The Sound of the Ancient Greek Kithara

Another 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
Techniques demonstrated include rhythmic harmonies strummed across the strings - 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.
Finger-plucked, pure consonant intervals of 5ths & 4ths also can be played by the left hand to effortlessly accompany any melodic line, with variety in timbre provided by the occasional use of harmonics.
Although harmony in the modern sense of chord progressions may not have been used in ancient music, the use of these consonant intervals to accompany melodic lines was clearly documented and although no specific codification of specific rules yet existed for the composition of counterpoint, spontaneously improvised counterpoint was commonplace, particularly in the performance of the aulos - 2 reed pipes played by the same performer, simultaneously:
ancientlyre.co...
Just like modern acoustic guitar technique, rhythm can also be tapped on the body of the kithara during performance (I tap the back of the kithara with fingers of my left hand for this section of the improvisation).
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.
The distinctively dreamy characteristics of the mode of this improvisation, is created by the use of the ancient Greek Hypolydian Mode - the conjunction of 2 tetrachords which forms the equivalent intervals as F-F on the white notes of the piano, but heard here in the intense focus of just intonation.
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[@PrimitiveInTheExtreme]

WOW!!!

[@malvasia17]

If I was king Menelaos I would invite you to play your Lira in my palace in «κητώεσσα» ( this is how Homer called the land ok Lacedemonia)

[@Zangyb]

Sounds like the real song

[@facoulac]

as a greek i find this music magestic.

[@MichaelLevyMusic]

As a British musician dedicated to 'continuing where the ancients left off', I find your comment even more majestic! You have so much heritage to be rightly proud of.