I’ve tried so hard to string this thing. I just can’t get it. Is there anyone who would let me ship it to them and let me pay them to string it for me. This just so isn’t my wheelhouse

Hello !
I have a 10 strings lyre harp, but it’s IMPOSSIBLE to find tabs for this kind of lyre, I only found for 16 strings…
Does someone have some tabs or a website to share, or am I doomed to buy a 16 strings lyre ? 🥲

Hey everyone,

My partner knows it’s my dream to learn the harp one day, and, for my birthday, made me a 7-string greek lyre as a starter instrument.

Going to be honest here— I have never _faithfully_ played an instrument in my life, only played around, and I’d like the lyre to be my first instrument that I commit to fully. I’ve been very good at repeating things I hear on various instruments (like piano and flute) but I’ve never disciplined myself to stick to an instrument. I want this time to be different.

I was wondering if anyone could offer me some good tunes (of any culture, really) that I could learn to start to connect with this instrument.

He originally tuned it pentatonic for me (DEGABDE) but I want to learn other tunings and, dare I say, a tune or two. So, 7 stringed tuning suggestions also would be great!

In addition to all of these curiosities, I’d love to hear— who are your favorite lyre musicians/groups? I’d love to listen to more music featuring lyres to get some inspiration. Even better if it features a 7-stringed greek lyre, but idk if there’s professional players out there who stick to such a minimally stringed lyre?

As a sidenote, my partner is a well-rounded musician, but his instrument of choice is the Irish flute. So, it’d be really cool if the tune is Irish and could be accompanied by flute lol. It’d be nice to play with him.

TLDR: Beginner musician, first lyre; greek lyre, 7 strings. Looking for tuning and tune recs, don’t care what culture the tune belongs to, just want to be able to play it on a 7 string lyre and explore tunings. Irish tunes in particular would be cool. Also ISO good lyre music to listen to.

I really would like to start playing the lyre, and I'm interested in the Thomann angel harp, because it's affordable and I want to play mainly biblical songs, like the psalms. My problem is that I can't find any string replacements for it. It needs 10 nylon strings but Thomann only offers sets of 10 steel strings for their other lyres. If anyone could direct me to some string replacements, I would be grateful. Thank you for your time.

New to lyres… desperately trying to string it and failing and can’t find anyone in cincinnati who can :( dunno what to do

Hey everyone, sorry if this ends up a lengthy read, but I have a lot to say and a lot to ask regarding this project. I've wanted to make myself a lyre once I'm confident in my woodcarving, which will be a long way from now. That said, I'd still like to know what to expect going into this and how I should go about it in terms of specifics.

So, I initially planned my lyre to resemble the one in the third image, it looks easy and simple enough to make. I guess I got carried away in my design, though, cause I knew I want to carve leaves on the sides, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to with twig-thin branches. The first image is my current design thus far; my new plan is to carve the arms and tuning bar (is that what it's called?) out of one board as one piece and to glue them into holes drilled on the sides of the body. The body is also made of wood since I highly doubt there's anywhere I could find a cheap tortoise shell nearby. I'm bringing this up cause I'd like to know if this plan is in line with the type of lyre I'm adhering to in the reference picture, which I found out is called a barbiton. Since the body of a barbiton is traditionally made of a tortoiseshell, does that mean it has to be hollow? Also, how tall should my lyre be to qualify as a barbiton? The one in the reference photo looks fairly small and easy to carry around, but a lot of the photos of barbitons I've seen are very tall, they look the size of my whole torso with my head (god I love being a meter-sixty xd), but I know that a barbiton is supposed to be long to accommodate long strings, so how long would the smallest barbiton be?

Now, to turn away my reference image for a minute. My second image is a turnaround of a slightly older design, but the concept still applies to my current plan, that being with the strings. I don't know if this is hard to see, but I've planned to drill another set of holes in the back for the strings to pass through the body and tie the ends at the top of a tuning peg. I'm not sure if this is the exact place to turn to for woodcarving advice, but if someone could direct me to what drill bits I should use, and to how I should measure the holes to line up, that'd be great! It'd be helpful to go to when I need it.

On a less important note, I've also noticed that the guy in my reference image is holding a pick, and I thought it'd be cool to have a slot carved in the back for the pick to slide into, but I think this would just make things too complicated. In case this isn't doable, is there a way lyrists would store their picks that I could take on? By that I mean, would they tie a little pocket for the pick onto their lyre, would they just carry it around and shrug it off if they dropped it, did they just use whatever they found on the ground as a pick if they needed one (like a shell or a tiny pebble)? You tell me, I'm having trouble looking into this.

That's all I have in mind for now. Thanks for stopping by everyone, your advice means a lot! :D

I have been playing around on my lyre, and a few songs have parts that sound d really good when I rest the pads of my off hand on the brass plate where all the strings terminate. It gives it a soft, pleasing tone. Do they make a cork or rubber clamp that gives this tone to the lyre without me having to hug my lyre awkwardly?

I've recently bought a lyre from local music store. Quickly as I was tuning, I noticed some of the pegs are wonky. I've tried to reset them and screw back in straight, but they move out as I tune to get the right note.

Advice? Help?

I am a beginner harpist, but I travel a lot so I wanted to get a lyre seeing as I can play small pieces while traveling . Only thing is, bing right handed, my lyre goes down in notes as it gets closer to me, while harps go up. Is that the normal orientation of the lyre?

I am new to this instrument. I have a background in Indian classical singing, but I have never played a string instrument before.

I recently got my first 16-string Donner lyre, and tuning it has been a nightmare. I am using the gStrings app, but I am really struggling to keep it in tune.

How close should I tune each string to the target note? For example, if I am tuning a string to G3, does it need to match the exact G3 frequency shown in the app, or is being slightly above or below acceptable?

I have also noticed that the strings lose their tuning very quickly. Is this normal for a new lyre, or am I doing something wrong?

Just got a handmade Anglo Saxon/Sutton Hoo style lyre but I don't have any place to put it! I was thinking about keeping it on the wall like a guitar, but I don't know how I'd go about doing that. And I can't seem to find a case that's the right size. Any ideas?

I cant play with two hands at once, it try but i keep messing it up no matter how I practice. I keep either messing up the pace or missing the note entirely of im not focused on it. And it gets tiring after a while.

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Any advice on how to improve?

Just bought a 16 string lyre, nothing special, just a cheap one online with good reviews. My only musical training has been vocally, and I have struggled immensely with every instrument I've attempted to play in the past, simply because I was not able to make the connection between the notes in my head and the notes in my hand.

About 2 hours after fooling around with this lyre for the first time, I was able to play a couple simple songs (happy birthday, somewhere over the rainbow, silent night) by intuition alone! No sheet music or anything. I'm so excited and amazed. What a wonderful little instrument

So my new lyre just arrived Saturday. It's sadly not the Anglo-Saxon one I wanted (going to make sure I actually stick with playing before investing in a *real* instrument) but I bought a decent book about the Anglo-Saxon lyre with music and fingerings and all kinds of stuff. My instrument is a seven string, btw.

The one thing I haven't really figured out and what the book doesn't tell me is what octave to tune my lyre to. To learn I'm going to start with a G-scale (G,A,B,C,D,E,F#). I tuned "backward" and generally have been tuning everything to the 5th octave (to me the strings sound "tinny" at the 4th octave, like a guitar with a slightly loose string). However the two lowest strings I cannot get to G-5 and A-5 without basically unstringing themselves. The strings aren't breaking, but they are slipping on the tuning pegs which is telling me they aren't meant to get to octave 5. I tuned both to G-4 and A-4 respectively, but to me it sounds a bit...odd. Should I try to tune them all to the same octave? Should I try more expensive strings? These are probably run of the mill steel guitar strings. My book is giving me all kinds of different major/minor tunings but not the octave to tune to.

Lastly, is there a good Android app to use for tuning? I found an app specifically for the Lyre that I particularly like but I cannot figure out how to indicate a simple major scale (it's called LyreTune for anybody who wants to check it out and tell me how dumb I'm being).

I've always had a good ear for notes (which is another issue I'm having as I pick up on out of tune strings easily and tuning this thing is driving me absolutely insane at how *touchy* it is) and have grown up in a musical family as well as being able to read music (piano player, so both treble and bass) so the whole underlying issue that would cause me to drop playing is simple frustration. Any advice would be much appreciated as I already have a decent Anglo-Saxon LARP getup and being able to double as a bard and recite "Beowulf" in Old English would be just amazing.

EDIT: OK, I figured out stuff and I am fairly pleased with myself so far. Firstly, I finally got LyreTune to display the scale I wanted. I just had to change it to Lydios mode (whatever that means). Secondly, I ended up tossing the original large string in favor of a replacement that was longer. I'll have to trim it back a bit, but now I no longer have issues with the string slipping. I can tune it to a proper G4 without issues now. I may replace the strings with nylon because the steel strings are just *harsh.* I think the original issue I was having was the string just refused to keep the G4 and kept going flat.

I’m currently practicing this on the Windsong Lyre in Genshin Impact since I am a Massive Jeunesse fan.

I've played guitar for years, I just got a seven string aklot as my first lyre. This thing is FUN. It got me thinking, a lyre would be a great instrument to take when I go backpacking. The problem is all the lyres I've seen for purchase are way too heavy. If you were to build a hyper-minimalist ultralight lyre, what materials would you use? How would you do it?

how (if you do) do you write your sheet music for lyre because I’ve taken to using a treble and alto clef for mine because it means you fill both staffs on a 16 string,

My wife really wanted a Lyre because she has a left hand injury and had to give up guitar. So she bought this one in hopes to play it one-handed on her lap.

I have been a guitarist for over 30 years. I am trying to tune this thing up and it is downright impossible. I totally get that new strings need to stretch and that this type of instrument often needs many repeated tunings at first, but this seem extreme.

It is tuned with a tool, even just a tiny partial turn of the tool changes the pitch substantially, and the pitch IMMEDIATELY slips down almost a semitone or more.

In the world of guitars, there are tuning pegs that have "gear ratios" of 10:1 or even 40:1 - meaning you have to turn the knob/key 10 or even 40 times before it rotates the "post" a single time.

This instrument feels as if it has a 1:1 ratio for turning, and it's very slippery.

Is this just garbage? This thing seems like it might be ripe for modding somehow for better tuning stability.

It's a "Walter" brand from walter-musical.com

looks like this:

thanks!

Hello all! I’ve learned a couple songs on the lyre and would like to learn how to play this song I found. My only problem is I can’t seem to figure out what notes are played since the person who uploaded this is having their character play a lyre through some sort of game. I’ve included a screen recording of the vid, but here’s the link to the vid in case it’s more convenient.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!