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Greek Musical Instruments
Greek musical instruments were grouped under the general term "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 music, Byzantine era". Greek musical instruments can be classified into the following categories: Ancient *Aulos *Barbiton *Chelys *Cithara (or Kithara) *Crotalum *Epigonion *Greek harps, Harp *Kanonaki *Kymbalon *Lyre *Pan flute (Syrinx) *Pandura *Phorminx *Rhoptron *Sambuca (instrument), 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 kymbalon. 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, ...
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Byzantine Music
Byzantine music () originally consisted of the songs and hymns composed for the courtly and religious ceremonial of the Byzantine Empire and continued, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, in the traditions of the sung Byzantine chant of Eastern Orthodox liturgy. 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 o ...
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Sistrum
A sistrum (plural: sistra or (in Latin) sīstra; from the Greek ''seistron'' of the same meaning; literally "that which is being shaken", from ''seiein'', "to shake") is a musical instrument of the percussion family, a form of rattle, used most notably by the ancient Egyptians. It consists of a handle and a U-shaped metal frame, made of brass or bronze and ranging from in width. The frame supports sliding metal cross-bars, which may hold metal rings. When shaken, the small rings or loops of thin metal on its movable crossbars produce a sound that can vary from a soft clank to a loud jangling. Its name in the ancient Egyptian language was ''sekhem'' ''(sḫm)'' or ''sesheshet'' ''(sššt)'' because of the sound it made when it rattled. The ancient Egyptian sistrum had important associations with religious and ritualistic practices concerning various musical and joyful deities. A ''sekhem'' is the simpler, hoop-like sistrum, while a ''sesheshet'' (an onomatopoeic word) is the ...
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Guitar
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or Plucked string instrument, plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A guitar pick may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either Acoustics, acoustically, by means of a resonant hollow chamber on the guitar, or Amplified music, amplified by an electronic Pickup (music technology), pickup and an guitar amplifier, 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 nineteen ...
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Calabrian Lira
The Calabrian lira ({{langx, it, lira Calabrese) is a traditional musical instrument characteristic of some areas of Calabria, a region in southern Italy. Characteristics The lira of Calabria is a bowed string instrument with three strings. Like most bowed lyras, 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 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 lyra (Greek: ''λύρα'') of th ...
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Cretan Lyra
The Cretan lyra () is a pear-shaped three-stringed Greece, Greek Violin, a traditional Greek musical instruments, musical instrument, central to the traditional music of Crete and other islands in the Dodecanese and the Aegean Islands, 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 the side of the string, rather than by pressing the string against the fingerboard. This gives it a different tone from the violin. Older lyras (lyrakis) have one string which is normally not fingered and is used as a Drone (music), drone, playing the same ...
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Bouzouki
The bouzouki (, also ; ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', , from Greek , from Turkish ) is a musical instrument popular in West Asia (Syria, Iraq), Europe and Balkans (Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey). It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat 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. It is the precursor to the Irish bouzouki, an instrument derived from the Greek bouzouki that is popular in Celtic, English, and North American folk music. There are 3 main types of Greek bouzouki: the ''trichordo'' (''three-course'') has three pairs of strings (known as courses) the ''tetrachordo'' (''four-course'') has four pairs of strings, & then the ''pentachordo'' (''five-course'') with 5 pairs of strings. The instrument was brought to Greece in the early 1900s by Greek refugees from Anatolia, and quickly became the central ...
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Byzantine Lyra
The Byzantine lyra or lira () 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 the fingertips and fingernails. The oldest known depiction of the instrument is on a Byzantine ivory casket, dated to circa 900–1100 AD, preserved in the Bargello in Florence (''Museo Nazionale, Florence, Coll. Carrand, No.26''). Modern variants of the lyra are still played throughout the Balkans and in areas surrounding the Black Sea (and most of the historical territories of the Byzantine Empire), including Greece, Crete ( Cretan lyra), Karpathos (Karpathian lyra), Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria (the '' gadulka''), North Macedonia, Croatia ( Dalmatian '' lijerica''), Italy (the Calabrian lira), Turkey (the '' politiki lyra'' and the Pontic lyra or ''kemençe'') and Armenia. History The most lik ...
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Baglamas
The baglamas ( ), plural '' baglamades'') or baglamadaki (), a long necked bowl-lute, is a plucked string instrument used in Greek music; it is a smaller version of the bouzouki pitched an octave higher (nominally D-A-D), with unison pairs on the four highest strings and an octave pair on the lower D. Musically, the baglamas is most often found supporting the bouzouki in the Piraeus city style of rebetiko. The body is often hollowed out from a piece of wood (''skaftos'', construction) or else made from a gourd, but there are also baglamades with staved backs. Its small size (typically 21.5in, 55cm in total length, but only 4.5in, 12cm wide) made it particularly popular with musicians who needed an instrument transportable enough to carry around easily or small enough to shelter under a coat. During parts of the 20th century, players of the bouzouki and baglamas were persecuted by the government, and the instruments were smashed by the police. See also * Bouzouki * Pandura ...
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String Instruments
In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some string instruments, like Guitar, guitars, by plucking the String (music), strings with their fingers or a plectrum, plectrum (pick), and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow (music), bow, like Violin, violins. 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 classic ...
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Barbitos
The barbiton, or barbitos ( Gr: or ; Lat. ''barbitus''), is an ancient stringed instrument related to the lyre known from Greek and Roman classics. The Greek instrument was a bass version of the kithara, and belonged in the zither family, but in medieval times, the same name was used to refer to the '' barbat''; a different instrument that is a variety of lute. Error in the use of names The barbat or ''barbud'', began being translated into Latin as ''barbiton'' sometime during the late Middle Ages, a mistaken practice which has passed into English and other European languages through long misuse. The barbat is an unrelated lute-family instrument developed in Persia, whereas the barbiton (a bass kithara) was developed in Greek-speaking western Anatolia, where it was popular, and spread into the rest of the Aegean. ::Throughout this article barbiton refers to the Anatolian / Aegean instrument, and barbat is the name used to refer to the lute-family instrument from Persi ...
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Kymbalon
:See also Carillon and Bell chime'' The cymbalum (plural ''cymbala'') was the name of two historical instruments, medieval European bells hung and struck with a hammer and Greek ''kymbalon'' cymbals. The two instruments may possibly be related, based on the same name being used for both and for the similar "cup-like shape." This relationship in not unique to European bells and cymbals; Persian bells ( zang) and cymbals ( sanj) share a similar word spread. The singular ''cymbalum'' is a single chime bell, while ''cymbalum'' refers to a group of bells (a bell chime). ''Chimes'', which today are bells and bell sounds (such as clock chimes) derives from cymbala. The term is used for "stationary bells...less extensive than a carillon", such as tubular bells in an orchestra. Chimes is used for groups of bells hung in a "set location", with a "limited range" of tones that are struck. They may be large or small. In simple applications such as on a clock, chimes may be diatonic (two notes ...
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Water Organ
The water organ or hydraulic organ () (early types are sometimes called hydraulos, hydraulus or hydraula) is a type of pipe organ blown by air, where the power source pushing the air is derived by water from a natural source (e.g. by a waterfall) or by a manual pump. Consequently, the water organ lacks a bellows, blower, or compressor. The hydraulic organ is often confused with the hydraulis. The hydraulis is the name of a Greek instrument created by Ctesibius of Alexandria. The hydraulis has a reservoir of air which is inserted into a cistern of water. The air is pushed into the reservoir with hand pumps, and exits the reservoir as pressurized air to blow through the pipes. The reservoir is open on the bottom, allowing water to maintain the pressure on the air as the air supply fluctuates from either the pumps pushing more air in, or the pipes letting air out. On the water organ, since the 15th century, the water is also used as a source of power to drive a mechanism similar ...
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