Digital Culture & AudioVisual Challenges

Nowadays, there is a growing encouragement for people to promote and show respect for musical heritage. As a result, there is an increasing market demand for top-quality musical instruments from the past. This includes many professionals as well as amateur musicians, both willing to invest for an instrument not only ancient-inspired but also as closer as possible to the prototype one. On the other hand, worldwide some research centers strive to improve modern musical instruments. In this direction, a great source which could provide great inspiration, as well as some small hints how small features could improve quality, is always the past, and how ancient world started creating the first instruments. The present study introduces the redesign concept using parametric Computer Aided Design (CAD) of a an Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo lyre which is named after the Sutton Hoo excavation, which is currently dated to the early seventh century A.D. Guidelines for the design process were received from early chronological publications and findings from the excavation, and the target was to apply the minimum assumptions in order to produce a lyre closer to reality. The total assembly of the redesigned Sutton Hoo lyre consists of various individual components. The basic components are the soundboard, the yoke, and the body. Two different configurations of the soundboard have been designed to examine the soundboard analysis, as an important part of the structure and the sound quality of the instrument. Modal analysis was also accomplished which is a specific type of vibration analysis that focuses on identifying the natural frequencies and modes of vibration of a system, in the current work to determine the resonant frequencies of the instrument and the vibrational patterns of its various components. This information was used to optimize the design and construction of the lyre, as well as to improve its sound quality and performance. Modal analysis helps to preserve and document the musical heritage associated with the lyre by providing detailed information about its construction and acoustics. The models developed in the current work can be an invaluable tool to the instrument makers, since they can preferentially vary the geometric characteristics and the material properties in order to estimate / improve the acoustical characteristics of the instrument before construction.