Fretting on a lyre

[tibicen]

This isn't early music but I sure found it fascinating from a historical instrument technique standpoint. This modern musical performance has a player of something that looks rather like a bowed lyre or crwth, which she seems to be fretting by pressing with the middle finger the string into the knuckle of the index finger. I've never seen anything like it, but it seems effective and fluent. I think those are, necessarily, low-tension strings, likely gut or plant fiber, given their flexibility and depth of pitch.

Anybody seen this before? Is this an innovation or a traditional/historical form? Anybody able to identify the instrument?

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[hudebnik]

Funky: it looks sorta like a Sutton Hoo lyre, but only three strings rather than six, and she's using it as a frettable melody string and two drones, like a lap dulcimer (or analogous to a bagpipe). I have no information to add beyond what you've said, but it's pretty.

[cellio]

That's neat. No idea what it is, but I like it. (The music community on Codidact is very very small, but I went ahead and asked there. I'll let you know if I learn anything.)

tagelharpa

[cellio]

Got an answer -- it's a tagelharpa (or talharpa), which Wikipedia describes thus:

The talharpa, also known as a tagelharpa (tail-hair harp) or the stråkharpa (bowed harp), is a four-stringed bowed lyre from northern Europe. It was formerly widespread in Scandinavia, but is today played mainly in Estonia, particularly among that nation's Swedish community.[citation needed] It is similar to the Finnish jouhikko and the Welsh crwth. The instrument is still known in Finland.[1]

Re: tagelharpa

[tibicen]

Hot darn! Thanks!

Re: tagelharpa

[cellio]

Thanks for sharing the video; I'd never heard of something like this before, and it's quite nifty.