kritikokasiotis - 11-14-2005 at 11:59 AM
Hello everyone ,
I am selling one of my lyras .
This lyra is made from maple wood and the sound board is from 300 year old cedar of lebanon .On the back I have carved out the island of Kasos which
is where my wife is from ,its located near crete ..
Its all hand made by me no cheapo or tourist wall ornament.
This instrument is a very good instrument ,it crys .
Its only 1 month old its still not broken in .
I will attach some pictures .Im looking to get 500 $ for it plus shipping which is a bargain and a half ,It took me one month to build.
If anyone is interested please u2 me for any questions or more pictures or a sound sample.
Thank you
kritikokasiotis - 11-14-2005 at 12:00 PM
Here is another one sorry about the size .
Zito i Kasos
spyrosc - 11-14-2005 at 12:06 PM
Hey brother,
My whole family is from Kasos. We are here in California. Have you been back there lately ?
Send me a private U2U or e-mail so we can get to know each other.
Beautiful instrument. Do you make other types of instruments, like ouds ?
Spyros C.
coyootie - 11-22-2005 at 08:50 PM
greetings in Canada! I'm a lute builder and I'm crazy about Lyra-do you have any details/plans for building Lyra or know how I can find this?
what a beautiful Lyra you made here too! best regards, Alan in Santa Fe,New Mexico
Multi Kulti - 11-23-2005 at 01:51 PM
There is a well-known Cretan Lura and Cretan Laouto maker(Nikos Rompoyiannakis),who has a building section in his website.Unfortunately in Greek,but
you can see fotos and eventually with the help of online translators you can understand something more.
And as i know you can contact with him with an email.He is always friendly and maybe he can explain you some things about lyra construction..
His website
http://www.nrompogianakis.com/el/kataskeyh_lura_katask.php
kritikokasiotis - 11-23-2005 at 02:21 PM
Yes Nick is a very nice person dealt with him before .
Alan here is a link to plans of the lyra, measurements etc.It gives you a little bit of an idea .He is the only person that has ever posted on a site
,on how to construct a lyra .My hats off to him very nice person.
http://www.nrompogianakis.com/img/kataskeyh_lyras/foto_5.jpg
kritikokasiotis - 11-23-2005 at 02:31 PM
Alan I am selling a piece of maple wood on ebay that I have for about 2 years +
I have 2 lyras drawn on this wood .Im selling it because maple for me is pretty hard to work with any ways if you are interested here is the link .Its
the same peice of wood that the above lyra is made from.
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8235017090&am...
coyootie - 11-25-2005 at 05:11 PM
many thanks to helpful lyra enthusiasts! I will probably have other questions but this is a very nice start! regards, alan
kasos - 11-25-2005 at 08:41 PM
Hi, Kritikokasiotis
Very nice looking instrument, and what an apt inscription on the back! I would love to hear a sound clip, if you've got one available.
Unfortunately, I'm rather torn by all of this. Naturally, a big part of me would be tickled to own this instrument (or another similar to it),
particularly with the back caption. On the other hand, I already own a quite functional lyra (though I rather suspect that this one probably sounds
better). More importantly, I'm also knee deep into a rather ambitious buying program for instruments from further east, right now, in connection
with a new theatre project. So the timing's rather awkward.
Maybe at some more opportune time in the future I could commission a similar instrument from you....
Just in case, I've forwarded a link to this thread by E-mail to Elias K.... In any event, good luck selling the instrument, if you haven't yet found
a buyer.
All the best, Mark
kritikokasiotis - 11-26-2005 at 05:09 AM
Hi Mark,
Sure, It would be my pleasure to send you a sound sample.
U2 me your email address.
Regards
Mike
other eastern bowed strings
coyootie - 11-26-2005 at 09:59 AM
hi Mark- I have a really fine Uyghur ghichak on my website
http://www.coyotespaw.com
go to "musical instruments"
regards, Alan
kasos - 12-1-2005 at 03:31 PM
Dear Kritikokasiotis: Thanks for your reply. Please look for my u2u.
Alan: thanks for the reference to your website. Very neat stuff there. Do you play all or most of those instruments yourself, in addition to
stocking them for sale?
If you do play them, have you had a chance to compare the sound and playability of the ghijek with other similar instruments, such as the Persian,
Armenian or Turkish Kamencheh/kemanche? One of the broad questions I'm wrestling with, in terms of deciding on what to obtain in connection with
the Polo theatre project I'm starting to work on, is whether it's practical or necessary to get the local version of a basic instrument type in all
cases. Although the Kashgari version of the ghijek/kamencheh now looks very different from the Persian one, in large measure due to the very
ornamented style favored by Kashgari builders since the mid 20th century, I'm not sure that such differences were apparent prior to the 1950's.
Nor do I yet have a firm sense yet of how meaningful an impact small differences in construction might have, for my purposes. It stands to reason
that major factors such as the use of wood or hide for the soundboard would best be respected, but I get the distinct impression that the size of the
resonator, the number of strings, and whether a gourd or wood was used, are things that are subject to much variation depending on local conditions,
even within a region, and that there is no really consistent pattern that could be held out, particularly the farther back one goes in time. I
guess my hope is to try to present representative samples of different types of basic construction, and get the best sound quality possible in each
case.
It's perhaps from the point of view of sound quality that your feedback might be most useful - though the Kashgari instruments look very colourful,
how do they sound, when stacked up against plainer instruments (eg., Persian Kamenche) using much the same general construction techniques?
Any thoughts or insight you might have on this topic would be appreciated. I don't want to unduly hijack this thread, though - if you prefer, you
could answer via U to U, or perhaps post on the pipa/oud thread that's already included many such matters within its quite wide scope. Thanks, Mark
kritikokasiotis - 12-2-2005 at 06:04 PM
Thank you to everyone that was interested .
SOLD 
coyootie - 12-7-2005 at 12:55 PM
hello Kasos.i have a long time experience(35+years) with ethnic instruments, but have never actually played a Turkish or Persian spike fiddle. These
Uyghur ghijeks were retooled within the last 50 yrs, originally they had skin membranes but now ahve a very unique soundboard/post arrangement that is
unique to the instrument. They have defined,shaped fingerboards and are tuned as a violin.
It really honks even with my untrained chops!
I find it easy to approach for playability and any viol family player could get into it very readily. hope this helps! regards from santa fe.