The first time I heard the Karpathian lyra I didn't know what instrument it was. It sounded like something between a violin and a hurdy-gurdy — a circular melody, repeated with minimal variations, hypnotic.
Then I saw the musician: he held the instrument upright on his right leg, played it with a short bow, with another musician beside him accompanying on the laouto — a kind of twelve-stringed lute.
The Karpathian lyra — its official name — is a three-stringed instrument played held upright, different from the viola da gamba and different from the violin. The playing technique is peculiar: the fingers don't press the strings against the neck but brush them from the side with the fingernail, producing a sound that Europeans don't immediately recognise as familiar.
Karpathian music isn't learned by listening to it once. It's learned by being there.
UNESCO has recognised the traditional music of Olympos as intangible cultural heritage. There are few lyra players — oral transmission from teacher to student is always at risk of breaking off — but in Olympos there are still young people learning. At the panegyri of 15 August you can hear them play for hours. It's one of the most powerful things you can listen to in Greece.