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The earliest reference to the word "lyre" is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists" and written in the Linear B script. [5] In classical Greek, the word "lyre" could either refer specifically to an amateur instrument, which is a smaller version of the professional cithara and eastern-Aegean barbiton, or "lyre" can refer generally to all three instruments as a family. [6]
The cythara is a wide group of stringed instruments of medieval and Renaissance Europe, including not only the lyre and harp but also necked, string instruments. [1] In fact, unless a medieval document gives an indication that it meant a necked instrument, then it likely was referring to a lyre.
The Byzantine lyra or lira (Greek: 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 the fingertips and fingernails.
Five-string lyre from the Durham Cassiodorus, 8th-century A.D., England King David with his lyre, Vespasian Psalter, 8th century A.D. Kravic lyre, excavated at the Kravic farm in Numedal, Norway. Made of pine with seven strings. Monochord: The monochord was a theoretical instrument illustrated in religious miniatures.
See Rotta for the medieval lyre, or Rote for the fiddle. During the 11th to 15th century A.D., rotte (German) or rota (Spanish) referred to a triangular psaltery illustrated in the hands of King David and played by jongleurs (popular musicians who might play the music of troubadours) and cytharistas (Latin word for a musician who plays string instruments).
An artistic rendering of a medieval harp (Cythara anglica) from Martin Gerbert's De Cantu et musica sacra a prima ecclesiae aetate usque ad praesens tempus (Typis San-Balsianis, 1774). [1] Below it are a rebec or vielle and a lyre. The Germanic lyre was present in Western Europe before the harp, a version shown here as Cythara Teutonica.
The Cretan lyra (Greek: Κρητική λύρα) is a pear-shaped three-stringed Greek Violin, a traditional musical instrument, central to the traditional music of Crete and other islands in the Dodecanese and the Aegean Archipelago, in Greece.
The kithara (Greek: κιθάρα, romanized: kithára), Latinized as cithara, was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. It was a seven-stringed professional version of the lyre, which was regarded as a rustic, or folk instrument, appropriate for teaching music to beginners.