Lyra Tarhu
This design began as a way of making the sound characteristics of the Tarhu available to players of the traditional Cretan Lyra. All lyra techniques are directly transferable to the lyra tarhu without the player making any adjustments. Like all tarhus, the lyra tarhu has a strong, rich and clear sound capable of great breadth in tone colour variations.
Photographs
or high resolution (200k > 300k)
underneath each image.
MP3 Sound Samples
Lyra Tarhu ( with horse-hair style strings) played by Ross Daly - Indian
ensemble
Lyra Tarhu (with cello strings) played by
Ross Daly - solo
3 Lyra Tarhus ( with horse-hair style strings)
and 1 long-neck Tarhu all played by Ross Daly
Construction
·
The
body is turned on a lathe from a large block of selected timber.
·
The neck is carved from one
piece. A hardwood fingerboard is glued onto the neck, forming a channel
between the neck and fingerboard for the sympathetic strings. These are
tuned by zither pins inserted into the head, with the main strings being
tuned by special pegs that
contain 4:1 machine gears within the peg shaft.
·
String length is 29cm (standard
lyra length)
·
The example shown has a body
turned from red cedar, rosewood neck, ebony fingerboard. Other timbers
that can be used include huon pine, silkwood, walnut and silky oak.
Stringing and Tuning
- The lyra tarhu uses 3 cello strings tuned in fifths. For the most common tuning a,d,g the strings used would be cello1st, 2nd and 3rd., or for a lower tuning d,g,c , cello 2nd, 3rd and 4th
- Sympathetic strings are of plain steel in a range of gauges. These strings sound best if the tension is kept low, which also means that breakages are very uncommon. The sympathetic strings are usually tuned to whichever scale is being played, or alternatively to a selection of chromatic notes when the music played involves a lot of modulation.
Price
$4500
(aud)