Ross Daly is a world musician who specializes in the Cretan lyra. Although of Irish descent, he has been living on the island of Crete for over 35 years.
Ross Daly in Archanes, Crete in 2007
Photo of the musician Ross Daly
The Cretan lyra is a Greek pear-shaped, three-stringed bowed musical instrument, central to the traditional music of Crete and other islands in the Dodecanese and the Aegean Archipelago, in Greece. The Cretan lyra is considered to be the most popular surviving form of the medieval Byzantine lyra, an ancestor of most European bowed instruments.
Various models of the Cretan lyra at the museum of Greek traditional instruments, Athens.
Cretan Lyra - old type (lyraki).
Cretan lyra - common type after 1940.
Bow with spherical bells (gerakokoudouna).