Balkan lyra (gusle)

The gusle (Serbian Cyrillic: гусле), or lahuta in Albanian (lahutë), is a bowed, single-stringed instrument, and also a musical style, traditionally played in the Dinaric region of the Balkans. It always accompanies singing, above all epic poetry. The player holds it upright between the knees, with the fingers of the left hand on the string. The string is never pressed against the neck, which gives the instrument its distinctive sound.

In 2018, singing to the gusle, as part of Serbia's intangible cultural heritage, was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

There is no agreement on where the instrument comes from. The 7th-century Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta (fl. c. 630) wrote about "small lyres" brought by the South Slavs who settled in the Balkans, and some researchers think these may have been the gusle. Others, such as Curt Sachs, believe the gusle is of Eastern origin and reached Europe in the 10th century with the spread of Islamic culture. Arab travellers report that the Slavs played the gusle in the 10th century. Teodosije the Hilandarian (1246–1328) wrote that Stefan Nemanjić (r. 1196–1228) often entertained the Serbian nobility with musicians playing drums and "gusle". Reliable written records appear only in the 15th century, and 16th-century travel accounts mention the instrument in Bosnia and Serbia. In the 19th and 20th centuries it is recorded in Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Albania, where it is called lahuta.

The gusle has a wooden sound box, ideally of maple (hence the name "gusle javorove", maple gusle), covered with animal skin, and a neck ending in an elaborately carved head. A bow is drawn across the string, which is made of about thirty horse hairs, producing a dramatic, sharp and expressive sound that is difficult to master.

The most common, traditional form has a single string. A much rarer two-stringed version is found in Bosanska Krajina and Lika.

Gusle music varies from one community to another: each people sings its own epic poems, so the stories differ, and there are small differences in the singing style across South-Eastern Europe. The instrument itself is the same everywhere; only the carving of the neck and head changes, with ethnic or national motifs.