Improvisation for Ancient Greek Kithara

A spontaneous improvisation for recreated ancient Greek kithara - the lyre of the professional musicians of classical antiquity, recreated in modern Greece by Luthieros:
www.luthieros.com
This improvisation hopefully demonstrates, how even with just 9 strings (the average number of strings on the ancient Greek kithara ranged from between 7-12 strings), the range of the kithara can easily be extended by use of harmonics and how just like a guitar (whose name is actually derived from 'kithara'!), rhythmic harmonies can be strummed across the strings - in the case of the kithara, those strings not desired to be strummed are blocked by fingers of the left hand whilst those strings desired to be sounded are strummed with a plectrum in the right hand.
My recreated kithara has unpolished gut strings, whose warm timbre and crispness of attack would be very similar in quality to the strings available to the professional musicians of ancient Greece, some 2,500 or so years ago.
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[@apanagapanag]

Awesome!Thank you Mr.Levy!

[@FruScarpia]

En härlig stund. Hoppas att vi kan njuta av musiken i samförstånd över alla gränser.❤️⭐️

[@MichaelLevyMusic]

Jag hoppas bara att min musik med antikt tema kan förringa alla de hemska saker som just nu händer i den moderna världen och på sitt eget lilla sätt, skapa en välbehövlig världsfred...

[@facoulac]

love your work on spreading the ancient lyre to the public!

[@MichaelLevyMusic]

I am glad you appreciate my ongoing musical mission! In our maddening modern world, full of shallow materialism, where stuff like an appreciation of cultural diversity & philosophical reflection are being forgotten, I really do think there is a growing niche for minamalistic, meditative music created on these amazingly recreated lyres of ancient times, when magic was perceived to be a very real part of the fabric of ultimate reality itself.

[@FruScarpia]

Hallå alla musikälskare!

[@PrimitiveInTheExtreme]

Wow what a wonderful instrument.

[@MichaelLevyMusic]

Just a pity that since this improvisation was so spontaneous, I neglected to first do something constructive with what is still left of my suitably mad professor-looking, un-combed hair! 😉

[@PrimitiveInTheExtreme]

@@MichaelLevyMusic 😂💚🤣

[@DieLuftwaffel]

Wow, very cool. At first I thought this was modernized with wing looking parts (sorry I dont know the terminology) on both the inside and outside of the bow/body(?) for acoustics or something, but then was surprised to see them depicted in the original artwork! Thank you for sharing!

[@MichaelLevyMusic]

The only frustration is that since no actual surviving ancient Greek kithara has ever been discovered yet, there is still plenty of debate on the alleged function of the various parts seen in all the original illustrations!
Some folk think the springy things below the tuning crossbar at the top were some sort of vibrato mechanism, whereas most musicologists reject this in favour of a more mundane structural reinforcement function (providing an equal & opposite push against the downward pull of the strings on the slender arms of the kithara).
As for the discs either end of the crossbar? Maybe aesthetic, maybe even symbolic of the sun disk to whom Apollo, God of music, was associated with? Who knows!