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Hellenes: Greek Musical Instruments
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Posted by Webmaster on September 20 2004, 03:24 PM
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The Greeks loved music and their writers wrote much about how learning to play an instrument was a vital part of education, even more important then physical workouts, in Plato’s opinion.
The first Greek musical instrument we shall look at here is the Lyre family of instruments. Lyres were used every where in the world of Greek music and could be found providing the sound for many songs. There was many different kinds of lyres in Greece throughout ancient times, some of these are:
The Chelys Lyra: this lyre was traditionally seen at weddings, symposiums, and men’s dancing activities. It was mostly played by the heteras (female musicians) .The Chelys Lyra had three to four strings .It is held as the first true lyre.
The Phorminx: this lyre had a wooden sound box on it instead of a turtle shell covered with leather, like the Chelys Lyra. Phorminxs amount of strings is unknown, though probably less then a Kithara but more then a Chelys Lyra .The Phorminx was used by professional musicians.
The Kithara: the most well known of all lyres the Kithara had several similarities to the Phorminx in construction. Kitharas had seven to eleven strings .The Kithara is best remembered because it is the ancestor of the guitar.
The Barbitos: this lyre has a deep base sound to it. Its number of strings is unknown. The Barbitos was unlike the others used to make recreational music.
The Harps is another string family in Greek music, harps were used every where, like lyres. Unlike Lyres however there is little documentation on harps, with the exception of the Psalterion, which was used to accompany hymns in Christian churches in the Greek (Eastern) half of the Roman Empire after Constantine’sreforms.
The Flute family makes up the Greek wind instruments and like the lyres and harps were wide spread and every where. The flutes ranged from simple tubes to instruments like the modern flute, clarinet, and oboe. There was different kinds of flutes in the Greek world, two of these are:
The Aulos: one of the best known of the flutes and the most common the aulos (called the dialous) consisted of two pipes that one person held in the mouth at the same time, one pipe made a basic tone and the other a specific melody that goes along with the base tone. To help a person hold the aulos in their mouth the Greeks invented a head band (called the Phorbeia) that helped hold the auloi (the plural of aulos) in the mouth.
The Panpipe (also called the Syrinx): this flute was another well known flute that consisted of seven pipes bound together of varying length, the shorter the tube the higher the pitch. The panpipe is usually associated with shepherds.
There are many other Greek instruments out there that just don’t fit into the above families. They range from cymbal like to organ like; some of them are listed below:
Kymbala: this instrument is a type of cymbals, shaped like half globes
Krembala: this instrument another kind of cymbals mentioned in a Homeric poem.
Krotala: this instrument was made from split reed or cane, which clattered when shaken with the hand.
Tympanon: this instrument is a small drum often associated with the wine cult
Krupezion: this instrument is a kind of foot instrument used by flute players, a metallic piece attached to the bottom of the player’s sandal
Xylophon: this instruments name gets it name from the Greek words xylon, which means wood, and phone which means voice
Platagh: this instrument was developed from a child’s rattle
Salpinx: this instrument is similar to our trumpet
Sambyke: this instrument was invented by Ibykos from Sikyon. Not much else is known (an interesting fact here is that the Sambyke is one of those few instruments that we know the historical inventor of, all the others have mythological inventors, but no known historical ones)
Keras: this instrument was shaped like a curved horn
Kochlos: this instrument was shaped like a shell type and it sounds like a trumpet
Seistron: This instrument is a kind of metallic rattle, its origins are probably from Egypt where a similar instrument was used for religious ceremonies.
Rhombos: While this instrument does exist we don’t know much about it
Bronteion: this instrument was used in theaters to produce a thunder like noise
Hydraulis: this instrument was a primitive kind of organ instrument and the ancestor of the later church organ, invented by Ctesibius (Ktesibios) in Alexandria during the time of the Roman Empire.
As seen here the Greeks had a wide and varied group of instruments at their disposal and they were used for everything thing. Today we remember the Greek musical instruments, because as with so many other things the Greeks invented, we would not have some of our modern instruments without these Greek ancestors. |
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