I didnt know this until this morning but Richard Dumbrills book THE ARCHAEOMUSICOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST is on Google Books and may be purchased for Google Play for a very reasonable sum. Regrettably I havent found a way to download specific pages to get illustrations but this is understandable; there is much information to gatekeep. So now I can read online whatever I want. If I want to copy and credit illustrations I must do my own scanning and conversion from the paperback book I have. So then: there is a long section (about pp. 251-276 and 278) which deals mostly with asymmetrical lyres both portable and standing, from different countries and over a considerable period. I find the following noteworthy: 1) When shown to be facing the bridge, the lyres always have their longest strings on the *left side, if one is a right-handed player. In other words, the bass strings are always nearest the player. 2) Is this bias something non-musical, something arbitrary? I doubt it, for when left-handed players are shown their lyres have their longest strings on the *right but still closest to the player. 3) This general placement of bass strings on the left remains true even with standing lyres, some quite massive and played by two players facing each other. 4) Some illustrations even of normally symmetrical zoomorphic lyres (the ones looking like bovines), as on the famous Standard of Ur, are drawn so that the strings nearest the player are slightly longer (page 251). 5) When the lyres bridge faces away from the viewer, the longest strings are on the *right, implying they would be longest on the *left when viewed from the front. 6) The above applies to lyres played upright mostly. When such lyres are held or played horizontally, the longest strings are always on the *top. 7) (Presumably) the symmetrical lyres of the same period followed the same rule: the bass strings were always closest to the player when the lyres were played standing vertically and always on top when playing horizontally. This is the opposite stringing convention from that normal to ancient harp illustrations and examples, which put the longest strings away from the player. If there are existing bridges or yokes or tuning pegs/sticks from ancient lyres of the time, asymmetrical or symmetrical, which show a contrary convention, I will be very interested to hear of them and of what contexts they have. Jrv Luthier, unless the musicologists in Spain (or someone here) can show you otherwise, on the consistent strength of this evidence I recommend you string your Lira de Luna in the future with the lowest string on the left, not on the right. Im going to restring mine accordingly and see where that convention leads musically.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:33:15 +0000
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