The lyre is one of the oldest musical instruments. Discovered in the city of Ur in Mesopotamia, it tells a fascinating story, as it made its journey from Mesopotamia to the distant lands. During ancient times, the stringed instrument was highly popular among musicians and music lovers for its ability to produce a melodious sound (LINK 1). According to Greek myth, Hermes invented the first lyre. He was the messenger of God. One day, he stole the cattle of his brother Apollo and hid them at a safe place. Then, he creates the instrument with the help of a tortoise shell and cow gut. When Apollo discovered the theft, Hermes play a tune on his newly invented musical instrument in such a beautiful manner that Apollo gets impressed, and make a deal with Hermes to get lyre. Later on, Apollo achieves excellence in playing the instrument, and till date, it remains associated with his …show more content…
The letters were written and arranged by Pliny for publication in the first century (LINK 15).
Bird who mimics
Parrot has an excellent ability to mimic sounds, but the Superb Lyrebird native to Australia is found to surpasses all other avian creatures in this regard. The scientific name of the bird is Menura novaehollandiae. It's spectacular tail resemble a lyre that he uses to attract the females (LINK 16). The best thing about their mimicry is that the pheasant-sized birds are so well in this art that they can even fool other birds like Kookaburra, Eastern Whipbird, and more.
The lyrebird imitates artificial sounds like that of a toy gun, electric drill, saw chain, tapping, hammers, camera shutter, and even whistle of a human being with pitch -perfect accuracy.
In fact, the bird can break into a song in which he can mimic the sounds of more than two dozen birds (LINK 17). Such a songbird definitely deserves to be called the
As a musician one of the most frequent questions that I receive is, “What instrument do you play?” When I answer, the look on the persons face is a face of confusion. “What’s a euphonium?” they ask. This occurs not only to me, but to every euphoniumist who is ever asked this very question. Although the word euphonium is foreign to most people, the instrument is not. The euphonium, with its beautiful rich tone is the chief tenor soloist in the military and concert band. The euphonium is a conical-bore, baritone voiced brass instrument that derives its name from the Greek word euphonos. When separated, eu means well or good, and phonos means of good sound. Therefore euphonos means well sounding. In this paper I will discuss the history of the euphonium and its use in the world of music today.
Lee's novel bluejays, finches, and mockingbirds. All these birds sing different songs and so do
The reason the bull is wearing a fake beard, is because the bull represents the underlying, intense emotion behind the music. While the beard represents all of the theory behind the music like the arrangements of the notes, or the tempo. The Mesopotamians are comparing the idea of music and harmonies, to taming a bull. Think of all the endless fiddling, stringing, and tuning these ancient people would have to do just to get the strings in tune with one another, let alone in tune with another lyre. Music in those days wasn’t as simple as going out and buying a guitar, and machine to tune it.
In ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, much like modern human, had a passion for music. The Mesopotamians and Egyptians incorporated music into most festivities, celebrations, and even funerals. That being said, there was a vast number of different instruments that were used such as; idiophones, membranophones, aerophones, and chordophones. This showed that even in one of the world’s earliest civilization, music played an important role in people’s everyday lives. One of the most known instrument from this time is the Lyre (Figure 1).
Egypt, a country on the continent of Africa then developed these instruments further as it had the resources and was a wealthier to the rest of Africa. There are few remains of African instruments, only very few stone ones have been found in the tombs in Egypt. Most of the history of the instrument is relied upon paintings and sculptures found in Egypt. From Egypt these developed primitive instruments soon spread throughout the rest of Africa. The advanced state of music among the most ancient Egyptians is shown by the excellent instruments they made and used, as many of harps and lyres were of beautiful workmanship.
Even in ancient times, music was favored. Just as there is now, there were hundreds of instruments including the lyre. “A lyre, one of the most ancient musical instruments of the stringed kind. There can scarcely be any doubt that this and similar instruments were used by the Eastern nations and by the Egyptians, long before the Greeks became acquainted with them, and that they were introduced among the Greeks from Asia Minor” Leohard Schmitz stated. Greece and was a unique instrument in the musical world. According to Ellie from Crystalinks.com, ”The lyre references music and harmonics. The lyre is a stringed musical instrument well known for its use in Classical Antiquity. The recitations of the Ancient Greeks were accompanied by lyre playing. The lyre is a member of the zither family, and was ordinarily played by strumming with a plectrum, like a guitar, rather than being plucked, like a harp. According to ancient Greek