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line (Pl. 24). Only one example gives an indication of the number of strings: it had four, or perhaps five. |
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The player is normally a woman (or Muse), or else an Eros. The lute is held horizontally with the neck to the player's left. The player stops the strings against the neck with the fingers of the left hand to shorten their vibrating length and raise the note to the required pitch. One representation indicates the presence of frets on the neck for the exact attainment of particular notes. The right hand uses a plectrum in some instances (as was customary with the lutes of the Near East), but in other cases the fingers pluck the strings. |
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The earliest literary allusion to lutes is perhaps to be found in the comic poet Anaxilas, sometimes in the mid-fourth century. In his play The Lyre-maker, the catalogue of this craftsman's products includes the trichordos, 'three-stringer'. An instrument with so few stringsat that dateis likely to be one so designed that the strings can be stopped in order to yield more notes, and that is likely to be a lute. According to Pollux, the trichordon (sic) was invented by the Assyrians, who gave it the name pandoura.144 He also refers to a monochordon invented by the Arabs. The ancient oriental lutes were indeed of one, two, or three strings. |
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The name pandoura (or pandouros, phandouros, pandouris, pandourion; Latin pandura) established itself as the usual one; it is first attested (but of a Nubian instrument) about 270 BC.145 Nicomachus identifies it with the monochord used by Pythagoreans for acoustic research, which suggests that he, like Pollux, knew of one-stringed lutes.146 |
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144 Anaxilas fr. 15, Poll., 4. 60. Clement. Strom. 1. 76. 5, ascribes 'the trichordon' to the Phrygian Agnis (= Hyagnis), but it is not certain whether an instrument is meant here (see p. 173 n. 43). Pandoura may ultimately (it has been conjectured) derive, through Semitic intermediaries, from Sumerian pan-tur 'little bow'. See however É. Masson (as n. 134). 91. It may also be related to tanbur(a), tambura and similar forms, which occur widely in eastern Europe, the Middle East, and central Asia as names of lute-type instruments. |
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145 Pythagoras (the explorer) ap. Ath. 183f: then Euphorion ap. Ath. ibid. and 182 e, Protagorides, FGrH 853 F 2, Varro Ling. 8. 61, Mart. Cap. 9. 906, 924 (where Egyptian origin is assumed: from Varro, De novem disciplinis?). S.H.A. Heliogab. 32. 8, Luxorius Anth. Lat. 371. 3, MAMA iii. 24. |
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146 p. 243. 14 J. The monochord. m which the pitch was varied not by stopping the string against frets but by moving a bridge under it, was not well suited to serve as a performing instrument. Ptolemy, Harm. 2. 12, discusses its shortcomings in this role. |
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