INVENTION III

I have long found inspiration in mythology and storytelling. This 7-string, fretless bowed instrument was inspired by the lyre of Hermes and the Renaissance-era lyra da braccio.​

It has a unique and rare functional role in that it is designed to bow 3- or 4-note chords with bass note accompaniment. In this regard, it resembles the still-extant Eastern European bratsche (Romani gypsy version), used in contemporary Romanian music. The bowable chord feature was, for me, inspired by a fascination with stories of the Renaissance magician, alchemist, and poet Marsilio Ficino who, legend tell us, built for himself a lyra da braccio to bow chords to which he would accompany his poetry recitals. I believe its original role was to accompany the newly-discovered and translated Orphic hymns. The instrument's other inspiration comes from the legend of Hermes, who created the first stringed instrument, the lyre, from a turtle shell and seven gut strings (his would have functioned more as a harp). 

My bowable tortoise shell "lyra" shares more traits with banjo and cello, using a synthetic hide resonator, which gives a rich, balanced tone. It is amplified by a single carefully-placed piezo pickup and has a tiny set of sympathetically resonant strings. I keep it in an open tuning of A'DAdfa. The fingerboard is tightly radiused under the lowest three strings to allow them to be bowed individually and then is flat under the highest four allowing them to be bowed as a chord. This also allows the highest string to be bowed individually if desired.

The scale length is 27". It is one of the last instruments I built without a truss rod, the neck instead has an ipe core with purpleheart and walnut layers around it and further decorations in padouk. The body is mahogany, purpleheart, and padouk, and the fingerboard is a beautiful piece of Madagascar rosewood. The back is a tortoise shell gifted to me by one of my neighbors, which was originally taken from a garbage can outside of a taxidermist studio on Staten Island. 

Photos by Adrian Buckmaster