LADAKEH Vibrating Membranes. India. A shell of wood with parchment heads. Instead of sticks it is struck with small balls at the ends of cords fastened to the center of the shell.
LAH CH'IN -- Bowed Strings. China. The body of wood, perhaps two feet long and half a foot wide, has a convex upper surface and twenty silken strings pass over ten movable bridges, which are shaped like inverted prongs.
LA KANG -- Sonorous Substances. Siam. This small gong is triangular with curved edges.
LA-PA, CHA-CHIAO or TUNGKEO Cup Mouthpiece. China. A long trumpet with a sliding tube similar to that of the hao-t'ung. It gives four notes and is properly a military instrument. Nevertheless, it is used in wedding processions, and itinerant knife-grinders consider it their privilege to employ it to make known their whereabouts. Another variety is crooked and is therefore called cha-chiao.
LAUD Spanish name for the lute.
LIRA Single-beating Reed. Africa. A short tube of bamboo used in modern Egypt. The end is split and when a current of air is directed against it, the split section vibrates. Also the Italian name for the lyre.
LITUUS Cup Mouthpiece. Roman. Used by the Roman cavalry. It was in shape similar to the shophar, the cylindrical tube being bent upward like a crook at the lower end where it enlarged into a small bell. One of these was discovered near Rome in 1827 and a reproduction is contained in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its appearance is much like that of the letter J. It is pitched in G, an octave above the buccina of the Roman infantry. The name is said to be derived from the fact that the shape strongly resembles an augur's staff.
Lo, SU-LO, TANG-TZE Sonorous Substances. China. This is a gong cast in the shape of a platter or a Chinese straw hat with a large brim. It is suspended by a string and struck with a mallet. The use of this noisy instrument is very general. Placed at the gates of houses it announces the arrival of visitors, the number of strokes denoting their rank. In armies it gives the signal of retreat. In processions it is struck to frighten and drive away evil spirits. On board ship it announces departures. During eclipses " it frightens away the heavenly dog when about to devour the moon." In song it marks the time. In the streets, a small gong may serve as the sign of a candy merchant, while a large one announces the approach of the district magistrate with his retinue.
LO-CHU Sonorous Substances. China. A rattle having a straight wooden handle with globular heads of paper-machι.
LΦFFELGEIGE Bowed Strings. Europe. In shape strongly resembling a soup ladle, and thus deriving its name. It was first made in Hanover and was formed of a solid piece of wood, the hollow being covered with a deal sounding-board while the sound-holes were round. Strings were attached to loops of D string coming from pegs set underneath the fiddle. The high bridge elevated the strings above the finger-board.
LOKANGO VOATAVO See herrauou.
LO-TSEIH Sonorous Substances. China. A small metal gong suspended in a metal ring and struck with a wooden beater.
LUR Cup Mouthpiece. Scandinavia. A prehistoric variety of the brass instruments. It had a long conical tube and was curved over the player's left shoulder and forward over his head. Its modern form is pastoral in use and it is made of wood.
LUTE Plucked Strings. The home of the lute can be traced to ancient Egypt where it appears in sculptures. Later it is encountered as the favorite instrument in Arabia, where it is known as el oud. Gradually it found its way into Southern Europe where, in Spain, it is known as the laud, and thence its use spread over the entire continent. During the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, it enjoyed a place in the homes of the people and was only supplanted in popularity by the keyboard instruments. The body of the lute was pear-shaped with a long neck and a fretted finger-board. The lute was frequently a thing of beauty when arrayed in the ornamentations its makers delighted in bestowing upon it. The lines of the body were good in the first place, and the small strips of wood which were glued together to make the back afforded an opportunity for fine workmanship. The geometrical roses or sound-holes were often artistic creations. It early attained what was considered perfection, as no material change has been made in it since the Fourteenth Century. The lute has now gone out of use, but during its prominence it was subjected to many alterations and in each new guise received a name such as theorbo, chittarone, etc. One of small size was named mandura in Spain and was changed in several respects, and now we have the mandolin, an instance of its importance in the evolution of musical instruments.
The lute was exceptionally hard to tune, and Mattheson (1720) calculated despondently that " if a lute-player have lived eighty years, he has probably spent about sixty years tuning his instrument." Mary, Queen of Scots, is recorded to have required persons from London to tune her lute. Mace, likewise, is generally quoted as recommending that a lute, when not in performance, should be kept in a constantly used bed, and adds that, generally, in a year or two at most, a new belly will be made necessary by the strain of the strings which tend to warp it.
The lute had originally eight thin gut strings arranged in pairs, each pair being tuned in unison. When an increase of power was desired, the only available method was to increase the size and tension of the string. The lute is believed to have given rise to the harp, as indeed to all those instruments which are struck with the fingers.
It had a tablature especially its own which is now, however, entirely obsolete. It disputes with the organ the honor of first having compositions written for it. Much literature has been published concerning it and song and story are full of allusions to " the whispering lute," " the trembling lute," and most popular is " the warbling lute." Mace was in no wise chary of his praise for it, remarking that "there is no limitation to its vast bounds and bra-very." His hearing was poor and he found that he could not distinctly hear the ordinary lute, but made for himself a double lute with fifty strings, and which proved to be the "the lustiest or loudest lute " he had ever heard.
Very recently there has been a revival of interest in the more important ancient musical instruments, including naturally the lute.
In the Elizabethan days of England the gallants could pay no prettier compliment than to send the faire ladye on the feast of St. Valentine, bunches of lute strings tied with gay ribbons. The strings were put to far less poetical use by the barbers. In place of newspapers for reading, or of gossip, their patrons were furnished with lutes or virginals upon which to while away the time. When, through constant use, the lute strings broke, it was the fashion to hang them outside the door, each bearing a discarded tooth the sign of the dentist whose profession the barber frequently followed.
J. Sebastian Bach left a number of pieces for the lute, and even gave it a part in " St. John's Passion." Fackenhagen and Beyer are also prominent among the later composers for the instrument.
LYRA, LYRE Bowed Strings. Modern Greece. An instrument of the rebec class having a pear-shaped body, and played with a bow. A bridge is not always provided, a peg sometimes acting as a nut to sufficiently elevate the strings from the belly and neck.
LYRA VIOL See viola bastarda.
LYRE Plucked Strings. This instrument is found in both Egyptian and Assyrian bas-reliefs. It was especially popular with the Greeks, this partly owing, no doubt, to its extreme beauty of outline. Their sculptures abound in representations of the instrument, Apollo with his lyre being of frequent recurrence. Any innovation affecting the lyre was long looked upon with severe disfavor, but the prejudice must have gradually disappeared, for in course of time we meet a proverb in which to be unusually clever is to add " a new string to the lyre." To Mercury was attributed the invention of the lyre but he soon gave it to Apollo. Then comes the unfair contest between Apollo with his lyre and Marsyas with his flute and Apollo's contrite breaking of the strings of his lyre.
Its adaptability to reproduction, owing to its simplicity in outline has been realized at all times, and in the Fourth Century, Christ is depicted in the guise of Apollo playing the lyre. It also appears in modern sculptures. The lyre possessed a hollow resonance box from which projected vertically, two arms which were curved at varying degrees and connected at the top with a bar. From this bar the strings were stretched, sometimes to a bridge, sometimes over it. The strings differed in number, the more ancient examples having, as a rule, three, and this number increased gradually to ten. There was no finger-board, but the strings were plucked with a plectrum held in the right hand. The plectra varied in size and substance, the Scythians, for instance, using the jaw bone of a goat. Others were handsomely carved pieces of ivory, fine wood and metal.
The Aryan race is credited with having brought the lyre to its new home in Europe and from it are traced all instruments whose strings are struck with a plectrum or a hammer. The haze enshrouding the nomenclature of instruments partly arises from the error made by classical writers in calling all stringed instruments lyres. An amphora in the British Museum which depicts Apollo with his lyre, affords definite information as to its nature, the manner of playing also being detailed clearly.
The name lyre is used also in reference to a bowed instrument. This has two necks from the higher one of which were drawn several strings clear of the finger-board and acting as drones. It was made in three sizes, lira da braccio, lira da gamba, and archivole di lira. Haydn wrote several pieces for the bowed lira.
