The Adungu (Archaic African Arched Harp)

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1 ANCIENT VIBRATIONS This album features a selection of original compositions for archaic replica lyres & harps, in some of the most hypnotic, mesmerising ancient Middle Eastern musical modes I have so far experimented with. The diverse album features original compositions for Archaic African Arched Harp, Davidic Harp & Biblical Lyre, as well as a unique harp & lyre duet in track 2, Realm of the Ancestors, with the talented Folk Harpist, Rebecca Penkett - Rebecca s exploration of the healing aspects of the harp can be found on her own highly informative website:

2 The Adungu (Archaic African Arched Harp) The Adungu, an archaic 9-string arched harp from Uganda, with a primitive skin soundboard, is virtually identical to the ancient Egyptian Arched Harp, as can be seen below in this photograph of an Ancient Egyptian Harp preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This harp dates from late 13 th early 18 th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, ca B.C.E.

3 My Archaic African Arched Harp features in track 3, Ancient Sunrise. The Adungu is a 9-string arched harp of the Alur people of North Western Uganda. The Adungu is but one of many arched harps found in sub-saharan Africa a precious remnant of the harps of deepest antiquity, virtually unchanged in over 5000 years, still being played in Africa today...

4 The Marini Made Davidic Harp (Treble Biblical Lyre) This beautifully hand-crafted Davidic Harp by Marini Made Harps, is in fact a lyre (the strings pass over a bridge). This lyre is a treble register evocation of the 10-string Biblical Kinnor (in ancient Hebrew: כנו ) the lyre once played by my very own, very ancient Levite ancestors in the Temple of Jerusalem, to accompany the singing of the Levitical Choir... I use the harp-like tone of this lyre, for track 1 of the album, Sacred Reverie which also features the hypnotic sounds of naturally flowing water. My Marini-Made Davidic Harp also features in track 2, Realm of the Ancestors a spontaneous improvisation in the haunting ancient Greek Dorian Mode (the equivalent intervals as E-E on the white notes of the piano). The harp in this spontaneous improvisation is performed by Rebecca Penkett.

5 The ancient Greek Dorian Mode was misnamed the Phrygian mode in the Middle Ages due to a massive musicological mistake made during the Middle Ages, all the ancient Greek musical modes were given the wrong musical names! The ancient Greek Phrygian Mode was, in fact, the equivalent intervals as D-D. The beautiful harp-like tone of my Marini Made Davidic Harp also features in track 4, Ancient Visions - a piece which I originally recorded on the my Mid East Kinnor (Tenor Biblical Lyre), on my album Ancient Visions New Compositions For An Ancient Lyre The Mid East Kinnor (Tenor Biblical Lyre) The Mid East Kinnor is a tenor register evocation of the 10-string Biblical Kinnor, based on illustrations of lyres depicted on ancient Jewish coins from

6 the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt against the Roman occupation of Judea ( CE): I use the Mid East tenor evocation of the Biblical Kinnor for tracks 5-10 of this album, for a deeper, darker tone... ANCIENT LYRE PLAYING TECHNIQUES USED IN THIS ALBUM I experiment with a unique style of percussive lyre-playing techniques in two of the tracks, "Sacred Reverie" & "Ancient Visions". This technique entails hitting the strings with a wooden baton, as opposed to plucking the strings with either a plectrum or the fingers of the left hand. This ancient percussive lyre-playing technique can clearly be seen in the famous Bas Reliefs of lyre players & musicians in the ruins of the Palace at Nineveh in ancient Assyria c.700bce:

7 About 1000 years later, this unique percussive style of lyre playing also appears to have radiated from ancient Mesopotamia to parts of the Mediterranean - in the famous Paphos Mosaics in Cyprus (3 rd 4 th centuries C.E.), the many illustrations of lyre players clearly show a small wooden baton, not a plectrum, in the left hand of the lyre players:

8 All the other various lyre-playing techniques heard in this album, are authentically based on lyre-playing styles which have remarkably survived from Antiquity & which still can be heard today in the amazing lyres still played throughout the continent of Africa, where unlike the rest of the Western world, a precious remnant of the cross-cultural influences from the around ancient world have miraculously survived. Some of these lyre-playing techniques include the block & strum method this technique allows the player to strum rhythm & basic chords on the lyre, similar to an acoustic guitar. This technique entails blocking strings with the left hand which are not required and leaving open only the strings which form the required intervals, which then can be strummed with a plectrum in the left hand a technique still practiced today by the Krar Lyre players of Eritrea in East Africa:

9 Ancient illustrations of Kithara players seem to infer that this technique was also prominent in Ancient Greece many illustrations clearly depict the left of the lyre player blocking/dampening the strings with the left hand whilst strumming the open strings with a plectrum in their right hand:

10 Other lyre playing techniques I use include the use of tremolo (based on the style of Egyptian Simsimiyya Lyre Players still heard today: I also experiment in alternating between harp-like finger plucked tones played with the left hand, and guitar-like plectrum-plucked tones with the right hand, using basic finger-plucked intervals/chords with the left hand to form a basic harmonic background for the melodic line being played with the plectrum in the right hand. THE TRACKS 1. Sacred Reverie (Original Composition For Davidic Harp) 2. Realm of the Ancestors (Harp: Rebecca Penkett Lyre: Michael Levy) 3. Ancient Sunrise (Original Composition For Archaic African Arched Harp) 4. Ancient Visions (Original Composition For Davidic Harp) 5. Rites of the Shaman (Original Composition For Lyre) 6. Inner Light (Original Composition For Lyre) 7. Lost in Rapture (Original Composition For Lyre)

11 8. Voyage of the Soul (Original Composition For Lyre) 9. Other Worlds (Original Composition For Lyre) 10. Ancient Vibrations (Original Composition For Lyre)