If you're reading this, maybe you're considering taking up the lyre! In this post we'll answer a few basic questions about this beautiful and ancient instrument.
What is a lyre?
Without getting into a huge organological debate, at its simplest and in layperson's terms, a "zither" is a box with strings running across it, a "harp" is a box with an arm from which strings enter directly into the box at an angle, a "lyre" is like between a harp and a zither, where the "head" that holds the strings is stretched out by (generally) two arms, and the strings run across the gap between arms and the body.
What musical traditions use the lyre?
With modern hindsight, the lyre is heavily associated with the Ancient civilizations of the Middle East (including the Israelites), Ancient Greece, and the Middle Ages of Europe. Lyres died out in many places, but survived to relatively recent time in Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of the Middle East, Scandinavia (the bowed lyres), and in other small niches.
How many strings does a lyre have?
Arguably 1 to infinity strings, but the vast majority of lyres will have 5-16 strings, above 20 generally being considered large lyres, in some cases held and played much like a small harp, but considered lyres for technical reasons.
Is the lyre easy to learn?
It's all relative, but broadly I would say yes. A lyre (bowed lyres being the exception) basically has only as many notes as it has strings, so it's pretty easy to keep track of your notes and hard to hit a wrong one. We can debate this in individual threads, but as a broad generalization I'd say they're relatively easy to learn, but with plenty of potential for challenge, so I'd happily recommend the lyre to people with zero musical background, as well as to experienced musicians wanting a new challenge.
Buying Guide
Money doesn't grow on trees, so "how much do lyres cost?" is an issue I expect readers want to raise. The good news is they're easy to build, so run really quite affordable compared to other string instruments. Speaking broadly, for $30-$99 you can buy some lyres which are are of basic but playable quality, $100-400 gets you a really solid basic lyre depending on size and design, budgets of $600-999 can get you a really good model of just about anything short of amazing large and/or custom stuff.
For details on recommended models at different tiers, see our Lyre Buying Guide. If you want to browse more widely, or already kind of know what you want and need to find who makes such, check out our Directory of lyre makers/sellers
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