The lyre is a stringed musical instrument well known for its use in Classical Antiquity and later. The recitations of the Ancient Greeks were accompanied by lyre playing. The lyre of Classical Antiquity was ordinarily played by being strummed with a plectrum, like a guitar or a zither, rather than being plucked, like a harp. The fingers of the free hand silenced the unwanted strings in the chord. Classification Lyres from various times and places are regarded by some organologists (specialists in the history of musical instruments) as a branch of the zither family, a general category which includes many different stringed instruments, such as lutes, guitars, kantele, and psalterys, not just zithers. Others view the lyre and zither as being two separate classes. Those specialists maintain that the zither is distinguished by strings spread across all or most of its soundboard, or the top surface of its sound ches

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