Lyre / koboz

It is an ancient Hungarian minstrel instrument of Central Asian origin. Minstrel song (énekmondás) is an inner process and there are persons in Hungary who still live and practice this form of music making. It is part of our Oriental musical inheritance. According to the widely traveled Kobzos Kiss Tamás, people of the Orient – Central Asians, Turks from Anatolia, peoples in the Caucasus, Japanese, Mongolians – consider Hungarians their relatives and a Folk of the East.

The lyre (koboz) is a short necked, round bellied percussion instrument. It has 4-5 or more strings. Long ago, it was an instrument of soldiers. It is not known if the lyre, used by the Csángós, is the same as used in the 16th to 18th centuries.

Szepcsi Csombor Márton writes, that according to French tradition, after the battle of Catalaunum, one-thousand lyre players accompanied the dead Huns to their graves. This made such an impression on the French, that in this single village they play the koboz since Atilla’s time.