Lyra (Bowl fiddle)

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Instrument

Lyra/Fiddles/Strings/Musical Instrument ; Lyra

Instrument Family

Strings

Place Made

Europe ; Greece ; Southern Europe

Date Made

Circa 1965

Description

Pear-shaped fiddle carved from one piece of wood with separate sound-table, rounded triangular head, and decorative carvings. Technical description: Upper neck and pear-shaped body of hollowed-out wood, maximum width 113, depth 53; the surface of the resonating chamber covered with a flat piece of wood (depth 6.5 - 4.0) glued into place; 2 kidney-shaped sound holes in soundboard; tailpiece screwed to body; concave ridge cut out of base of body; roughly shaped pegs inserted in triangular pattern through back of top of neck, the string from the central peg (at apex of triangle) passing over a bridge roughly in line with the other two pegs; 3 metal strings. Decorative carvings on head (a sailaboat with stars above) and under the strings (a clock face). Decoration: Top of neck decorated with roughly scratched picture of two-masted sailing ship, and a clock face below the pegs showing 3 o'clock; design marked out with blue/black pigment, and the whole instrument varnished. Bow: Thick, rigid bowstick having the general form of a violin bow, carved from a single piece of pale wood, matching the wood of 353-1. Strung thinly with horse hair or nylon (?) reinforced with a braid of string where it passes under the heel. Bow string knotted to stick and secured by small wooden peg at the tip. Performance and cultural association: The lyra is central to the traditional music of Crete and other islands in the Dodecanese and the Aegean Archipelago, in Greece. It is considered to be the most popular surviving form of the medieval Byzantine lyra, an ancestor of most European bowed instruments. 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.

Notes

P.R. Cooke, 1995.

Measurements

385.

Collection

MIMEd ; Macaulay Collection

Accession Number

0353

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