The Calabrian lira ( it, lira Calabrese) is a traditional
musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...
characteristic of some areas of
Calabria
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region in
southern
Southern may refer to:
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Italy.
Characteristics
The lira of Calabria is a
bowed
Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound.
Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to th ...
string instrument
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 ...
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.
serenade
In music, a serenade (; also sometimes called a serenata, from the Italian) is a musical composition or performance delivered in honor of someone or something. Serenades are typically calm, light pieces of music. The term comes from the Italian w ...
s and songs of
anger) and songs suitable for dancing (
tarantellas). The
repertory of this traditional instrument is known only through records of older players, or people who have known them. On the other hand, in recent years an increased interest around this instrument has led to its use by music groups of traditional music and to the appearance of new manufacturers in different parts of Calabria.
Origin
The Calabrian lira is closely related to the bowed
lira
Lira is the name of several currency units. It is the current currency of Turkey and also the local name of the currencies of Lebanon and of Syria. It is also the name of several former currencies, including those of Italy, Malta and Israe ...
(Greek: ''λύρα'') of the
Byzantine Empire. The Persian geographer of the 9th century
Ibn Khurradadhbih
Abu'l-Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh ( ar, ابوالقاسم عبیدالله ابن خرداذبه; 820/825–913), commonly known as Ibn Khordadbeh (also spelled Ibn Khurradadhbih; ), was a high-ranking Persian bureaucrat and ...
(died 911) was the first to cite the
Byzantine lira, as a typical bowed instrument of the Byzantines (Margaret J. Kartomi, 1990). Similar bowed instruments descendants of the
Byzantine lira have continued to be played in many post-Byzantine regions until the present day with small changes: the
gadulka in Bulgaria, the
lyra of Crete and the
Dodecanese
The Dodecanese (, ; el, Δωδεκάνησα, ''Dodekánisa'' , ) are a group of 15 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Turkey's Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited. ...
in Greece, the
lyra of Pontos and the
classical kemenche (Turkish:''Armudî kemençe'', Greek:''Πολίτικη Λύρα'' ~ ''Politiki lira'') in Turkey. The Byzantine lira spread westward to Europe, with uncertain evolution; authors in the 11th and 12th centuries use the words fiddle and lira interchangeably (Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009).
Bibliography
* Margaret J. Kartomi: On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments. Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology, University of Chicago Press, 1990
*''La lira calabrese'', supplemento a ''Calabria'', Catanzaro, maggio 1987, quaderno n. 2, anno XV, n. 25.
* libricino del cd La lira in Calabria - RLS 002 - Coop. "R.L.S.",
Catanzaro, 1994.
*''La lira'', di ''Goffredo Plastino'', Edizioni Monteleone (VV).
* "lira." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 28 February 2009
External links
Videos
Bowed instruments
Calabrian musical instruments
String instruments
Articles containing video clips