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In all the Greek lyres we know about, the strings were secured to a brace ('tailpiece' would be the technical word) at the base of the soundbox and then passed over a bridge (magas or magadion) which held them off the soundbox while transmitting their vibrations to it. At the far end they were attached to the crossbar, and it was here that the tension was adjusted. |
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There was more than one method of attachment. The Mycenaean lyre of which some bits were retrieved from a beehive tomb at Menidi in Attica had holes drilled in its yoke, probably for fixed (not rotating) pegs round which the strings were secured. One or two early Archaic and even Classical representations have been interpreted as showing fixed pegs,61 but this is uncertain. What clearly was common, from the seventh century on, was winding the string round the yoke and binding in some kind of solid piece that the player could push up or down to adjust the tension. Sometimes it seems to have been a straight slip of wood or some other hard material. This is the same means of tuning as was used for the early Mesopotamian lyres. Often, however, the vase-painters depict a series of globules above and below the yoke. These have been taken as the ends of 8-shaped pieces,62 but some of the representations are very difficult to reconcile with this interpretation. They seem rather to be beads tied on the strings.63 From the sixth century we also find examples of a method used in Mesopotamia and Egypt in the New Kingdom and still employed in East Africa. The strings are wound on the crossbar over strips of cloth, leather, or other material, which sometimes appear as quite bulky bundles. To tune the instrument the player encircled the binding with his thumb and one or two fingers and rotated it on the crossbar.64 In other cases again, especially with lyras, the strings appear simply to be tied round the crossbar with no |
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61 E Pohlmann in Serta Indogermanica (Festschrift G. Neumann. Innsbruck, 1982), 307; Paquette, 97. |
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62 Pöhlmann, op. cit. 308f.; cf. H. Roberts (as n. 34). 307f.; Maas-Snyder, 98. |
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63 See esp. Paquette, 105 C3, 107 C6, 115 C21, 117 C28. 121 C36, 137 Cb7, 151 L2, 153 L4, 159 L20, 167 L36-7. |
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64 See Pl. 20; Rimmer, 14f., Aign, 290; Maas-Snyder. 2, 6, 7, etc.; Paquette, 96, 248f.: NG xi. 397f. Many vase-paintings show lyres being tuned: see H. Roberts in T. C. Mitchell (ed.). Music and Civilisation (British Museum Yearbook 4, 1980), 49 with n. 31. Paquette, 119, 121, 125, 127, 137, 157, 161, 163, 167, 169, 179, 185; Maas-Snyder, 72, 77, 111. |
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