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Greek Musical Instruments
Greek musical instruments were grouped under the general term of "all developments from the original construction of a tortoise shell with two branching horns, having also a cross piece to which the stringser from an original three to ten or even more in the later period, like the Byzantine era". Greek musical instruments can be classified into the following categories: Ancient *Aulos *Barbiton *Chelys *Cithara (or Kithara) *Crotalum *Epigonion *Harp *Kanonaki *Lyre *Pan flute (Syrinx) *Pandura *Phorminx *Rhoptron *Sambuca *Salpinx *Sistrum *Psaltery *Tambourine *Trigonon *Water organ (Hydraulis) File:Mildenhall treasure great dish british museum, detail-- dancer with cymbals.jpg, Roman art, 4th century A.D. Dancer with cymbals. File:Mildenhall treasure great dish british museum, detail-- satyr with pan pipes.jpg, Mildenhall treasure, great dish, British Museum, detail-- satyr with pan pipes File:Mildenhall treasure, great dish, British Museum, detail-- aulos and tambourine.jpg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Music
Byzantine music (Greek: Βυζαντινή μουσική) is the music of the Byzantine Empire. Originally it consisted of songs and hymns composed to Greek texts used for courtly ceremonials, during festivals, or as paraliturgical and liturgical music. The ecclesiastical forms of Byzantine music are the best known forms today, because different Orthodox traditions still identify with the heritage of Byzantine music, when their cantors sing monodic chant out of the traditional chant books such as the Sticherarion, which in fact consisted of five books, and the Irmologion. Byzantine music did not disappear after the fall of Constantinople. Its traditions continued under the Patriarch of Constantinople, who after the Ottoman conquest in 1453 was granted administrative responsibilities over all Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. During the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, burgeoning splinter nations in the Balkans declared autonomy or autocephaly fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psaltery
A psaltery ( el, ψαλτήρι) (or sawtry, an archaic form) is a fretboard-less box zither (a simple chordophone) and is considered the archetype of the zither and dulcimer; the harp, virginal, harpsichord and clavichord were also inspired by it. Its resonance box is usually trapezoidal, rectangular or in the form of a "pig's head" and often richly decorated. Etymology The psaltery of Ancient Greece (''epigonion'') was a harp-like stringed instrument. The word ''psaltery'' derives from the Ancient Greek ψαλτήριον (''psaltḗrion''), "stringed instrument, psaltery, harp" and that from the verb ψάλλω (''psállō''), "to touch sharply, to pluck, pull, twitch" and in the case of the strings of musical instruments, "to play a stringed instrument with the fingers, and not with the plectrum." The psaltery was originally made from wood, and relied on natural acoustics for sound production. In the King James Bible "psaltery", and its plural, "psalteries", are used to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oudola
The Oudola is a stringed musical instrument. It is said to have been custom-built for Agapios Tomboulis, according to his own specifications. He combined the words oud and mandola, and named it oudola. See also * Bouzouki * Pandura * Tambouras * Cretan lyra * Tzouras The ''tzouras'' ( el, τζουράς), is a Greek stringed musical instrument related to the bouzouki. Its name comes from the Turkish cura. It is made in six-string and eight-string varieties. The six-string model has the same arrangement of st ... References {{Greek musical instruments Greek music Greek musical instruments Armenian music Armenian musical instruments Necked bowl lutes Greek inventions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandola
The mandola (US and Canada) or tenor mandola (Ireland and UK) is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin: the four double courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola ( C3-G3-D4-A4), a fifth lower than a mandolin. The mandola, though now rarer, is an ancestor of the mandolin. (The word ''mandolin'' means ''little mandola''.) Overview The name ''mandola'' may originate with the ancient pandura, and is also rendered as mandora, the change perhaps having been due to approximation to the Italian word for "almond". The instrument developed from the lute at an early date, being more compact and cheaper to build, but the sequence of development and nomenclature in different regions is now hard to discover. Historically related instruments include the mandore, mandole, vandola (Joan Carles Amat, 1596), bandola, bandora, bandurina, pandurina and – in 16th-century Germany – the quinterne or chiterna. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 strings, although five (10 strings) and six (12 strings) course versions also exist. There are of course different types of strings that can be used, metal strings are the main ones since they are the cheapest and easiest to make. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin (G3, D4, A4, E5). Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass. There are many styles of mandolin, but the three most common types are the ''Neapolitan'' or ''round-backed'' mandolin, the ''archtop'' mandolin and the ''flat-backed'' mandolin. The round-backed version has a deep bottom, constructed of strips of wood, glued togethe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qanun (instrument)
The qanun, kanun, ganoun or kanoon ( ar, قانون, qānūn; hy, քանոն, k’anon; ckb, قانون, qānūn; el, κανονάκι, kanonáki; he, קָאנוּן, ''qanun''; fa, , ''qānūn''; tr, kanun; az, qanun; ) is a string instrument played either solo, or more often as part of an ensemble, in much of the Middle East, North Africa, West Africa, Central Asia, Armenia, and Greece. The name derives ultimately from Ancient Greek: κανών kanōn, meaning "rule, law, norm, principle". The qanun traces one of its origins to a stringed Assyrian instrument from the Old Assyrian Empire, specifically from the nineteenth century BC in Mesopotamia. This instrument came inscribed on a box of elephant ivory found in the old Assyrian capital Nimrud (ancient name: ''Caleh''). The instrument is a type of large zither with a thin trapezoidal soundboard that is famous for its unique melodramatic sound. Regional variants and technical specifications Arabic qanuns are usually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four- course Renaissance guitar, and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calabrian Lira
{{Infobox Instrument , name=Calabrian lira , names=Lira Calabrese, Lira , image=IMAG1951.jpg , background=string , classification=Necked bowl lutes , hornbostel_sachs=321.321-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Necked bowl lute sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Byzantine lira, Byzantine Empire (''historic'') *Cretan Lyra, Crete and Dodecanese, Greece *Gadulka, Bulgaria * Armudî kemençe, Istanbul, Turkey (Greek: ''Πολίτικη Λύρα'' - ''Politiki lyra'') *Lijerica The Calabrian lira ( it, lira Calabrese) is a traditional musical instrument characteristic of some areas of Calabria, region in southern Italy. Characteristics The lira of Calabria is a bowed string instrument with three strings. Like most bowed liras, it is played upright, usually supported on the knee, held with the left hand touching the strings with the nails laterally while the right hand moves the bow. The repertory of the lira includes accompaniment songs (e.g. serenades and songs of anger) and song ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cretan Lyra
) * Lira da braccio * Rabāb (Arabic الرباب) * Lijerica * Violin , musicians = * Andreas Rodinos * Alekos Karavitis * Antonis Papadakis (Kareklas) * Kostas Mountakis * Nikos Xilouris * Psarantonis * Ross Daly * Yiorgos Kaloudis * Thanassis Skordalos * Georgia Dagaki The Cretan lyra ( el, Κρητική λύρα) is a Greek pear-shaped, three-stringed bowed musical instrument, central to the traditional music of Crete and other islands in the Dodecanese and the Aegean Archipelago, in Greece. The Cretan lyra is considered to be the most popular surviving form of the medieval Byzantine lyra, an ancestor of most European bowed instruments. Playing style The lyra is held vertically on the player's lap, in the same way as a small viol, rather than being placed under the chin of the player like a violin. For normal right-handed playing, the player's right hand holds the bow. The strings are stopped by pressing the fingernails of the player's left hand against th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bouzouki
The bouzouki (, also ; el, μπουζούκι ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', from Greek ), also spelled buzuki or buzuci, is a musical instrument popular in Greece. It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat top and a long neck with a fretted fingerboard. It has steel strings and is played with a plectrum producing a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but pitched lower. There are two main types of bouzouki: the ''trichordo'' (''three-course'') has three pairs of strings (known as courses) and the ''tetrachordo'' (''four-course'') has four pairs of strings. The instrument was brought to Greece in the early 1900s by Greek refugees from Anatolia, and quickly became the central instrument to the rebetiko genre and its music branches. It is now an important element of modern Laïko pop Greek music. Etymology The name ''bouzouki'' comes from the Turkish word , meaning "broken" or "modified", and comes from a particular re-entrant tuning ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Lyra
The Byzantine lyra or lira ( gr, λύρα) was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. In its popular form, the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by stopping the strings from the side with fingernails. The first known depiction of the instrument is on a Byzantine ivory casket (900–1100 AD), preserved in the Bargello in Florence (''Museo Nazionale, Florence, Coll. Carrand, No.26''). Versions of the Byzantine lyra are still played throughout the former lands of the Byzantine Empire: Greece ( Politiki lyra, lit. "lyra of the City" i.e. Constantinople), Crete (Cretan lyra), Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Croatia ( Dalmatian Lijerica), Italy (Calabrian lira) and Armenia. History The most likely origin is the pear-shaped pandura, however with the introduction of a bow. The first recorded reference to the bowed lyra was in the 9th century by the Persian geographer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
String Instruments
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the String (music), strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow (music), bow. In some keyboard (music), keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord, the musician presses a key that plucks the string. Other musical instruments generate sound by striking the string. With bowed instruments, the player pulls a rosined horsehair bow across the strings, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician cranks a wheel whose rosined edge touches the strings. Bowed instruments include the string section instruments of the orchestra in Western classical music (violin, viola, cello and double bass) and a number of other instruments (e.g., viols and V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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