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kithara
Sign in to saveAlso known as cithara, Cithara
thumb|322x322px|Young kitharode|kithara player, in costume, by the Goluchow painter; Athens, The kithara (), Latinized as cithara, was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. It was a seven-stringed professional version of the lyre, which was regarded as a rustic, or folk instrument, appropriate for teaching music to beginners. As opposed to the simpler lyre, the cithara was primarily used by professional musicians, called kitharodes. In modern Greek, the word kithara has come to mean "guitar"; etymologically, the word guitar derives from kithara.
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- Britannica Cithara Phorminx.jpg
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- Hornbostel-Sachs classification
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Article
13 sectionsContents
- Origin and uses
- Construction
- Apollo as a kitharode
- Famous cithara players
- Other instruments called "cithara"
- Biblical references
- Gallery
- See also
- Footnotes
- References
- Sources
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|322x322px|Young kitharode|kithara player, in costume, by the Goluchow painter; Athens, The kithara (), Latinized as cithara, was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. It was a seven-stringed professional version of the lyre, which was regarded as a rustic, or folk instrument, appropriate for teaching music to beginners. As opposed to the simpler lyre, the cithara was primarily used by professional musicians, called kitharodes. In modern Greek, the word kithara has come to mean "guitar"; etymologically, the word guitar derives from kithara.
==Origin and uses== thumb|217x217px|Ancient Roman fresco depicting women in a peristyle, listening to another woman play a kithara and sambuca. The cithara originated from Minoan-Mycenaean swan-neck lyres developed and used during the Aegean Bronze Age. Scholars such as M.L. West, Martha Maas, and Jane M. Snyder have made connections between the cithara and stringed instruments from ancient Anatolia.