Scan 38
The heart of music; the story of the violin, 1906
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1The Lyre of the World
3curved in shape, for the Egyptians loved flowing lines, and perhaps had further mastered the knowledge that angles do not give the fullest vibration of tone. One of the little lyres was triangular, however, and was called the trigonon. The god Pthah is represented as playing upon this sort of an instrument. Most of these lyres seem to have belonged to an earlier era and more primitive musical knowledge. Rousseau insisted that the Egyptians had a bow instrument, but as there is no record of any kind to substantiate his theory, it is fairly safe to leave it uncredited. Of course the instrument which Rousseau thought was played with a bow must have been the form of tamboura known as the nefru, which does faintly resemble the general line and character of our violin. But according to the records it was played by a plectrum.
5Nearly all Eastern instruments of the lyre character were made out of sycamore, in cylindrical form, or, in some Oriental countries, of hollowed-out gourds or cocoanuts, highly polished and with the top covered with dried skin or very thin and fine-grained satinwood. The neck was always very long and slender and the number of strings three, two, or even one. Some of the Egyptian tambouras, or lutes, had great numbers
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