiquity. That's another story altogether. As we're going to progress through these basic course of lessons, I'm going to probably start off with something really nice and easy. This is actually one of my old piano books. Before I used to play the lyre, I used to, sadly, be a piano teacher for the eternally tone deaf. One of the books I used to use was this thing, which is available all over the world. It's called Me and My Piano, by the Waterman Harwood Piano Series, basically. And, up to about page 17, it will be great, because it teaches you the very basics, as well as learning to read music, if you can't already learn to read music. It's also going to show you all the way up to the string numbers, and the corresponding notes. So this is the book I'm going to start off with, just to get some absolute basics, and get familiar with which note is which on this beautiful instrument. Anyway, without further ado, that's plenty enough to take in for now. So, do check out my blog on the LyreTube project, which you can find on the homepage of my website, in the navigation bar at the top. And this gives all the links to the Theolos, and their beautiful range of lyres. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the course of lessons to come, and thank you for listening. Bye for now.