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Apothacer — Six Stringed Saxon Lyre
Published: 2010-03-11 23:57:48 +0000 UTC; Views: 2637; Favourites: 18; Downloads: 113
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Description
A "little" project I worked on during winter break. Done using nothing but hand tools, most of them antique. Mainly chisels, spoke shaves, planes, and a gimlet to drill the holes. I do love spoke shaves. The body of this instrument is hollow, I needed to be very very careful not to chisel through the back. I'll be uploading details of this to scraps. The body is white pine, the face is spruce (a nice thin piece that would have been stock for making skis back in the day but never got used) and all the other pieces are cherry. It's tuned C, D, E, F, G, A... No frets, so you only got those notes, but the early Greeks managed with just four strings. Based on examples excavated in England and looking at tapestries and illuminated manuscripts, and a few stone carvings. Others have re-constructed them to have the entire body hollow save for the yolk, but I just left the belly hollow and the rest solid.Related content
Comments: 20
Hi Apothacer, I love your creation here, (and I am rather envious) I would dearly love to make one myself but know full well that would be an impossibility. I often dress as a Viking woman for all sorts of shows and demonstrate Nalbinding and spinning using tools I have made myself. I am very much a "one woman show" and (excuse the pun) I would love to have more strings to my bow and would really like to buy a Lyre such like your. Here's the question, do you make them to sell or do you know somebody who does? Just a thought. I dabble in Irish music with a flute and whistle and a bit of very bad banjo, so have a limited knowledge of music but hopefully enough to make some kind of sound with practice from an Anglo Saxon lyre. It would be great to hear if you do have any information, thanks, Sue
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How you know how long long it must be?
I'm impressed. Is it very difficult to build?
Daridel Paganfolk made one, so i think after i carved some figurines, i want to try it.
Do you have tips or advices? A blue print?
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The Greeks used seven strings, often in a pentatonic scale.
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lovely job! I'm sure it sounds as nice as it looks.
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In theory, I don't know how to play it. XD
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Jesus every time I remember to look in on you I end up seeing something crazy impressive.
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I'm surprised I upload stuff frequently enough for that to be true. XD
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lol i could but i have no idea where to get one in the uk short of going to a pet shop and killing a turtle which would be a little harsh on the poor turtle
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hmm, i've either got most of thos of can borrow them off of a mate, i shall have to have another look at the possibility of this once i've got a couple of my other projects out of the way as i have a chain mail shirt, a modification to a helmet' nasal and adding of a full chaimail aventail (one that covers the lower face)and possibly making of a suit of roman lorica segmentia armour to get through first
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Wow, that's a lot of work! If you wanted to save yourself a lot of woodworking you could always use natures natural instrument body, that is to say a turtle shell.
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that is beutiful, i've been wanting to have a go at making one of these for a while but i can't afford the proper tools at the moment and don't want to ruin it by trying with the wrong ones
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Well, what tools do you have? Having made this I can say the bare minimum would be a chisel (substitute for a router as the power tool equivalent) File or rasp, some sand paper, a knife, hammer, drill, and nails. I've seen people make these with nothing but a wooden cigar box! You just use the cigar box as the sound box and add the yolk. Right now I have a Greek Lyre in the works I should post pics of. Glad you like it! This thing only took me two days to build.
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This is awesome!!! It always seems to me that making instruments was a special sort of skill, and here you've made a beautiful and functional medieval looking instrument! I second the vote for a recording!
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I felt the same way! Then I just sort of... Threw myself at it. It's a really simple instrument to make. It's amazing the instruments I've seen people make.
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Simple or no, you can color me impressed 
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This is wonderful - functional, timeless and beautiful! Can you play and post a link to some of the sounds that it makes?
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Ahhh, yeah. >.> This is my first stringed instrument I've ever owned. I'm kind of throwing myself at learning it, but next time I get it in tune I'll get on camera and put it on youtube. Just play up and down the scale and some of the little things that... are not painful to listen to. Thanks for the comment!
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Sounds great (no pun intended!) I look forward to it.
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