My best sources - Visual Depictions

I've compiled a list of my best lyre-references in photos, periodicals, websites, and books (although, I must admit, I haven't read 10 full published books -- most of my information came from articles. That's good, though! Books don't necessarily have to be peer-reviewed!). I know that I've mentioned quite a few of these in my end-of-the-page bibliographies, but I'm happy to say that I now have it narrowed down.

Visual Depictions

To be honest, a larger portion of my most useful images came from vases, all taken from the same article - "On the Shape of the Roman Lyre" from The Galpin Society Journal. My apologies, but they're simply the most insightful.

These three are all from the aforementioned article:

one

two

and three.

I found this one on my computer after an information binge.. If anyone has information on its source, I'd happily take it and give credit where credit is due..

The reason why these four all made it on the list is that they (as a cohesive collection) provide what I would consider minimum amount of information necessary to allow for my (okay, fine, the) curved lyre theory.

I must say, I find the fourth picture particularly interesting.. Now that I'm in the dark as to where this picture came from or its source, the gesture is quite mysterious! Is this man defending himself with his lyre, defending his lyre, or merely engaging star power to appease his screaming (and reaching) fans? I would love to see the rest of this vase.

My favorite surviving depictions are all of Apollo.. While Apollo has been interpreted many, many ways, his lyre holds a delightful (well, delightful for me) consistency.

Depiction of a very young Apollo playing his cithara (the performance/professional version of the lyre), now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum -- the angle in this picture really helps us get a good idea of how the strings would have fallen, and how the instrument would have sounded, providing this was made of wood. (this statue was made in the 2nd century, AD), picture found here

Image of Apollo with a Cithara, thanks to Wikipedia.. I love everything about this statue!

Image of an Imperial Roman Fresco, found on www.theoi.com,

The statues, found in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum and in the Museo Nazionale Romano, respectively, and the Fresco, found in the Museo Palatino, depict a Roman Apollo playing the cithara and the lyre. Note the ever-so-slight curvature of the arms (I know I keep beating this to the ground, but I still find it most fascinating.) -- as far as I'm concerned, if they took the effort to make the body THIS anatomically correct, the shape of the lyre would have a matched accuracy. The meticulousness of the depiction of the forms speak for the creators' virtuosity.

I have a ridiculously large collection of pictures. My original plan was to make a "top 10 most useful images" list... But I think that any of the other pictures (and, I assure you, I have MANY) would be superfluous.

Here's the Skinny

Apollo and the Marsyus, Athens National Museum, CA 350-320 BC. Thanks to http://www.mlahanas.de

Well, folks,

it's been an unusually and abnormally busy week. I've contacted three ISU professors regarding the development of the Greek/Roman lyre and kithara (I know I haven't mentioned this, but my flurry of sources keep reminding me that I must mention: the kithara [or cithara] is a lyre used for performance.).

Two professors answered me (hey, not a bad number!) and one of them had a rather extensive list of places to look for speculations (I might even go out on a limb here and say educated hypotheses) on ancient music - what it sounded like, what modes they played with, and even a few recordings. I'm very excited to show these to you, as soon as I can figure out embed code.

Let me make a few generalizations, though, until I can update this entry properly.

It appears, after 7 or 8 songs picked at random, that the primary mode of the Greeks was Phrygian. It's quite possible that stochasticity simply isn't in my favor and that my random choice led to an insufficient sample. I assure you - I will be commenting at length on a more deliberate sample size as soon as I can post these songs. Feel free to listen to them in their original home by following either of the links on this paragraph.

Another issue I very much want to address in this blog are music guilds of ancient Greece and Rome. For the record, I care not to comment on this until I have completely scoured my sources, but this seems to be a subject with a lot of room for research. Thusfar, there have been almost no references or information on Musical guilds (both performers and instrument craftsmen) on the internet. Thank goodness for the library (and for online bookstores), because I have quite a few sources that give me quite a bit of hope.

Until then, though, here's a FABULOUS list of sources I've been encouraged to read. I'm hoping to have a lot of information once I get my paws on them! It appears as though I'm going to have to do a lot of work with google translate, but it's awfully exciting to have access to information that non-german speakers don't yet have!

http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~timmoore/AncientMusicSelectedBibliography.html

http://www.iwu.edu/~classics/music.html

http://classics.uc.edu/music/michigan/index.html